Hey there!Signals is a survey system that collects feedback from staff (mostly) but also clients and stakeholders in a business. It does this via SMS on a weekly schedule (the cadence can be changed but it works best when done weekly).My co-founder and I started working on this nearly a year ago, having run similar small builds for over four years. This time we’ve tried to do it properly. The execution is relatively simple - similar to an eNPS (Net Promoter Score - a common way of measuring how consumers like your product or service), but we wanted a way to anonymously pass candid feedback from employees to managers and executives about their workplace experience, their jobs, new ideas... anything. And for it to be regular and easy to do.We maintain the anonymity of the staff member (and let them know how many people are in the team receiving the question being asked, so they understand their level of safety). We show the team leads and managers a sentiment score and verbatim comments), but we do not associate the respondent details with those in the backend. This is somewhat different to currently existing tools that tend to use the term ‘confidential’, which means you're not anonymous if the admin permissions are high enough. Even those systems which claim to be anonymous can often have ways of twisting the data to unmask the users.One of our team is working on natural language processing to understand, summarise and report on sentiment, comment themes and trends. We’re making it easy to add AMAs, poll clients and partner businesses, and we’re experimenting with sports organisations, unions, and within schools and education.It runs over SMS (the highest response rate of any method we tested). Unfortunately, it does need a signup and confirmation (apologies) to try, but it’s free to test, and there’s no credit card required. Unfortunately, we only support the US, Canada, Australia and the U.K. at the moment but are looking to expand support as soon as possible.We have only really been live for eight weeks now. We would love any feedback you have for us and hope you find it useful! You can email us at hello@runsignals.com if you have feedback or want to chat.
Users discuss the importance of anonymity in employee feedback systems, expressing concerns about privacy and the potential for survey manipulation. They suggest using ChatGPT for anonymization and unique QR codes for surveys. Some users distrust the anonymity of current systems like OfficeVibe and worry about employer retaliation. There are also suggestions for improving feedback systems, such as using dedicated apps, Slack reminders, and integrating with iMessage. Concerns about SMS functionality and cell reception are mentioned, with alternatives like WhatsApp and VoWiFi suggested. Users also discuss the need for legal safeguards and transparency in team structures. Some comments are not available or have been removed.
Users criticized the product for potential breaches of anonymity, such as traceable surveys, recognizable writing styles, and compromised anonymity in small companies. Concerns about HR hostility, skewed results, and the system being gamed were noted. Technical issues included site loading problems and reliance on SMS, which is ineffective with poor cell signal and not preferred by some users. The product's limited geographical availability and the use of eNPS as a metric were also questioned. Some feedback suggested the name is confusing and the expression outdated.
