Send ‘HAPPY’ to 12345

Last weekend I saw an ad on the train about getting free mental health advice via SMS. All I needed to do was to send ‘TIPS’ to a shortcode. I decided to sign up for two reasons:

1 I am quite a typical A-type neurotic millennial living in the big city. Stressed out is my default.

2 I am interested in mhealth (mobile health) and I was curious about the service itself.

So I texted TIPS.

And then nothing. Nothing happened. I checked my phone 4-5 times within the following hour ( I’m disillusioned about my phone habits, it was probably closer to 20 times). I didn’t get any confirmation that I had signed up. This was Saturday.

Monday morning I receive this text message. In the meantime I had completely forgotten about the whole thing.

I end up getting a text message every day..

until Friday I get this one.

And I’m like…

This was all a fundraising trick. I thought they were out to help me but instead they sneakily acquired my number, gained my trust but all they wanted was my money!

Don’t get me wrong, giving to charity gets a big thumbs up from me. However, I want to be part of the process. I don’t want to conveniently get something for free and then I am suddenly asked to give money. It’s comparable to the cards, coasters and pens I get from charities before Christmas. They send me free stuff I never asked for and then ask me to donate. Two things happen then:

I don’t want to donate anything because I feel blackmailed
I feel guilty for not giving and for the waste of stuff on me, but I cannot give into blackmail and now all I remember is that charity making me feel guilty!

When I got the final SMS, I felt tricked and foolish for believing that the service was there to help me.

Overall, I learned two key lessons:

Feedback is not optional. It is essential to any service operating in this day and age, especially in relation to technology. How often do you pay attention to the ticks () on your messenger app ? This kind of feedback makes me feel satisfied and in control.
Don’t make an mhealth intervention a gimmick. I seriously believed that these text messages were going to make me feel better. They didn’t really and by Friday I understood why. They were sent by the Marketing department. There is a place for such interventions and when there are real people with real expectations on the other side, it’s dangerous to put it out without a comprehensive plan behind it.