How Thinks Insight & Strategy used WhatsApp to achieve 75–85% response rates across a 10-month longitudinal study for local government.
How Thinks Insight & Strategy used WhatsApp to achieve 75–85% response rates across a 10-month longitudinal study for local government.
Thinks Insight & Strategy partnered with a London local authority to establish a standing panel of 200 residents providing ongoing feedback through bi-monthly research waves over 10 months. The programme was designed to capture authentic community voices and inform decision-making on local services and policy.
The research required representative coverage across six demographic segments — including age, housing tenure, and parental status — while maintaining qualitative depth at a scale typically associated with quantitative methods.
Traditional local government research faces persistent barriers that limit both reach and richness.
Email surveys achieve just 3–5% response rates in community settings, missing residents without regular email access or digital confidence.
Traditional methods require completion in one sitting. Interruptions from work, childcare, or daily life mean many participants never return to finish.
Digital-first methods tend to exclude less tech-savvy residents. Council housing tenants and younger demographics are historically under-represented.
Managing 200 participants across multiple waves with tailored questioning — while maintaining qualitative depth at scale — requires significant coordination.
Yazi's WhatsApp-native platform enabled a multi-wave, multimedia research design that met participants where they already were — in a messaging app they use every day.
Five waves delivered bi-monthly, each combining standing trend-tracking questions with wave-specific themes. Participants responded with text, voice notes, photos, and video — on their own time, at their own pace.
Residents received an invitation via WhatsApp, tapped to join, and began answering questions in a familiar chat interface — sharing text, photos, and voice notes on their own schedule.
Across all five waves, completion rates held between 75–85% — a step change from the 3–5% response rates typical of email surveys in community settings, and well above the 12–20% achieved by more targeted email approaches.
Unlike traditional surveys limited to text, participants documented their lived experience through photos of local issues and voice notes capturing the emotion and context behind their views. This gave the research team rich, multimedia evidence to support their analysis — the kind of depth typically reserved for small-scale qualitative studies, delivered across a 200-person panel.
Beyond raw data, Thinks Insight & Strategy accessed their results through purpose-built reporting views — making it easy to review multimedia responses, read through individual conversations, and track participant progress across the study.
| Traditional Method | Yazi on WhatsApp | |
|---|---|---|
| Response rate | 3–5% email response rates | 75–85% completion rates |
| Data types | Text responses only | Voice, video, photo & text |
| Cost per head | £50–100 per phone interview | Platform cost only |
| Scheduling | Coordination limits scale | Participants respond on own schedule |
| Reach | Geographic & access barriers | Universal WhatsApp access |
| Fatigue | Drop-off across multiple waves | Sustained engagement over 5+ waves |
Direct community input informing policy decisions. Representative feedback that reduced the risk of vocal minorities dominating. A robust evidence base for public communications and service adjustments — including tangible changes like revised cleaning schedules based on resident feedback.
A 200-person longitudinal panel managed without proportional team increase. Real-time dashboards enabling immediate intervention if engagement dipped. Multimedia data that elevated the quality and credibility of deliverables to the client.
Testimonial pending — awaiting approval from Thinks Insight & Strategy following completion of the initial research waves.
This project demonstrates that local government can achieve both scale and depth through WhatsApp-based methodology. By meeting residents on a platform they already use and enabling rich multimedia responses, the approach overcomes traditional barriers of access, engagement, and representativeness.
For qualitative research agencies serving public sector clients, the results point to a scalable alternative to traditional community consultation — particularly valuable for longitudinal studies that require sustained participant engagement across months, not just a single fieldwork window.
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