If you want to carry out a survey or get feedback from your customers, then SMS is the best route to go down. SMS has a considerably high open rate than email, which means that there is a greater chance of getting a response. There are a few things that you can do to help maximize customer engagement with SMS surveys and feedback requests. Let’s share a few tips with you.
Let People Know Your Business Is
When you send out any SMS, you need to let people know who you are. People can’t guess the name of your business from your phone number, after all. If you don’t identify yourself, then people won’t respond. Make sure your phone number accepts incoming messages and forwards them to your inbox automatically.
Don't Send Feedback Requests Right Away
A lot of businesses send out SMS feedback requests within an hour or so of purchase. Don’t do that. You won’t get accurate feedback like this. In fact, most people won’t even respond.
If you want feedback on a product or service that you have provided, then give it a couple of days to a week. Anything shorter than that is annoying for the customer, and anything longer barely gets a response.
Personalize Messages
Messages that have been personalized seem to have the greatest response rate. Even mentioning something as simple as the customer’s name will make them feel cared for and more likely to answer and give accurate responses.
Keep The Surveys to a Minimum
Do not constantly send out surveys or feedback requests. It is annoying. The more you send, the less chance you will have of receiving a reply. If you want a high customer engagement rate, then send a survey out a maximum of one time per month.
If you are sending out feedback requests for a purchase, then limit these to once a month too. You don’t have to send out a feedback request every time somebody buys something. It is irritating.
Keep Texts Short and Sweet
Text messages can be a maximum of 160 characters. Do not go over this. You can use a URL shortener if you are including a link to your survey.
Your message needs to say the following:
The name of your business
The purpose of the survey
Any benefits the customer has filling in the survey.
The more you write, the less chance you have of somebody even bothering to read the message, let alone answer it. Long messages from unknown numbers may even go directly to the phone’s spam folder, especially if they include a link. This is less likely to happen with shorter messages.
Keep the Surveys Short
Nobody is ever going to be in the mood to answer extensive surveys. At the most, your survey should have 5 questions. 10, if they are short multiple-choice questions. The longer the survey, the less likely somebody will bother to answer it. In fact, we have avoided plenty of surveys just because they would take too long to complete.
Send The SMS at the Right Time
This part is tricky because the right time to send an SMS can vary depending on your target market.
If your target market is businesses, then you want surveys to be sent out during business hours. People rarely check business texts after working hours. If you send an SMS later on in the day, then it may be forgotten before somebody even has a chance to respond. Between 12 pm and 1 pm seems to be the ideal time to send an SMS survey to businesses. People are on their lunch break then and are much more likely to check their phones.
For others, after 8 pm seems to have the highest conversion rate, especially if the message is sent on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. This makes sense, since people will be at home, and probably have eaten dinner by then. Some may even be fiddling about with their phones.
You may have to experiment to see what works best for your business.
Give a Reward For Feedback Requests
People are much more likely to respond to a feedback or survey request if there is some incentive for doing so e.g. they get a discount voucher.
That being said, you may have to weigh up whether this is right for your business. There is always the risk that if you offer an incentive for people to answer messages, you are much more likely to get positive feedback.
Sometimes, just telling people that their responses can help future customers is incentive enough.
Final Thoughts
If you want feedback for your business or products, then SMS surveys and feedback requests are the best routes to go down. Just don’t send the messages out frequently, and keep both messages and surveys short. If you can do that, your response rate will be high and you can get vital feedback to help improve your business.
