7 Steps to Creating an Effective Automated Phone Survey

What is an automated telephone survey?

Automated phone surveys are a great way to gather information quickly and efficiently. They're also a great tool for market research, customer satisfaction surveys, and other types of surveys that require a large number of responses. Below are several tips that will help you get the most responses possible using automated voice broadcasting.

1. The Voice

The voice used can make a difference positively or negatively. It's important to use a professional-sounding voice that speaks clearly. Alternatively, Sigma Voice offers a free text-to-speech voice that can be used as an alternative.

2. Calling Times

There's not a perfect time of day to do a survey. Usually, our customers, send out the campaign between 6pm to 8pm local time. In the event, the expected number of respondents was not reached, another campaign can be sent the next day at a different time of day.

3. An Inbound Option

In some cases, an outbound-only automated survey in not enough. That's when it's important to offer an inbound phone number to your constituents. The phone number can be a local phone number or a toll-free phone number. Either way, they'll be able to call back and take the survey and you'll get the results. 

Having an inbound option can greatly increase the number of respondents because an outbound calling campaign is limited to the people who answer their phones. Obviously, the calls that go to answering machines or voicemail can't answer survey questions.

4. Survey Introduction

A good automated phone survey script should explain why the respondent was selected for the survey and provide them with a clear understanding of what will happen next. It's also helpful to give respondents some idea of how much time they'll need to complete the survey.

5. Questions & Answers

After the introductory greeting, it's time to get into the questions and the answer choices. The question should be stated clearly along with the possible answer choices. Below is a simple example.

"Question 1. What's your favorite color? Press 1 for red. Press 2 for green. Press blue."

The next question can start with "Thanks. Ok, on to question 2..."

6. Advanced Branching

In many cases, a linear-based survey is what's needed. One question is asked and then the next question and then the next for all respondents.

An advanced survey is different in that a response to a question can lead to a different follow-up question. 

Back to the colors example, let's say the respondent, presses 3 for blue.

Their next question could be something like this. 

"Great! Thanks. What shade of blue do you like the most? Press 1 for navy blue. Press 2 for midnight blue. Press 3 for royal blue."

7. Reporting

During and after the survey, easy-to-read charts are available as well as a detailed spreadsheet. The best part of an automated phone survey is the results are almost immediate and are a fraction of the cost of a live survey.

Using the reports, you'll know where you stand and you can segment the appropriate groups for follow-up campaigns.

Sigma Voice Poll is an easy-to-use automated telephone survey application that can be used for inbound and/or outbound calling campaigns.