Requesting Feedback via Text - SMS Samples

You may feel confident in your understanding of your business and the market, but there’s always one critical blind spot: the customer experience. Satisfaction surveys and customer feedback are invaluable tools for uncovering this perspective, providing insights that answer important questions like “why,” “how,” and “what’s next?”

What’s more, requests for feedback can be the first step toward beneficial interactions. If the text message recipient provides a negative perspective, your company has the opportunity to personally follow-up and make things right. If the responder has a positive outlook on your services, you can next point them to your preferred review platform.

To help you gather meaningful feedback, Voxie has compiled practical tips and sample text messages for crafting effective SMS feedback requests. Explore the suggestions below to boost your response rates and gain valuable insights from your customers.

Why SMS is Ideal for Requests Customer Feedback

While there’s a right time and place for every communication channel, requesting feedback from customers is where SMS truly excels. Why?

• SMS boasts significantly higher open rates than email, especially for customers who are “on-the-go.”
• Text messages are typically read and responded to within minutes, allowing you to gather feedback while the experience remains vivid.
• SMS naturally supports two-way conversations, making it easy for customers to reply and engage.
• The concise and informal nature of SMS highlights how quick and effortless it is to complete the survey.

Tips for Crafting Your Request for Feedback Message

Emphasize the Brevity of the Survey

There’s a number of different ways to convey the shortness of the survey questions. In the below example from the Redfin Partner Program, they highlighted the fact that there were only two questions.

You can also emphasize the brevity using measurements of time, such as “30 seconds.” No matter how you phrase it, the key is to reassure respondents that providing feedback requires minimal effort.

Add Personal Touches

A proven way to boost response rates for your feedback requests is to personalize your messages whenever possible. This can include using the recipient’s name, mentioning the specific service or product they received, or including the names of staff members who provided services to them.

Time the Request for Feedback Right

Consider when someone will be most prepared to provide feedback. If you’re texting on behalf of a QSR or service provider, the ideal timing might be “30 minutes,” while the experience is fresh in the recipient’s mind. However, if you’re requesting feedback on behalf of a mechanic, the recipient may need 24 hours or more to form an opinion worth sharing.

Our advice? Use a platform like Voxie that allows you to track response rates, so you can experiment with different timing and determine which ones yield the best results.

A Follow-Up Text is Appropriate After Your First Feedback Request

There are a number of reasons someone may not respond to your first texted request for feedback: they might have been distracted, hadn’t yet formed a strong opinion about your offering, or simply didn’t feel like responding. Consider sending a follow-up to your initial request, especially if the transaction was significant or labor-intensive—such as a home repair project or furniture delivery, as opposed to something quick and simple like buying a burrito.

Cap The Amount of Times You Text a Customer Within a Set Timeframe

Let’s look at a scenario where someone visits the same coffee shop every weekday as part of their morning routine. Now imagine if, every morning, they received an SMS message requesting feedback—the constant outreach would be enough to cause annoyance, if not an unsubscribe. For this reason, it’s wise to limit how often a customer is asked to review their experience to once a month at most.

Asking for a numeric score? Clarify what the numbers mean

When asked to assign a numeric score, most people understand that higher means better. But this isn’t always the case. Therefore, when sending texts requesting people to rate their experiences, clarify what the top and bottom of the rating system represent.

Don’t feel beholden to ask for a numeric score—tools like Voxie’s AI can interpret and categorize responses’ sentiment

For text recipients, providing feedback in a numeric format feels low-effort. However, that’s not the only reason this strategy is common—-many companies mistakenly believe that this is the best way to systemize collected feedback.

Today’s tools like Voxie’s Conversational Intelligence AI accurately assess the sentiment and underlying themes of text responses, organizing and responding accordingly.

For instance, if a customer texts, ‘the food’s fine but it took too long to come out,’ the platform correctly recognizes the overall sentiment as middling and flags problematic customer service as the underlying theme.

10 Sample Feedback Request Messages to Inspire Your SMS Outreach

1. Feedback request for recent services rendered:

Hi [name], this is [franchisee owner’s name], owner of [company] in [neighborhood]. Thank you for entrusting us with [services rendered]. How do you think we did? Any ways we can improve?

1. Feedback request for customer service:

Hi [name], we hope [team member] answered all of yesterday’s questions and helped you make the most of your [product]. On a scale of 1 (low) to 5 (high), how would you rate your experience?

1. Feedback request for an event:

Thank you for attending the [Event Name]! We value your time and insight. To help us make future events even more valuable, please share your feedback on the content, speakers, and overall experience via this short survey: [hypothetical link]

1. Feedback request from a QSR:

Hi [name], we hope yesterday’s meal was delicious as ever. Were you happy with the quality of the food and service? Text us a quick YES or NO.

1. Feedback request for food delivery:

Food’s here and ready to eat! Let us know how we did—-rate us from 1-5, with 1 being the lowest (boo) and 5 being the highest (yipee).

1. Feedback for ongoing membership:

Hi [Name]! Can you believe it’s already been 30 days since you joined [name] Fitness Center? To help us make your experience even better, would you mind sharing your thoughts in a quick 3-question survey? It’ll only take a moment: [link]

1. Feedback on purchased retail products: Thanks for your recent [Store Name] purchase, [Name]! How’s your new [product] working out for you? We’d love to hear!
2. Feedback request for loyalty program:

Hi [name]. We always strive to improve our loyalty program and would love to hear about your experience so far. Would you be willing to take a quick 2-minute survey? [link]

1. Feedback for onboarding or facilities tour:

[Name], we’re honored that you chose to visit [name of facility]. In a few words, how would you describe your walkthrough with [tour guide]?

1. Feedback on purchased experience:

Thanks for visiting [place], [Name]! We hope you had an absolute blast. Your feedback helps us continuously improve to make future visits even better. Share your thoughts in a quick survey: [Link]

How to Collect the Feedback — Website Link or Text-Based Response

Advantages of having survey recipients respond via text:

• It’s one less step and overall more intuitive, as people are accustomed to back-and-forth texting
• Text isn’t impacted by factors like slow internet connections that can impair web-based surveys
• Tools like Voxie enable you to directly compare text-based feedback from different SMS subgroups, including those organized by location or franchisee

Advantages of having survey recipients respond via website link:

• You can have a visually branded survey experience
• It’s easier to include a “skip” option for longer surveys
• If you plan on sending out surveys via multiple channels, like email, a link lets you consolidate feedback with no effort

How to Respond to Negative SMS Feedback

Not everyone will love your services or products. While negative feedback is disappointing to encounter, it is arguably more valuable than positive survey results. After all, the input you garner can help you identify opportunities to improve, especially if you are comparing satisfaction survey results between different business locations or service providers.

While flagging SMS feedback as positive or negative used to be reliant upon customers providing numeric scoring, this is no longer the case. Conversational Intelligence from Voxie is able to accurately assess tone and context to gauge general satisfaction levels.

Direct Help Request: If the negative feedback originates from a user initiating a help request via SMS, immediately pass along the conversation to a designated human primed to respond. Moreover, the customer should be kept in the loop with a message like ‘We’re very sorry to hear you’re dissatisfied with your experience with [brand]. We want to make it right! A support specialist will be with you shortly to assist further.’

Post-Interaction Feedback Survey: If the negative feedback is received through a text-based feedback survey, the urgency is lower, but a human follow-up is still advised. The system should respond with a text similar to, ‘Thank you for your feedback, we appreciate you taking the time to share your experience. A member of our team will review your response and may contact you for more details.‘

Should You Incentivize Feedback & Requests for Reviews?

Offering incentives for feedback—whether for internal use or public sharing—is an effective way to show appreciation to customers and increase response rates. However, incentivizing feedback also comes with potential pitfalls, especially depending on how you plan to use the responses.

It is against the policies of most review sites—including Google My Business, Yelp, Trip Advisor, and Facebook—to incentivize reviews you publish on their platforms. Therefore, if you plan awarding survey respondents with a discount or freebie, it’s smart to familiarize yourself with both the chosen platform you want to drive reviewers toward, as well as FTC policies.

Turn Text Survey Responses Into Strategies With the Help of Voxie

Voxie enables franchises to organize subscriber lists by franchisee owner. This is important because it lets you combine SMS-based feedback with owner-specific data, making it easy to identify which franchisees are running the highest—and lowest—performing locations in terms of customer satisfaction.

Other ways Voxie lets you successfully request feedback via text messages?

• Drip campaigns triggered by non-text interactions Integrate Voxie with your CRM and other franchise marketing software to automate feedback requests after key actions. If someone didn’t respond to the first request, a reminder can be sent.
• Our AI correctly identifies sentiment and response in kind Voxie’s Conversational Intelligence can accurately assess the sentiment of incoming texts, allowing for appropriate automated or human-assisted replies.
• Texts can be automated at the national-level but localized with franchisee-specific details It’s proven that texts that reference location-specific details lead to higher engagement. Voxie helps you craft personalized requests for feedback messages to be managed by the larger franchise brand.
• Text messages themselves can be personalized Voxie lets you leverage customer data to create highly relevant and engaging messages that resonate with each individual.

Request a demo to learn how Voxie has helped level-up SMS engagement for franchises of all sizes.