How would they like to vote? By mail? Dropbox? In person? Conduct a survey to find out.
Chatbots take the cost and complexity out of conducting surveys. Surveys can be designed and conducted within a day and cost about 20 cents per completed survey. Here's how Mother's of Hope a non-profit in Kalamazoo, MI conducted a chatbot survey of voters to understand voter preferences and concerns.
Designing a chatbot survey
Chatbots conduct surveys by asking a series of questions that you've pre-defined. They text each question and save the survey response in a database along with the survey taker's phone number. You get the survey results immediately. Mother's of Hope created a battery of questions for their chatbot.
Mothers of Hope wants to make sure every vote is counted. Please help us by sharing your vote experience.
- What zip code do you live in?
- What is your race/ethnicity?
- What is your gender?
- What is your age?
- What is your political party?
- Did you vote in the Primary election on August 4th? (Y/N)
- How did you cast your vote? (P=At the Precinct Poll, A=Absentee)
- If you voted Absentee, how did you deliver your ballot? (I=In person at the clerk's office, D=Drop Box, M=Mail In)
- Did you vote for candidates in both parties? (Y/N)
- If you mailed in your ballot, did you place two or more stamps on the envelope? (Y=Yes, N=No, D=I did not mail my ballot)
- Did you sign the back of your ballot? (Y=Yes, N=No, P=Voted At Precinct Poll)
- Where do you prefer to vote? (P=At the Precinct Poll, A=Absentee ballot)
- Do you believe your ballot was counted? (Y/N)
- Where will you be voting in the General Election? (P=Precinct poll, A=Absentee ballot, N=I will not be voting)
Thanks for completing the survey. Make sure to vote in November. Learn more Mothers of Hope.
Encouraging voters to take the survey
"At Mothers of Hope we understand the challenges with voting both absentee and at the polling precincts. During this pandemic and uncertain times, everything is different.
Please take a moment and TEXT "vote" to 269 371-8087 and answer a few short questions regarding your vote experience during the August election. We are committed to ensuring every vote cast in November is counted. Help us get the information we need to continue our voter education and outreach efforts. Anyone can register to vote online by clicking this link.
Mothers of Hope and our partnering organizations are nonpartisan and do not support, endorse or lobby any candidate or political party. www.Mothers-of-Hope.org"
A primer on chatbots
Chatbots are small programs that interact with people by phone calls, text messages and Facebook Messenger. They simply ask a series of questions and interact with callers as they have been instructed to. Chatbots can handle any number of calls or texts and work around the clock. New software platforms like Twilio, Google and IBM have made it much easier to create chatbots. DemLabs created the Mothers of Hope chatbot in a day.
Chatbots can be reused which makes them even more cost-effective. This lets you use the same chatbot and phone number to conduct multiple surveys by just changing the survey questions you want to ask. Simple survey chatbots can be created for about $500 plus one cent for every question sent by the chatbot. This chatbot immediately saves the survey responses in a spreadsheet.
