SMS survey tool solution: Ask questions and gather feedback

SMS surveys are a powerful tool for connecting with your audience, collecting their thoughts, and boosting engagement.

  • Send text surveys to groups
  • Collect votes by text and tally results!
  • Follow up with respondents
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A customer reading a text message survey on her cell phone. The survey message, the customer’s response, and the automatic reply can all be seen
Trusted by businesses of all sizes
Starbucks is using SimpleTexting for Text Marketing Services
Cisco is using SimpleTexting for Text Marketing Services
LEGOLAND is using SimpleTexting for Text Marketing Services
Century 21 is using SimpleTexting for Text Marketing Services
Samsung is using SimpleTexting for Text Marketing Services
Stanford University is using SimpleTexting for Text Marketing Services
Chick-fil-A is using SimpleTexting for Text Marketing Services
Marriott is using SimpleTexting for Text Marketing Services
Kaplan is using SimpleTexting for Text Marketing Services

How SMS Surveys Work

SMS surveys allow you to send a series of questions to your customers or employees to request their feedback. Whether you need to measure satisfaction with NPS scores or collect votes for a contest, text surveys can help.

Watch along with our on-demand demo to learn how to set up a popular type of survey known as “text to vote.” To participate, all your audience has to do is text a keyword to your number. They’ll instantly receive a message with multiple-choice options. Then they just text in their choice, and our platform will tally the results!

Setting up an SMS survey only takes a few minutes. SimpleTexting offers intuitive flows and pre-built templates to help you get started quickly. Whether you’re launching a customer feedback poll or a multi-question text message survey, the setup process is streamlined from start to finish. You can also customize your text survey with automatic replies, tags, and follow-up messages — all without needing any technical experience.

Benefits of SMS surveys

Why do text message or SMS surveys work? Because people always check their phones.

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Fast feedback

Inspire members who haven’t been around in a while to return. Send the highlights from the latest service they missed.

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Engagement at scale

Make your subscribers feel valued and included by asking for their input and sending them the survey results.

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Automatic responses

Customize your SMS survey and automatically send out a thank-you-text to everyone who replies with an answer

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Simplicity all around

Your subscribers will love how easy it is to take an SMS survey. And you’ll love how easy it is to set one up.

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Affordable info

A text message survey will only run you a few pennies per text. Cost-effective consumer insights, anyone?

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Reach more people

Everyone has a cellphone, and everyone reads their texts. Reach people, even when you don’t have their email address.

3 Ways to Send SMS Surveys to Your Audience

Need to collect votes, feedback, or NPS scores? We make it easy to send the right type of SMS survey to your customers.

Grow your list and gather votes
Text to Vote Surveys

Grow your list and gather votes

Text to Vote Surveys are a great tool to collect feedback and grow your list. Send “TextSurveys” to 900900 to see how it works!
  • Let anyone vote on your next decision
  • Make fans and customers feel involved
  • Engage your crowd in a fun and easy way

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Give subscribers a voice with polls
Poll Subscribers

Give subscribers a voice with polls

Send a text survey to your existing customers’ phones with our multiple choice polling feature.
  • Ask customers to provide feedback
  • See instant, real-time results
  • Follow up with participants automatically

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Send links to your favorite survey sites
Trackable Links

Send links to your favorite survey sites

Create a survey with dedicated survey software like SurveyMonkey, Google Forms, or Typeform and then link to it within your text message 😊
  • Track click-through rates
  • Send automated reminders
  • Segment your audience by participation

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Customer reviews and testimonials

Check out what real business owners have to say about using text surveys.

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Surveys keep students engaged

Some kids are going to pay attention, some tune out, but the Text to Vote Surveys feature is a way to keep teenagers engaged. What teenager doesn’t love to take out their phones during a presentation? Yet, it keeps them tied into the information at hand.
Lisa Marker-Robbins
Founder/CEO of LEAP
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SMS product surveys bring customers to our funnel

Most of our customers get to our funnel from a product survey, which means they already bought the product. But following the survey, we also find lots of other interesting facts about our products. Over time, this has helped our production to get better and better.
Representative
Matykos Beauty
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Gathering feedback for our nonprofit

For nonprofits, getting metrics to report back to funders and supporters is always a challenge… The polls automatically count positive and negative feedback. This helped us identify that we have a 94% positive net promoter score.
Kelley Henry
Executive director, SoGal Foundation
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Surveys helped us gather research

Your recollection isn’t always very reliable. By texting people, they get the message right away, and we can ask them about their experience in the last 30 minutes.
Ashley Hawkins Parham
Program Coordinator, Wake Forest University

SimpleTexting SMS surveys

Gather important feedback and stay top-of-mind with your subscribers in just a few clicks. Plus, you can try our SMS survey service free for two weeks.

Set up fast
Our team can get you up and running (or texting) within a day so you can launch your SMS survey ASAP.

Send SMS surveys
Send your surveys in seconds and get results back from your contacts just as fast. When you send surveys over SMS, you can be sure you’re reaching your audience efficiently and instantly.

Analyze your results
With SimpleTexting’s easy-to-read analytics page, you can get answers on what’s working on your SMS surveys and what can be improved so your messages perform better each time you send them.

Customer service
When you reach out to our team for help, you can be sure you’re connecting with a real person who not only knows their stuff when it comes to text marketing, but who wants to see you succeed and is willing to help you in any way they can.

AI message generator
It takes time to write effective texts, and inspiration can be hard to come by. To help you with text message writer’s block, SimpleTexting built AI Assist — a ChatGPT-powered text message generator.

Unlimited contacts and keywords
You get unlimited opt-in keywords and text contacts with SimpleTexting, meaning you can create as many keywords as you’d like for your polls and surveys.

SMS survey ideas

Need some ideas for an SMS survey? Here are a few quick industry-specific brainstorms to help you get started.

Ask your congregation for input on the next sermon series, find out their availability for events, or request feedback regarding those events.
Churches
Invite customers to vote on their favorite menu item, send them service satisfaction questionnaires, or offer discounts in exchange for leaving reviews.
Restaurants
Encourage supporters to spread the word about an upcoming fundraiser, share their schedule for volunteer opportunities, or vote on themes for fundraisers.
Nonprofits
Improve your quality of care and patient satisfaction by uncovering insights about your practice. Plus, you can use SimpleTexting to send appointment reminders!
Doctors offices
Gather feedback and ideas from attendees after an event, find out what artists or shows people are interested in seeing, or investigate the quality of your on-site amenities.
Entertainment venues
Share customer satisfaction surveys out after each purchase, learn what products or deals interest them, or assess the efficiency of your customer support services.
E-commerce
Have a “how did you hear about us” survey on hand to learn more about your customer base, find out how well your location stands up to competitors, or ask your audience their opinion on upcoming sales or specials.
Retail

SMS Survey Use Cases by Industry and Situation

Want to get more out of your SMS survey strategy? Start by tailoring it to your audience and industry. Whether you’re running a healthcare practice or a retail store, sending a text survey at the right time can help you collect valuable insights and build stronger relationships. Here are some real-world examples of how businesses are using SMS surveys across different situations:

  • Restaurants and Hospitality: Send a text message survey to guests after dining or checkout to gather feedback on food, cleanliness, and overall experience.
  • Healthcare Clinics: Ask patients how they felt about their visit or how they’d rate their provider — all via a short, HIPAA-compliant text survey.
  • Retail and E-commerce: Follow up after a purchase to ask about product satisfaction or the checkout process.
  • Events and Webinars: Gauge attendee satisfaction with a quick survey after your event ends.
  • Customer Support Teams: Send a 1-question text survey after a support interaction to monitor CSAT scores and agent performance.
  • Education and Training: Request feedback from students or employees after onboarding or completing a training session.

Pro tip: You don’t need a complicated form or website. A well-timed text message survey can yield higher response rates than email and help you act on insights faster.

SMS survey examples

Now that you know more about SMS surveys and how you can use them, let’s look at a few examples of how these surveys look in real life.

Text to vote (multiple-choice polls)
What should our next product launch include?
  • Beanies
  • Tri-blend t-shirts
  • Joggers

Customer satisfaction (CSAT) score
On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your most recent purchase experience?

Feedback Q&A
What did you think about our recent webinar?

Frequently asked questions about SMS surveys

After nearly a decade sending SMS surveys, we’ve received a lot of questions. These are the most common.

What are the response rates of SMS surveys?

Response rates to SMS surveys are impressive. 98% of text messages are opened, 90% within three minutes, and the average SMS response rate to surveys across different industries is 42%.
We offer several options for sending surveys. You can use text to vote to collect feedback, engage your SMS list with polls, or send links to your favorite dedicated survey software like SurveyMonkey.
The cost of sending an SMS survey depends on how many texts you plan to send. The more you send, the lower the cost per credit. Our plans start at $29 per month for 500 credits. You can visit our pricing page for more info!
SMS surveys are helpful for gathering in-store or website visit feedback, product purchase feedback, and customer satisfaction (CSAT) survey feedback. Check out this guide for a full list of SMS survey examples.
Looking at the numbers, it seems that SMS surveys are more effective. The average response time for a text message is 60x faster than email, and response rates to SMS marketing are 7.5x higher than email.
An SMS interview refers to using text messaging to screen or communicate with job candidates during the hiring process. While different from a traditional SMS survey, text-based interviews can also include structured questions and responses, making it a useful tool for HR teams. If you’re gathering candidate feedback after interviews or onboarding, you can also use a text message survey to streamline the process.
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Try Our SMS Survey Tool for Free

Ready to send a survey via text? Your first 50 messages are on us, and incoming votes are free for life. Start your two-week SMS survey trial today.

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Published: April 18th 2025