We are in an era where face-to-face interaction is at all-time lows, right? Customer surveys provide an ideal opportunity for businesses to connect with their customers, gauge satisfaction and obtain valuable insights. This provides marketers and business owners with information that they can use to enhance their product or service as well as overall customer experience.
Even though businesses understand the importance of conducting customer surveys, obtaining feedback from consumers can be a significant hurdle. This is where SMS comes in.
SMS surveying is a powerful and innovative data collection tool that should be in every monitoring and evaluation specialist’s toolbox. Its high efficiency and low cost open new doors for monitoring and facilitate evidence-based decision-making.
Multiple reasons just reconfirm why text messaging should be used.
- Cost-effective – At just a few cents per message, and with minimal time and resources required to create and send an SMS campaign, bulk SMS is a highly cost-effective way of contacting a mass database of you clients. With higher response rates and more accurate information, the ROI from an SMS survey is likely to be way higher than its counterparts.
- High response rate – With the average mobile phone user picking up their phone more than 1500 times a week, and with 98% of text messages opened, sending SMS online using SMS software is an effective way to increase the survey responses.
What is interesting, market research specialists, Ipsos MORI finds that 95.3% of consumers said they would respond to SMS surveys, which is much higher than any other platform.
- Quicker response rate and accuracy – 95% of SMS messages are opened within minutes of being received and the average response time for SMS is just 90 seconds. Email, on the other hand, receive an average response time of 90 minutes – in case there is ever a response! This turn around allows businesses to access feedback faster and deliver better results to their consumers by making necessary changes required by clients or customers. SMS surveys can result in more meaningful and accurate responses as customers are inclined to answer questions more honestly than they would when face-to-face or over the phone.
- Easy set-up – SMS does not require heavy creative or content and SMS software makes sending surveys a quick and simple process. In contrast, door-knocking and cold calling can be a long and drawn-out process
Just a few statistics about the influence of SMS
86% of US consumers opt-in to receive SMS notifications
Texting is the #1 most-used channel for communication for Americans younger than 50.
Over 68% of consumers said they text more than they talk on the phone
77% of consumers said they have opted into a brand’s text messages to receive coupons or deals.
78% of US consumers say receiving a text message is the fastest way to reach them for updates and purchases.
There’s no doubt that SMS remains a unique and important promotion strategy. Now, how do you ensure that your survey recipients actually answer the questions?
Remember that users get dozens of messages every day. Your promotion is competing with personal messages and other marketers. Even if they opted-in themselves, they may forget who the message is from.
Because of this, you should find ways to catch their attention while also reminding them of your brand. By including your brand name from the start, users will tend to trust you more moving forward.
- Keep it super simple.
Too often, marketers try to insert witty puns or wordy copy. Remember, you only have 160 characters to work with. Write too much, and your text will send as separate messages. Worse still, you’ll lose the attention and interest of your reader.
That’s why it’s important to use short words and phrases. You can also try using link sharpeners. Also, SMS survey should take less than 5 or 10 minutes to complete!
- Personalize!
It is important that your reader feels that they are a valuable customer, so call them by their first name.
Forget about mass text messages without context. Send messages based on the user’s history with your brand or send different types of communication the reader may want to receive. The more you make it about them, the more they’ll reward you with their loyalty.
- Send follow-up messages
Customers tend to forget even the most critical messages. Be forgiving. After some time, send a follow-up message. For example, you can send follow-ups after a few days, one week, and then one month.
Be careful—too many follow-up messages can have the reverse effect. Acknowledge their decision not to reply, give them one final chance, and then leave them alone. It’s not worth continually pursuing one customer.
Don’t skip out on the marketing opportunity of a lifetime. SMS remains one of the most vital channels of advertising and customer research.
