ChatGPT & AI: We’re incorporating AI into engageSPARK.

Let's Talk

SMS Poll

Data collection is an important step in every strategic plan to achieve the organization’s goals and objectives. Take the guesswork out by gathering direct feedbacks and real insights with SMS Poll, a simple and cost-effective solution.

Formulating effective strategies and making sound decisions can be a trouble-free process if supported by data. Be able to identify areas of improvement or what needs to be focused on through an efficient method of data collection. Discern key drivers and barriers and move on to the next step of your action plan that will lead to the success of your project.

With the easy setup and real-time comprehensive reports, the SMS Poll can empower organizations in making data-informed decisions.

Businesses can take advantage of the exceptional open rates of SMS. Launching SMS surveys can help in the different aspects of the business: from conducting market research in order to build the best product—to learning employee satisfaction. It is proven useful in gathering customer feedbacks to improve products and services, and aid in the discovery of new or emerging opportunities out in the market.

Nonprofit organizations, on the other hand, can use the SMS Poll for monitoring and evaluation and for implementing behavior change campaigns. It is a faster and convenient way to collect data such as demographics, or to get public opinion and for getting feedback from participants in a program.

With the fact that almost everybody has access to a mobile phone, but not anyone has internet access—our two-way SMS wizard enables anyone to reach out to a billion offline audience.

 

3-Step SMS Poll Wizard

❶ Content
  • Type your question or the initial message on the textbox.
  • Optional: Select Specify Valid Answers checkbox to define valid answers. Choose the answer type: “text” or “a number”. For text answers, type the keywords to define answers and separate them with commas. For number answers, specify a range of valid numbers.
  • You may enter the number of times a contact is allowed to reply to a question. The default value is 2 times.
  • Add an automated reply in case the contact’s answer is invalid or do not match the keywords or not within the range of valid numbers you specified. Here’s a sample error message: “Sorry, your answer is invalid. Please try again and enter only valid keywords.”
  • Click Personalize option to add a touch of personalization such as inserting the contact’s first name. This allows you to insert dynamic data from each contact if found or updated on the Contacts page.
  • To add different language versions of the content, click Languages. A pop-up window will appear to enter the translations.
  • Click  + Add Another Question  to enter another question or message.
  • Note: Only add a Keyword Prefix under Settings if you have multiple 2-way engagements using the same phone number. Leave blank if not necessary.
  • Don’t forget to enter the engagement name at the top part.
❷ Contacts
  • There are two tabs here to add recipients. The first tab allows you to select the existing contacts or groups as your survey audience. The second tab is for you to enable opt-ins for people to self-subscribe via Missed Call or SMS keyword. You can also allow contacts to send an unsubscribe keyword (e.g. STOP) to opt-out from receiving future messages from the SMS Poll engagement.
  • Learn more about Step 2 »
❸ Confirm
  • Select a Local Phone Number to use for sending and receiving SMS or link an Android Phone. If you don’t have any local virtual number purchased yet – click here to learn how or go here to see instructions how to link an android phone.
  • Note: The engageSPARK Network cannot be selected because the SMS Poll engagement requires a local phone number for contacts to send in the keywords.
  • Set the Start Time and End Time of the engagement which defaults to “Immediately” and “never (only if I stop this engagement)”, respectively.
  • Click Launch to set the engagement live or click Save as draft button to continue working on it later.
  • Learn more about Step 3 »
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oYcqJY7AaM&t=10s

Sample Uses

The SMS  AutoReply engagement can be useful in a variety of ways, including the following:

  • M&E: Data collection for name, demographics or measure participation and effectiveness of the program via SMS surveys.
  • Customer feedback: Ask customers for product or service ratings and gather sales information.
  • Job satisfaction survey: Survey your worldwide staff about employee satisfaction to figure out how to improve employee retention rate and improve productivity.
  • Market research: Run a survey to your target consumers via SMS to learn about their preferences, usage, and behavior in order to design better products, or learn how to better align your sales and marketing efforts to acquire a competitive advantage. Provide airtime top-ups to reward research respondents for answering.
  • Radio polling: Engage station listeners to enter a contest and let them answer a radio quiz by sending a text message, or poll them on issues via two-way SMS.
  • SMS quizzes: Educate people by sending a lesson and conduct an SMS quiz to reinforce the lesson and test comprehension.
  • Public opinion survey: Enable people to express their voice and petition for a cause via SMS.
  • Community mobilization program: Encourage citizen participation by using SMS surveys to plan and evaluate mobilization activities.

 

Learn more about our SMS features »

Have questions or need a little extra help?