Automated Chat Application Surveys Using WhatsApp: Evidence from Panel Surveys and a Mode Experiment

Abstract

We present a method to conduct automated surveys over WhatsApp, a popular cross-platform messaging service. The method relies on a combination of the WhatsApp Business, Twilio, and Google APIs to design the survey flow, send and receive survey messages automatically, and facilitate data processing. Respondents complete the survey entirely within the WhatsApp application in the form of a chat conversation. WhatsApp surveys incur relatively low costs to both respondents and researchers and facilitate continued engagement with mobile populations as users can retain their WhatsApp number even if they change SIM cards and phone numbers. We describe the use of this method with two case studies where we surveyed refugees and migrants in Colombia, as well as resettled refugees in the U.S. The case studies offer preliminary evidence that automated surveys over WhatsApp provide a viable alternative for surveying and panel data collection. While the method is not without limitations, it offers a promising research tool with opportunities for diverse implementation and empirical study given the widespread global use of WhatsApp. We o?er documentation and a public code repository as supplementary materials to support researchers in applying this method in other contexts.

Effectiveness of WhatsApp for measuring migration in follow-up phone surveys - Lessons from a mode experiment in two low-income countries during COVID contact restrictions

“…This is important because at least 64% of the respondents read the template massage but only few of them started the survey. For example, in a WhatsApp survey in the US where the sender was clearly identified and respondents were familiar with the survey (Fei et al, 2020), response rates could be as high as 76%. Third, the initial samples were collected using nonprobability sampling using face-to-face interviews.…”

“…WhatsApp surveys, especially, offer several opportunities because, unlike other phone survey modes that rely on active phone numbers, WhatsApp users can keep their accounts anywhere in the world (Fei et al, 2020). WhatsApp is currently the most popular messaging app worldwide, being accessed by two billion people every month (Fei et al, 2020). 3 In addition, in WhatsApp text or audio surveys, respondents can choose when to respond based on their own schedule.…”

“…The messaging service WhatsApp potentially offers additional advantages for remote data collection such as reduced costs and improved access. WhatsApp has grown to be the most popular messaging app worldwide, being accessed by two billion people every month (Fei et al, 2020).1 However, its use has only recently been explored (Fei et al, 2020;Gruchy et al, 2021;UNDP, 2018). In addition to low cost and coverage, WhatsApp may offer advantages in low-income countries with low literacy rates because audio messages can be used.…”

“…Morello & Leo, 2016), therefore we focus the study on the results of the WhatsApp experiment and limit the discussion on incentives to briefly reporting the results. This study, thus, sought to answer three main questions: This study makes two main contributions to the literature: First, while a limited number of studies have tested the use of WhatsApp (Fei et al, 2020;Gruchy et al, 2021), we are unaware of any study that has compared WhatsApp to other automated phone survey modes such as IVR or SMS. To the best of our knowledge, we are also the first to use WhatsApp voice notes, which are particularly popular in developing countries as compared to regular WhatsApp texts.…”

COVIBOT- An intelligent WhatsApp based advising bot for Covid-19

“…The business API for WhatsApp is capable enough for providing the capability of artificial intelligence for natural language processing. A large number of system can be designed with the help of the bot system to identify user requirement and provide output based on the text input by the user [12]. This process does not seem to be very simple because of the activation issue of the WhatsApp number that will be used for the promotion of the information and creating the bot.…”