Tailor-made and customized SMS-based survey solutions – chosen by the Police and the University of Skövde

How do you get around 400 police officers to answer a survey a couple of times a year that will form the basis for assessing, among other things, the work situation?

Joeri van Laere, Associate Professor of Information Technology at the University of Skövde, with many years of experience in crisis management, was involved in the work based on designing the work on a scientific basis as a project manager. It involved the entire chain from collecting information, compiling results to the analysis work.

"Part of the work when we got to the surveys themselves was how they would look and be distributed to get a high response rate. Especially since it was a recurring survey that would be conducted a couple of times a year," says Joeri. It was about streamlining and improving the surveys to achieve the goal of the survey.

This is where iP.1, which Joeri had previously been in contact with, was brought in in connection with the use of SMS surveys in a project. It was about finding out what was essential and what was not essential in order to maximize the effect of using SMS surveys.

-iP.1's CEO Leif Alvarsson participated in this work with his expertise. For example, it is not possible to ask 25 questions, but the focus should be to boil it down to five, maximum eight questions. In addition, the questions should be formulated simply and directly, says Joeri.

-We experienced iP.1 as flexible and interested in developing together with us how the outcome would be reported so that it could be analyzed in a smooth way. In this case, it is about recurring questions so that we can also compare over time. I feel that we have also been able to develop and strengthen the tool.

-Det är så vi jobbar, berättar Leif Alvarsson, VD på iP.1. Om vi inte har en lösning direkt på kundens behov så arbetar vi fram en lösning. Det är en del av att jobba just kundanpassat.

A completely new feature that has been added to iP.1's SMS survey tool is a link to maps. Joeri van Laere explains that this has its origins in crime prevention work where the research project also collaborates with the company. www.embrace-safety.se/. Genom att i en SMS-enkät kunna koppla ihop trygghetsenkäter och rapportering av geografiska data så kan exempelvis hotspots identifieras där trygghetsskapande åtgärder sätts in.

"Yes, the fact that we can now offer a map function linked to our SMS tool gives our customers new opportunities to conduct surveys that also include geographic data," says Leif Alvarsson. It is another example of our customer customization that can now benefit more people and which we hope will make even more people realize the power of conducting surveys via SMS."

The advantages of conducting surveys using SMS are many. It is simple and quick to send out. It is convenient for the person who is going to respond and it is easy to compile results. With iP.1 you get the advantage of not being locked into a standard solution but can get a tailored solution based on needs. This was one of the reasons why the Police and the University of Skövde chose iP.1 as the supplier of SMS surveys in the research project. www.his.se/elisa.