How to Collect Customer Feedback via SMS Surveys

Your customers are the ultimate experts when it comes to improving your business practices, selling more, and padding your profits. About 85% of small and medium-sized companies say that incorporating customer feedback has enhanced their operations—so if you're not already listening to your base’s ideas, you’re missing a key opportunity to grow.

However, before you can incorporate your clients’ suggestions into your day-to-day operations, you need to know how to collect customer feedback. From mail-in surveys to emails and more, there are plenty of ways to ask your clients for their opinions. And none are more effective than SMS.

Let’s explore some key practices to collect customer feedback via SMS, including legal compliance, messaging strategies, and data and privacy protection.

What Is SMS Feedback Collection?

SMS feedback collection is, as it sounds, using text messages to ask your customers’ opinions about your business and understand their feelings about your offerings and service. It can be as simple as a message with one multiple-choice question or as complex as an extended survey. As long as you’re asking for legitimate input about your business, it’s feedback collection.

Using SMS to conduct questionnaires and collect feedback is more effective than other communication mediums:

• People, on average, only take 90 seconds to respond to text messages
• 98% of all SMS messages are opened and read
• Nearly everyone has a cellphone and can receive texts, making SMS the most convenient means of customer interaction currently available 
  
  

Setting Up an SMS Survey System

Individually messaging every customer to collect their opinions is tedious, time-consuming, and completely unnecessary. Instead, use these tips to facilitate a quicker SMS feedback system with less manual input:

Choose the Right SMS Platform

Using an actual phone as your texting operation device is not recommended. Instead, use an SMS tool that can handle a lot of the actual work of feedback collection campaigns. To find the best platform for the job, ensure it can:

• Group contacts together to send out mass messages
• Sort replies to make quicker sense of similar opinions
• Automatically reply to customers who take the time to read your messages and provide feedback
  
  

Integrate SMS With Your CRM

In order to actually get messages out, you’ll need phone numbers, customer names, and other client details. That’s where your CRM comes into play.

When your CRM is up-to-date with relevant client info, you can quickly and easily obtain the data you need to power your SMS feedback campaign. Integrate your CRM with your texting platform, and soon enough, every client in your base will have the opportunity to share their feelings about your business.

Read Up on SMS Compliance

Just because you have your client’s number, it doesn't mean you have free reign to message them whatever you want, whenever you want. You must:

• Obtain consent to contact them
• Give them the option to opt-out with every message
• Not purchase their contact details through third-party data brokers

There are other standards governing SMS compliance laid out in the Telephone Consumer Protections Act (TCPA). Be sure to follow all its guidelines before hitting send to avoid legal repercussions and costly fines.

How to Craft the Perfect SMS Survey

If you want the maximum number of customers to read and respond to your feedback request, you’ll have to carefully time, word, and personalize your message. To collect as many opinions as possible:

Time Your Request Appropriately

The TCPA limits the times you can contact your client base—even after you’ve received consent to message them. No texts can go out between 9 pm and 8 am in the recipient’s time zone, so be careful to stick within these hours to maintain legal compliance. 

You’ll also want to carefully pick what days you send out messages if you want to maximize responses. Studies show Wednesdays garner the most engagement—so keep it mid-week to reach more of your clientele. 

Keep Your Message Clear and Concise

Standard texts contain 160 characters at max. This should be more than enough to get your message across. But, if you have a bit more to say, be sure to keep it below 300 characters—long-winded, multiple-paragraph messages are more likely to be ignored than something short and sweet.

Personalize Your Messages for Better Engagement

Everyone likes being treated with respect, and that extends to business-customer relationships. 81% of consumers prefer companies that personalize their messaging, and with an up-to-date, accurate CRM, it’s easy to pull off.

To customize messages, you can start by simply including the name of the recipient you’re contacting. For an even more personal touch, however, you can ask them about previous visits, items they’ve purchased, or how staff treated them at specific physical locations.

Include a Strong Call-to-Action (CTA)

Make sure to end your messages with direct instructions to the recipient. Some requests to feature in your CTA may include:

• A link to fill out a survey
• A request to respond with information about a previous experience
• Contact information and an invitation to call in with suggestions or opinions
  
  

Designing an Effective SMS Feedback Collection Strategy

Don’t go into feedback collection without a plan! To entice more of your customers to share their feelings:

Decide What Feedback to Collect

There are nearly unlimited questions you can ask about your business. If you want clear, actionable insight into your operations, however, consider inquiring about:

• Customer satisfaction – Have customers rank their satisfaction on a scale of one to five. Then, take the number of clients who picked four or five and divide it by the total number of respondents. Finally, multiply this result by 100 to find your percentage of satisfied customers AKA your customer satisfaction score (CSAT).

• Net Promoter Score (NPS) – NPS measures how much promotional work your customers are willing to do for you. To add it up, ask them, on a scale of zero to ten, how likely they are to recommend your business to others. Subtract the percent that voted zero to six from the percent that said nine or ten. The result is your NPS expressed as a percentage.

• Open-ended questions – Facts and figures don’t tell you everything. Ask open-ended response questions such as “How would you improve your last visit?” or “What is your favorite aspect of our company?” for more complex, valuable, and personal answers. 

Segment Your Audience for Targeted Feedback

Different kinds of people have different opinions about your business. Group similar customers from your marketing list together into segments and create custom questions for each to get more catered feedback about your company.

Use Incentives to Increase Response Rates

Sometimes, consumers simply don’t want to take the time to complete your survey. If you give them a gift afterward, it just might convince them to fill it out. Some reasonable incentives to offer your base include:

• Prepaid credit cards
• Credit at your business
• Free items
• Deals on future purchases

Best Practices for SMS Feedback Collection

Collecting customers’ suggestions and implementing them in your business can improve your operations, but if you want to gather feedback effectively, be sure to keep these best practices in mind:

Ensure Customer Privacy and Data Security

If you’re collecting sensitive customer data such as phone numbers, names, and addresses, make sure to keep it private, confidential, and secure from data breaches. Two-thirds of consumers lose trust in a company if they let their data fall into the wrong hands—so maintain client confidence by safeguarding their information at all costs. 

Optimize the Frequency of Feedback Requests

Sending constant messages is a quick way to get blocked, ignored, and unsubscribed from. Only request feedback when you actually need it and are willing to implement your customers’ suggestions. Likewise, make sure you always follow proper texting etiquette to avoid annoying your base in other ways.

Maintain an Open Line for Future Feedback

Some customers don’t want to respond to your survey, don’t like typing, or only want to give feedback on their own schedule. Thus, ensure you always have an open telephone line where clients can call you with suggestions, leave messages about their experiences, and provide feedback they’re not comfortable sending over SMS. 

Leverage Mozeo to Power Your SMS Surveys

The vast majority of companies agree that incorporating customers’ suggestions improves their operations and business. When it comes to how to collect customer feedback, SMS is your best tool as it's universally available, easy to use, and customizable for different groups of customers.

To facilitate your SMS feedback collection, use Mozeo to generate a new number and manage your texting needs. Mozeo lets you quickly segment your client base, craft custom, personalized messages for each contact, and automatically respond to their messages. Plus, with dedicated support and a 97% CSAT, you’ll have all the help you need to elevate your SMS marketing to new heights.

Get started with Mozeo today and start collecting the feedback you need to enhance customer satisfaction and profitability.