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Ask Anywhere touchpoint - Create URLs with metadata
To be able to survey your customers with an Ask Anywhere touchpoint, you need an URL so they can open the survey. This URL can be put behind a QR code, included in an e-mail footer, ... . It's totally up to you!
IN THIS ARTICLE
1. The basic URL
When creating an Ask Anywhere touchpoint, you actually create a survey URL which you can send to all your participants.
1a. Where to find the URL
The touchpoint URL can be found in the Touchpoint settings block of the touchpoint settings overview page of your touchpoint. You can easily share the URL using the copy icon.
There are two options to get there:
Option 1
From the homepage, click on the touchpoint settings icon below the touchpoint name.
Option 2
Step 1: On the homepage, click touchpoints in the left navigation menu
Step 2: Select the touchpoint for which you want to retrieve the URL. If your touchpoint is offline, you can see it by clicking Show all.
1b. What does the URL look like
This is an example of an Ask Anywhere URL:
https://hc-demo.survey.hellocustomer.com/NL/dec7d23d-ee8b-49a2-b931-b21f9e14eef8/3b0c2371-71e8-4ed3-b1ea-da87685790bc
The URL's always consist of different parts:
- The base URL: the part before survey.hellocustomer.com is customized per environment. You can choose what you put there, but it's the same for all your touchpoints. Contact support or your customer success manager to change this setting.
Example: https://hc-demo.survey.hellocustomer.com
The language code: used to define the language in which the survey will be shown to your customer. It's always the ISO 639-1 code. Make sure to only use languages in the URL that are added to your touchpoint.
Example: NL
IMPORTANT
The survey will be displayed in the preferred language set in the respondent’s browser, provided that language is also configured on the touchpoint. If the preferred browser language is not available, the survey will default to the primary language of the touchpoint.
The tenant unique ID: the unique identifier of your environment
Example: dec7d23d-ee8b-49a2-b931-b21f9e14eef8
The touchpoint unique ID: the unique identifier of the specific touchpoint
Example: 3b0c2371-71e8-4ed3-b1ea-da87685790bc
2. Previewing the survey
When you just want to preview without actually storing the score and feedback, you can preview your survey. There are two ways to do this:
- In the touchpoint settings, the survey preview will be shown if you edit the questions & text or the design.
- Add ?entry.isPreview=true to your base URL. This query means it is a test version. You can test the survey with this URL, without polluting your data, since the answer you submit in the test version will not be saved. (https://hc-demo.survey.hellocustomer.com/NL/dec7d23d-ee8b-49a2-b931-b21f9e14eef8/3b0c2371-71e8-4ed3-b1ea-da87685790bc?entry.isPreview=true)
| entry.isPreview=true | Shows the survey without saving score or feedback (test-mode) |
3. Including extra information in the URL
You can add various types of data to your touchpoint URL.
- First of all you can add information about the participant itself. This data will be visible on the platform as personal data (any information about the person) or metadata (additional side information). This is similar to uploading data with participants to an Email Touchpoint.
- Next to that, you can add information about the survey. Add a unique ID per URL to make sure the same person can only answer once after the same interaction, add a survey close date or preselect a score on the survey page.
INFO
- To add extra data to your URL, you will need to use a query. This is done by using the question mark symbol (?) at the end of the link. If you want to use multiple queries, you will need to connect them with an ampersand symbol (&).
- Keep in mind that the URL can not exceed 2.000 characters (although this depends on the browser).
- Extra information added to the URL will automatically be masked once the survey is opened by the participant. This way participants will not see any of the data you send along in the URL.
3a. Personal data and metadata
There are two ways to include metadata and personal data in an Ask Anywhere touchpoint:
- Send extra metadata along with your URL, for which you can find details further in this article
- Add extra metadata questions to your survey (read all about it in this article)
IMPORTANT It is not possible to combine both methods to include metadata in the same ask anywhere touchpoint
Including personal data and metadata can be done by adding a query to your URL. In the table below, you see a list of possible strings to add personal data and metadata in the URL
| entry.respondent.firstname= NAME | Sends First Name with the feedback when the survey is completed. |
| entry.respondent.lastname= LASTNAME | Sends Last Name with the feedback when the survey is completed. |
| entry.respondent.email= EMAILADDRESS | Sends Email Address so that the respondent can be contacted via the platform after the feedback is posted. |
| entry.metadata[ FILTER]=VALUE | Sends any metadata with the feedback. The FILTER is the name of metadata filter that will be visible in the analysis and conversations pages . The VALUE is the value for this particular respondent. For example: entry.metadata[store]=Brussels. |
IMPORTANT:
If you want to use a teams filter, make sure that you also select a metadata key for the teams filter in your touchpoint settings. Want to know more? Read this article
Some examples:
Here, the first name of the participant is added as metadata (?entry.respondent.firstname=john).
https://hc-demo.survey.hellocustomer.com/NL/...?entry.respondent.firstname=john
Here, the first name of the participant is added as metadata together with its last name by using the ampersand (?entry.respondent.firstname=john&entry.respondent.lastname=wayne)
https://hc-demo.survey.hellocustomer.com/NL/...?entry.respondent.firstname=john&entry.respondent.lastname=wayne
INFO
Spaces and special characters need to be encoded.
- If you have metadata keys and values with a 'space' , you need to replace the space by '%20' .
For example: visited shop = Gent Visserij, the URL will look like this:
https://hc-demo.survey.hellocustomer.com/NL/...?entry.metadata[visited%20shop]=Gent%20Visserij
- To add a '+' symbol for example, you need to replace the '+' by '%2B' . The '+' symbol is a reserved character in URLs and is used to represent a space. Therefore, when you want to use the '+' symbol as a literal character in a URL, you need to encode it.
For example, if you want to add the email address name+1@mail.com in your URL, it would look like this:
https://hc-demo.survey.hellocustomer.com/NL/...?entry.respondent.email=mail%2B1@gmail.com
- For a list of character encoding in URL's, you can visit this website.
3b. Extra information regarding the survey
You can define several parameters linked to the survey itself in the URL. This can be handy if you send out the e-mails using another system than Hello Customer. In case you would like to send out the surveys via Hello Customer, you can use an e-mail touchpoint.
Including extra information can be done by adding a query to your URL. In the table below, you see a list of possible strings to add extra information about the survey in the URL.
| entry.score= VALUE | Directs the participant to the survey page with this specific value already highlighted. This can be used to personalize your emails, creating your own buttons and linking them to the specific score on the survey. |
| entry.ID=GUID * | Adding a GUID makes sure participants can only submit one answer via the same URL. This can be handy when you send out the e-mails yourself, but you don't want people to submit the survey twice for the same shop visit. Make sure to respect the GUID format (3bfd6315-61d9-4ded-96a9-fbc105c15eab). The GUID must be unique for every interaction; otherwise, people won't be able to fill out the survey. You can find more information on GUIDs and a generator on this website. |
| entry.close=YYYYMMDD | Establish the deadline for individuals to complete the survey. Make sure to respect the format, YYYYMMDD. The participant will be able to fill out the survey until the defined date at 23:59:59. |
Some examples:
If you have created a custom survey, for example in your e-mail footer, you can redirect to the Hello Customer survey with the clicked score already highlighted. The link in the example below will redirect a customer that has clicked score 4 to a touchpoint survey with the 4 already highlighted.
https://hc-demo.survey.hellocustomer.com/NL/...?entry.score=4
You want to send out the survey yourself via the central e-mail tool used in your company. However, you need to make sure that every customer can only fill out the survey once after a single store visit. You can accomplish that by adding a unique ID (a GUID) in the URL per interaction a person has with your company, as in the example below.
https://hc-demo.survey.hellocustomer.com/NL/...?entry.ID
- The first time a participant enters the URL, they will be able to fill out the survey.
- If they do not add any answers, the URL will keep working the coming days until they fill out the survey.
- If the participant hits the submit button, an answer is registered and if they then surf to the URL again, they will get a message that they already filled out the survey
IMPORTANT
When adding an ID to the URL, make sure to always use unique GUIDs per interaction. So, for example:
- add a new GUID to the URL for every single person
- add a new GUID to the URL for the same person if they visited your shop a second time
Sometimes, it's valuable to allow customers to fill out a survey until a defined date. Therefore, you can add a survey closed date to your URL. In the example below, people are able to fill out the survey until 31/12/2024 (included).
https://hc-demo.survey.hellocustomer.com/NL/...?entry.close=20241231