SMS invite links different to Email invite links? | XM Community
Solved

SMS invite links different to Email invite links?

bgooldfed
Rank
Userlevel 5
Badge +25

Hi everyone,
My organisation has just launched a large survey and we're attempting to maximise our response rate by using both Email and SMS distributions. This has been easy enough, but I've noticed that the survey link generated in the email distributions are different to those in the SMS. Consequently, users receive two separate surveys.
In itself this isn't a huge deal, but it will be a problem when we send out reminders to unfinished respondents. Users that will have completed the email survey will still receive a reminder via SMS, and vice versa for SMS completions.
Does anybody have a solution so that one single survey link can be sent/tracked, and we can still send reminders to unfinished respondents? I am trying to avoid manually creating updated distributions through checking who has responded.
Current solutions I have considered:

  • Adding a personal survey link as embedded data and using that in email/SMS messages (I don't believe this will let us use reminders, as this is no longer tracking a link generated by email/SMS)

  • Opting out completed users from the relevant mailing list (easy enough with filters, but manual)

  • Using a workflow to automatically opt out completed users from the relevant mailing list (working on this currently, not sure if it's possible)

Any ideas are welcome, thank you!

icon

Best answer by bgooldfed 11 May 2022, 08:16

View original

4 replies

A
Badge +2

The third option would probably be the easiest way to achieve your goal. The only problem is, if the same group of users will be surveyed again in the future, it might not be so easy to determine whether the opt out was triggered by the user or by the workflow and you have to spend extra time structuring that.

bgooldfed
Rank
Userlevel 5
Badge +25

After spending way too much time attempting to create the third solution through web service calls and becoming frustrated with the lack of precision available in the API, I stumbled on a fairly simple answer. Hopefully it will save time for anybody else looking for a workaround.
There is a workflow task named "XM Directory" which allows you to update contacts in a directory.
image.png
You can then select the mailing list you want to opt the contact out from, fill out the minimum information and then tick "Unsubscribe this contact" down the bottom. Despite this task being named "XM Directory", it will actually unsubscribe the contact from the selected mailing list (not the parent directory).
image.pngThis ensures that any users that complete the survey are opted out from future communications to that mailing list, regardless of distribution method.

To address the issue noticed by Asif (good pickup!) you can add an additional XM Directory task which adds the contact to a separate mailing list (eg: "Survey completions"). The only difference is that you'll probably want to tick "Add it as a new transaction to your XM directory contacts" to avoid potentially overwriting the contact in the original mailing list.
image.pngYou can then compare the opt outs from the original mailing list to the completions list - if they do not appear in the latter, they have opted out manually.
===
So to summarise here is a basic model of my workflow:
image.pngIf you have multiple mailing lists and an embedded data field which identifies what list a user belongs in, you can just set up a workflow for each mailing list and add some conditional logic to check the relevant field.
I've posted a product idea here - if you would like to see this feature added in the future, please upvote and comment!

bgooldfed
Rank
Userlevel 5
Badge +25

Bumping this old thread with a partial solution I’ve stumbled on 1.5 years later.

If you’re using an authenticator for your survey, there is an option to reload any previously saved progress upon user authentication.

 

As mentioned in the text below this option, you should disable ‘Allow respondents to finish later’ in Survey Options (I assume because it is cookie-based which could create a conflict).

I’ve tested this by partially completing a survey and then accessing it via anonymous link, and personalised email and SMS links. All three methods opened the survey to the same point, even if it was brand new session in a private window or separate device.

 

However this does fix the reminder issue noted in my initial post - when a user opens a personalised link in another channel, it actually creates a new survey instance and just loads their existing progress. Once they complete the survey, they will still receive any reminders for the channel that they did not complete the survey on. So you’ll still need to routinely update your opt-outs for the mailing list to avoid spamming.

bgooldfed
Rank
Userlevel 5
Badge +25

 

However this does fix the reminder issue noted in my initial post - when a user opens a personalised link in another channel, it actually creates a new survey instance and just loads their existing progress. Once they complete the survey, they will still receive any reminders for the channel that they did not complete the survey on. So you’ll still need to routinely update your opt-outs for the mailing list to avoid spamming.

 

Revising this after more testing to say that it actually does address this if the user takes the survey via email or SMS at some point. Anonymous links are the edge case here - if somebody only takes the survey via anonymous link, they will still receive email/SMS reminders. If they begin via an anonymous link, and then continue via email or SMS, it will link up the anonymous response and they will not receive reminders after they complete it regardless of the final channel used.

So basically, you will only need to update your opt-outs if you’re using anonymous links in conjunction with email or SMS distributions.

Leave a Reply


Terms & Conditions