Improving Survey Performance with a Better Texting Interface

Our software is custom- and purpose-built to conduct surveys. We are always on the lookout for software improvements that can help us better serve our sole mission of conducting surveys efficiently and accurately. Over the past several months, we have overhauled several aspects of our application to increase throughput and interviewer speed so as to be able to reduce costs for our clients, whether they are doing election polls, media measurement, or customer feedback surveys. 

• More Intuitive Layout for Texting Questions and Coding Responses
  Our software development team has been hard at work on a total redesign of our survey texting platform. These changes boost efficiency by prioritizing the highest-value conversations, reducing unnecessary extra actions like clicks and cursor movements, and facilitating better analytics tracking by our internal team. The result has been a significant  increase in the number of coded responses per hour on the platform. From the respondents’ end, this ensures a quicker delivery of the next question or response to inquiries they may have, creating more natural and conversational interviews.

• Smart Response Coding for Speed and Precision
  To ensure accurate data collection, our software requires that human interviewers code every response. New features now help human reviewers select the correct response, boosting speed and accuracy. If an answer is ambiguous, trained human interviewers still select a matching choice, or select an answer choice not presented to the respondent. 

• Real-time Feedback for Interviewers

The newly redesigned Texter interface enhances user feedback with a dynamic event feed that provides real-time updates on message activity. This feed makes it easier to track key events, such as messages sent to recipients or conversation terminations. Users can also better monitor remaining conversations to start and those already in process, ensuring better visibility and control over their communication workflow.

The Payoff: More Productive Interviewers and Lower Costs
These refinements are not just stylistic; they deliver substantively.

For a benchmark survey, texter throughput – defined by interviews completed per interviewer -- is now triple what it was in August 2024. We are now seeing more than 70 completes per interviewer hour on some surveys, at a time when telephone surveys get 0.5-1 complete per interviewer hour. This throughput means the desired number of completed interviews can be done in a fraction of the fielding period, with a fraction of the labor that it would take to complete the same survey by telephone.

Next Steps
As we said at the beginning of this blog post, we are always looking for ways to improve survey performance, from iterative testing of best practices to new software features. If you are interested in how Survey 160’s text message surveys can solve your research challenges, or if you have new software features you would like to see, please reach out at info@survey160.com .