The same holds true when trying to gather customer feedback from telephone surveys. According to what is known as the Social Attribution Model, respondents may alter their answers depending on the race and gender of both the interviewer and interviewee and the social distance inferred between them. Research by Microsoft and the University of New Mexico also showed that people interviewed by telephone tended to give higher scores than in surveys where there was no interviewer involved.
Conducting surveys via SMS solves the issue, making it possible to avoid interviewer bias and inviting truer and ultimately more accurate customer responses. The Institute for Social Research discovered that people are more open about sensitive subjects in text messages compared to telephone interviews.
Apart from the elimination of interviewer bias, lack of urgency and time constraints are also factors that make text message surveys more accurate. Unlike phone conversations, SMS surveys do not require an instant response and thus give customer more time to think their answers through before responding. Interestingly, the candidness of SMS survey responses remains high even in situations where respondents are busy or distracted.
The “trueness” of SMS is therefore evident; nevertheless, the selection criteria for the most appropriate survey communication channel go far beyond succeeding in one simple variable. At NICE we understand that, when it comes to choosing the right survey channel, there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all-type solution; that’s why we adopt a multichannel methodology when gathering direct customer feedback.
Elena Belkina
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