Table of content:

There are a few ways to distribute your Retently surveys through text messages. Below, we will cover just some of the most frequently encountered use-cases.

On the Campaigns page, click the + Create new campaign button, and select the Metric you need. You can do this by hovering your mouse cursor on the type of Metric you are interested in and clicking the Select button.

Select the survey channel Link.

The campaign has the following sections:

In the following chapters, we will discuss each of the sections.

You can assign a different survey template for each of the link campaigns created in Retently. This is a handy option if you want to survey your audience on a different product or send surveys in different languages, for instance. Later on, you will be able to filter your survey results for each campaign.

Select an existing template or create a new one and proceed with customizing it.

In the survey template’s edit mode, you will notice several sections:

When it comes to the Email screen we can have two scenarios.

In the first case, the Email screen will appear to the anonymous respondents, serving as a way to identify them by asking for their email addresses.
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If the customer identified by this email address doesn't exist in your Retently account - it would be added automatically. Otherwise, the feedback will be simply added to the existing customer.
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You can customize this screen to match your company’s style by uploading the logo/using color styling. Even if your surveys will not be anonymized, this screen must be configured, as the logo and button style will be inherited from this page.

As per the second scenario, your respondents can skip the email input step from the survey. Thus, if you append the customer’s email address or his Retently person id (as highlighted below) to the generated link (e.g. https://cx.retently.com/cl/campaignId/customerId), the respondent will be displayed the Main rating question first, skipping the email input screen.

Retently person Id

All the questions in the survey template will inherit the style (logo and colors) from the Email screen. Hence, make sure you spend some time configuring and fully customizing it, even if your survey will not be anonymized.

You can also personalize all the questions in the survey template (except the Main rating) based on the score that the customer leaves to the Main Rating question. When editing each question individually, you can switch the view for Promoters, Passives, or Detractors. This allows you to display different questions and response options for different categories of respondents.

Finally, go to the “Thank you” message section, and edit the message your customers will see after they click the Submit button.

In each section you have three additional buttons:

When you save the template, you will be redirected back to the Template section of your campaign builder. Make sure your template is selected in the campaign by clicking on the Assign button. This will be the survey template used in your survey-by-link campaign.

In other campaign types, in the Audience section, you have to choose what customers will receive the survey. With the survey by link, it’s different because you will be distributing the survey template by means of a unique link in your communication channels with the respondents - email messages, helpdesk auto-responders, in-app messages, chats, etc.

There is also no need to import your audience in Retently. Your customers will be added automatically to your account the moment they respond to a survey.

The survey-by-link campaign doesn't have an actual schedule section. That's because you will have to decide when and what audience will receive the survey while distributing your link.

Basically, we're providing a survey widget, which you can embed in messages. The survey widget will collect the score and text feedback, and store them in Retently, under your campaign. It is up to you to decide when the link containing the survey will be distributed to your audience.

For instance, if a customer didn't respond to your survey by the link within three days after they opened it, our system will send them a reminder email survey. This way, you will be reaching your customers over a second channel, where they are more likely to engage with your survey.

Keep in mind that Reminder surveys are sent only via email. The email survey template must have a logo uploaded, otherwise you will not be able to select it as your reminder template. You can review all your templates here: https://app.retently.com/settings/templates.

In the Alerts section, you can create custom notifications and keep track of your progress.

When creating a new notification you will be asked to choose one or more event types you want to be notified about, the notification frequency (immediately, daily, or weekly digest), and the channel (email or Slack).

Don't forget to save your notifications and make sure they are enabled.

In this section, you can create a set of email auto-responders meant to engage with contacts who did not leave any text feedback, left a Detractor score, or simply ask Promoters to leave their reviews on specific platforms and spread word-of-mouth. Autoresponders will be sent to respondents with a random delay between 5 and 60 minutes from the moment they've answered the survey.

Use webhooks to send requests to web applications every time an event occurs. Webhooks allow you to send HTTP requests to another web application every time an event is triggered, be it new feedback, a bounced survey, or an unsubscribed contact. Don't forget to save each created webhook and make sure they're enabled.

In the setup section, you will be able to find the unique campaign link that can be easily copied and distributed outside Retently via any communication channels you find most relevant for your respondents.

In case the survey link is sent via a marketing platform that supports customer variables, you can simply append to the link the customer’s email address or Retently person id in a variable. This way your customers will skip the email input step from the survey.

The final step is to activate the Survey by link campaign by switching the toggle button ON. Otherwise, you will not be able to use this campaign in your workspace.

The easiest way to set up the link distribution by text messages would be through Zapier, it supports a lot of providers and is easy to set up.

In the example below, we used Twilio as the SMS provider and Hubspot as the trigger. You can use any trigger you want or need, some examples of triggers might be a new user signing in, changing the deal status, adding a new property, etc.

In Zapier, first, you need to choose the trigger and connect the trigger tool. We choose to trigger the Zap every time a new contact is added to our HubSpot workspace.

Next, we choose the action. In our case, it will be Twillio which we will connect through Twilio's API key and API Secret. The action event of choice, will be "Send SMS".

Now, we just have to set up our action fields. Make sure to use as many variables as possible. Make sure to match the "To Number" to your customer's Phone Number field from HubSpot. If you want to add an extra layer of personalization, you can include the first name field or any other property you have available in HubSpot.

In the "Message" field type in your call-to-action and do not forget to include your campaign link. If you want to save your customers time from typing in their email you can also include after the link the HubSpot property "Contact Information:Email".