# Keypad IVR Surveys and Phone NPS: Questions That Work

> How to design keypad IVR surveys and NPS-style phone feedback in India: which scales work on a keypad, how many questions, Hindi and English wording, capturing answers in your system and following up with unhappy customers.

Source: https://edesy.in/blog/keypad-ivr-survey-nps-guide-2026

**Short answer:** a keypad phone survey works when each question is one short sentence with a scale
the caller can hold in their head: **1 to 5**, or **yes / no**. Ask no more than three questions,
put the most important one first, send low scores to a voicemail box for a spoken reason, and push
every answer to your system as it happens. Expect fewer, more honest answers than a long form gets.

This post is about **keypad** surveys built on an IVR. For conversational surveys where an AI
caller asks open questions, see [AI phone surveys in Hindi and regional languages](https://edesy.in/blog/ai-phone-surveys-hindi-regional-languages-2026)
and [post-delivery NPS calls with AI](https://edesy.in/blog/post-delivery-feedback-nps-calls-ai-2026).

## When a Keypad Survey Is the Right Tool

- **After a visit, delivery or service call**: "How was your experience?" while it is fresh.
- **After a support call**: transfer the caller to a two-question survey flow at the end.
- **Large, simple pulse checks**: a society, institute or distributor network with one question.
- **Regional-language audiences**: keypad answers need no speech recognition in any language.

It is the wrong tool for open research ("tell us what you think about...") or anything needing more
than three questions. Use an online form or an interviewer for those.

## Scale Design for the Keypad

### Why not 0 to 10

Standard NPS asks for a 0 to 10 score. On a keypad, 10 needs two keys, and phone menus handle
"press 1 then 0" poorly: callers press 1 and wait. Edesy menus map one key to one option, so a
0 to 10 question is not a good fit.

Pick one of these instead:

| Scale | Prompt | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 5 | "Press 1 for very poor, up to 5 for excellent." | Satisfaction (CSAT) after a visit or delivery |
| 1 to 5 recommend | "How likely are you to recommend us? 1 not at all, 5 very likely." | An NPS-like recommend question |
| Yes / no | "Was your problem solved? Press 1 for yes, 2 for no." | Resolution after support |
| Three-way | "Better, same or worse than last time? Press 1, 2 or 3." | Repeat customers |

If your company reports NPS, keep the 0 to 10 question in your SMS or email survey and use the
phone for a 1 to 5 recommend score. Do not mix the two in one chart.

### Always say both ends

"Rate us from 1 to 5" leaves callers guessing which end is good. Say it: "1 is very poor, 5 is
excellent." In Hindi: "1 मतलब बहुत खराब, 5 मतलब बहुत अच्छा।"

### Higher number means better

Keep that direction for every question. Flipping it on question two guarantees wrong answers.

## Writing the Questions

- **One idea per question.** "Were the staff polite and was the wait short?" cannot be answered
  with one key. Split it or drop half.
- **Put the key question first.** Some callers hang up after one answer. Make that answer count.
- **Three questions maximum.** Two is better.
- **Skip the long thank-you upfront.** "We value your feedback" before the question costs answers.
- **Say the scale before the question ends**, so the caller is ready to press.

### Sample: post-visit (English)

> Hi, this is City Care Clinic with a quick one-question survey about your visit today. On a scale
> of 1 to 5, where 1 is very poor and 5 is excellent, how was your experience? Press a number now.

> If 1 or 2: We are sorry. Please tell us what went wrong after the beep, then hang up.
>
> If 3 to 5: Thank you. Have a good day.

### Sample: post-visit (Hindi)

> नमस्ते, सिटी केयर क्लिनिक से एक छोटा सा सवाल। आज की विज़िट कैसी रही? 1 मतलब बहुत खराब, 5 मतलब
> बहुत अच्छा। कृपया 1 से 5 के बीच कोई नंबर दबाइए।

### Sample: support resolution

> Was your problem solved today? Press 1 for yes, 2 for no.
>
> If 2: Press 1 to get a call back from a senior team member, or 2 to end the call.

## Building It

The Edesy flow builder has a **Feedback survey (rate 1-5)** template to start from. A typical
three-step survey:

1. **Say** (or **Play** a recording) with the question and scale.
2. **Menu** with keys 1 to 5 and a timeout of six to eight seconds.
3. **HTTP Request** at the start of each key's branch, in background mode, posting
   `{"ref": "{{reference_id}}", "q": "visit_rating", "answer": "{{digits}}"}` to your endpoint.
4. Keys 1 and 2 go to a **Voicemail** node for a spoken reason; keys 3 to 5 go to a thank-you.
5. **No input**: one repeat, then a polite goodbye.

For an outbound survey, your system calls `POST /v1/ivr/calls` with the customer's number and a
`reference_id` (order, visit or ticket ID), and gets the full key path back in the status callback
when the call ends. See the [IVR outbound call API guide](https://edesy.in/blog/ivr-outbound-call-api-guide-2026).

For an inbound survey, point a number at the survey flow and ask your support team to transfer
callers to that number at the end of a call.

## Getting Answers You Can Trust

### Response bias

The people who answer a survey call are not everyone. Very happy and very unhappy customers are
more likely to respond. Track the answer rate alongside the scores; a rising score with a falling
answer rate is not good news.

### Timing

Call within a day or two of the experience. Older than that and people remember the general
impression, not the visit.

### Calling hours

Outbound API calls are dialled only between 09:00 and 21:00 IST. For feedback, late morning and
early evening on weekdays are usually less intrusive than the edges of that window.

### Do not survey the same person repeatedly

Keep a simple rule, such as no more than one survey call per customer per month, and respect the
do-not-call list. Survey fatigue lowers answer rates for everyone.

## Closing the Loop

A survey that nobody acts on trains customers to stop answering. Decide before launch:

- **Who listens** to voicemails from low scores, and **how fast**. Same day is a good target.
- **Who calls back** the "problem not solved" answers.
- **What gets reported** weekly: answer rate, score distribution, top reasons from voicemails.

Low scores followed by a quick personal call back often turn into the most loyal customers you
have. The keypad survey's job is to find those people quickly.

## Languages

Hindi and English questions can be written as text and spoken by text-to-speech. For Tamil, Telugu,
Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati and others, record each question as audio and play it before the keypad
menu. The answer is still a key, so analysis is the same in every language. Recording tips are in
[IVR in any Indian language with recorded prompts](https://edesy.in/blog/regional-language-ivr-recorded-prompts-2026).

## Start a Keypad Survey

See templates and flows on the [survey and feedback IVR page](https://edesy.in/ivr/use-cases/survey-feedback), or
[talk to us](https://edesy.in/contact) about your first survey.

## Related Reading

- [What is DTMF? Keypresses and IVR](https://edesy.in/blog/what-is-dtmf-ivr-keypress-guide-2026)
- [Post-delivery feedback calls with AI (NPS)](https://edesy.in/blog/post-delivery-feedback-nps-calls-ai-2026)
- [Why callers hate your IVR](https://edesy.in/blog/why-callers-hate-your-ivr-2026)
- [IVR outbound call API explained](https://edesy.in/blog/ivr-outbound-call-api-guide-2026)

## Frequently Asked Questions

### Can I run a true 0 to 10 NPS question on the keypad?

Not cleanly. A keypad menu option is a single key, and 10 needs two. Most phone surveys use a 1 to 5 scale instead, or a 0 to 9 scale with 9 as the top score. If you must report standard NPS, run the 0 to 10 question by SMS or email and use the phone call for a shorter rating.

### Where do the answers go?

Every key pressed is stored in the call log. For analysis, add an HTTP Request node after each question that sends the answer to your system, a database or a sheet, together with your own reference ID for the customer or order.

### Can customers leave a spoken comment?

Yes. Send low scores to a Voicemail node: 'Please tell us what went wrong after the beep.' The recording link appears in the call log, so someone can listen and follow up.

### Can the survey be in Tamil or Bengali?

Yes, with recorded prompts. Record each question as an audio file and play it before the keypad menu. Answers are keypad digits, which work the same in every language.