In order to succeed as a business it is crucial to understand what your customers want and know if you’re providing it for them. In order for companies to thrive they must constantly collect information about their audience to get a true grasp of what customers desire, and what they feel they’re missing. Businesses must then use this data and adapt to meet the needs of their customers in order to flourish.

Why is SMS an effective method?

Though there are a number of channels through which to conduct surveys, many of them have become outdated or just seem a hassle for customers to undertake. Surveys carried out by post are more often than not completely ignored as it takes a lot of the customer’s time to complete and then post back. Though other methods such as email and phone seem more effective, they too have their flaws. For instance, many email survey requests automatically end up in junk folders and are never even read by the recipient. Similarly, surveys carried out via a phone call can seem intrusive to customers as they may not want to nor have the time to answer questions on the phone to stranger. Due to this, SMS has recently emerged as the new method of choice to effectively carry out customer surveys.

SMS surveying is ideal for several reasons. First and foremost, unlike emails, the open rate for text messages is extremely high therefore almost guarantees that recipients will at least see a business’ request to participate in their survey. Furthermore, texting is easy and a casual form of communication making it more appealing and welcoming for customers to take part in.

How to carry out an SMS survey

In order to effectively carry out a survey it is key to plan and carefully evaluate what it is that is being investigated. An investment is also required in the case of SMS surveys and therefore it is important to ensure that the information gained in return is valuable and helpful to your business. Not every survey yields useful information, however this can be prevented as the quality of feedback depends on the quality of the survey itself and the manner in which it’s designed. As businesses invest their time and money into conducting an SMS survey it is crucial they ensure they’re doing it appropriately.

An effective survey will ask questions that evoke answers which aren’t just limited to a simple “yes” or “no” as these answers don’t relay much information to the business on the customer’s specific opinions. Therefore, businesses should aim to phrase questions which will yield responses unique to different customers.

A survey’s length is the key to its success. The longer a survey is, the longer a customer will have to spend on it and the less likely they are to participate. It is far more effective to have a survey three questions long which the majority of customers will be willing to participate in than a ten question survey which a very limited about of customers will carry out. For this reason it is important to inform customers of how many questions the survey involves or an estimated amount of time they may have to spend on it in order to let them know what to expect.