Gloo has many powerful features, and understanding the similarities and differences between them can help you craft holistic strategies for communication and engagement with your church. Here is a brief comparison of Opt-in Surveys and Scheduled Surveys.
| Opt-in Survey | Scheduled Survey |
Send questions and receive answers via text | ✔ | ✔ |
Capture data and feedback | ✔ | ✔ |
Initiated by user texting in the keyword | ✔ |
|
Initiated by the organization and sent to any contact |
| ✔ |
Can be recurring |
| ✔ |
A reminder can be sent |
| ✔ |
What is the same?
Both types of Surveys are great for collecting feedback and information from your church. Surveys are the best way to ask for responses to these kinds of questions, and actually get an answer because responding to a few text messages is so simple and convenient. Here are a few examples of situations where Surveys can be useful:
Use a Survey asking churchgoers to rank how they are doing in each of the spiritual disciplines to get a pulse on the spiritual health of your church.
Use a Survey to collect feedback from attendees at a specific event or outreach while it is fresh on their minds.
Use a Survey to capture data from your small group leaders on what they are studying and how many people are attending each week.
Use a Survey to capture data from an evangelistic outreach like how many times the gospel was presented and how many people signed up for more info.
…and so much more!
What is different?
Which type of Survey you use for each scenario above depends on your specific goals in using that survey and who you want to send it to.
Opt-in Surveys are initiated by a person texting in. They are deployed when a person texts in the keyword related to the survey. This means that there is no way for you to push out an Opt-in Survey to a specific person or group- each person must individually choose to participate.
Opt-in Surveys are a fantastic way to capture data and feedback on the fly, especially if all or some of the people you want feedback from have not previously texted into your Gloo number. Two great use cases include inviting people to fill out a spiritual health questionnaire during a Sunday service or asking people for feedback after an event, since in both of these cases there may be first time guests or visitors who you don’t already have a phone number for.
Scheduled Surveys, on the other hand, are initiated by your organization. They are deployed when a Gloo administrator selects a group and schedules a time for that group to receive the survey. This means everyone receives the first question to the survey at the same time, and the person receiving the text has a choice whether or not they answer your questions. A reminder can also be set to go out 1, 2 or 3 days after the survey was initially sent. The reminder will only go out to people who have not yet replied to your survey.
Scheduled Surveys are a great tool for more formal feedback from your congregation. Two great use cases include scheduling a recurring survey to collect data each week from your small group leaders on how many people attended, and sending out a survey at the end of the year to the whole church for feedback on church structure, culture, etc.
Pro tip: Want to become an expert in setting up Surveys? Check out some best practices here!