Home-grown mobile app lets users take surveys and earn points to redeem shopping vouchers
Users of a mobile survey app by home-grown market research firm Milieu Insight can now take surveys and earn points to redeem shopping vouchers.
The company launched gamification features on its app, Milieu Surveys, on Tuesday (Jan 18) and aims to entice users to participate in more surveys and keep them engaged for longer.
Milieu conducts polls on trending topics and current affairs. It also does consumer behaviour studies for its clients, which include e-commerce platform Lazada, Google and the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC).
The points earned by users for participating in these surveys can be used to redeem shopping vouchers, such as those from GrabFood and Cold Storage. Points can also be used to redeem for donations to charities like the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and Singapore Children's Society.
Milieu founder and chief executive, Mr Gerald Ang, said the gamification elements help the company better retain users, as well as get a broader and more representative base of users.
"This allows us to provide more accurate data and do a broader range of studies in significantly shorter lead times," he said.
There are "Hot Topic" polls on the app for users to vote on and they can see the results. Milieu comes up with the polls to find out users' opinions and see how they compare with other countries.
For instance, one poll asked users what they thought about planting vegetables at bus stops in Singapore. Out of about 11,800 respondents, 48 per cent liked it, while 13 per cent disliked it. The rest did not have an opinion.
Last week, it released the results of a current affairs survey on how South-east Asians feel about the metaverse, a virtual-reality world where users can connect socially. The findings showed that those in Singapore are more uncertain and sceptical about it, compared with other countries.
An artificial intelligence algorithm tracks each user's interactions on the app to ensure he receives relevant content to keep him engaged.
The app has more than 2.5 million users from Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
Mr Ang said that a better user experience reduces the "tediousness and cognitive load of survey taking", allowing users to participate effortlessly.
"This involves meticulous layout design planning and a user flow that is intuitive and gratifying. This culminates in an experience that encourages users to give honest and candid answers," he said.
Milieu Insight's chief operating officer, Mr Stephen Tracy, added that participants of online studies often encounter poor user experiences. He said the app upgrade addresses this and adds "exciting new features and ways to collect new types of data that are opt-in and permission-based".
Milieu Surveys can be downloaded for free on Apple App Store and Google Play.
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