Send a Text Message from Your Survey

If you want to send a respondent a text message upon completion of a survey, we can show you how! We'll be using the respondent's phone number combined with an email address gateway that is unique to each carrier to send the text by using our Send Email action and merge codes.

Please note: This example is designed to work with the most popular cellular carriers in the United States. There are additional resources on the web to help you find specific carrier information should you need it.

Setup

1. Create a Textbox question to collect the respondent phone number. We recommend setting it up using validation so that it will only accept numeric inputs. We also add some descriptive text in the question to ask for only the number, without parentheses or dashes.
   
2. The next question is a Radio Button that asks which cellular provider the respondent uses. The important step here is assigning the proper Reporting Value to each carrier. This value, combined with their phone number collected above, will become the email-to-sms gateway. So you'll have the name of the provider as the answer option and the appropriate address for that provider as the Reporting Value.
   
   Here is a list of the most popular providers in the US.
   • T-Mobile: tmomail.net (SMS and MMS)
   • Sprint: messaging.sprintpcs.com (SMS) or pm.sprint.com (MMS)
   • Verizon: vtext.com (SMS) or vzwpix.com (MMS)
   • Cricket: sms.mycricket.com (SMS)
   • AT&T: txt.att.net (SMS) or mms.att.net (MMS)
3. To turn on custom reporting values click the Advanced Options Settings link and select Custom under Reporting Values.
   Once the question is set up properly, it should look something like this:
   
4. With those steps completed, you can now move to a later page in the survey to set up a Hidden Value action to store the data from these two questions. You'll be using two merge codes to concatenate the two values to create the address where the message will be sent.
   
   Take advantage of the Insert Merge Code link below the Populate with the following field in your Hidden Value action.
   First, you'll want to use the merge code to pull the phone number. Then add an @ symbol. Finally, add the second merge code to pull the address for the respondent's cellular provider.
   
5. Finally, go to your Thank You page and add a Send Email action. In the To field, you'll want to add the merge code from your Hidden Value action where you concatenated the address for the text message. The easiest way to pull this value is to click the Survey Taker link below the field. Then just browse for your Hidden Value with your concatenated address and click Save.

The resulting 'email address' will look something like this:

1234567890@txt.att.net

You can either use a merge code or codes to fill in the Message Body as we do in this example or you can write your own custom message. Once you're done, make sure to test it out!

If you want to see this in action, check out this survey:

http://survey.alchemer.com/s3/1851232/Send-a-Text-Message

Expanded List of SMS & MMS Gateways

US Carriers:

• T-Mobile: number@tmomail.net (SMS & MMS)
• AT&T: number@txt.att.net (SMS), number@mms.att.net (MMS)
• Verizon: number@vtext.com (SMS), number@vzwpix.com (MMS)
• Sprint: number@messaging.sprintpcs.com (SMS), number@pm.sprint.com (MMS)
• XFinity Mobile: number@vtext.com (SMS), number@mypixmessages.com (MMS)
• Virgin Mobile: number@vmobl.com (SMS), number@vmpix.com (MMS)
• Tracfone: number@mmst5.tracfone.com (MMS)
• Metro PCS: number@mymetropcs.com (SMS & MMS)
• Boost Mobile: number@sms.myboostmobile.com (SMS), number@myboostmobile.com (MMS)
• Cricket: number@sms.cricketwireless.net (SMS), number@mms.cricketwireless.net (MMS)
• Republic Wireless: number@text.republicwireless.com (SMS)
• Google Fi (Project Fi): number@msg.fi.google.com (SMS & MMS)
• U.S. Cellular: number@email.uscc.net (SMS), number@mms.uscc.net (MMS)
• Ting: number@message.ting.com
• Consumer Cellular: number@mailmymobile.net
• C-Spire: number@cspire1.com
• Page Plus: number@vtext.com