Who should be using SelfSurveys?
Anyone who needs or wants to collect data online and do it quickly and inexpensively, is pressed for time, understands the basics of Windows and is not a programmer.
How can SelfSurveys be used?
Customer, patient and employee satisfaction are the most common applications. Other uses include course/teacher evaluations, web site assessments, readership surveys, product development, polling, profiling, 360 review and employee benefits, contests and sweepstakes, applications, the performance of internal staff groups, training and meeting evaluations as well as seminar and product registrations. .
SelfSurveys can be used for a point in time (snapshot) project or for an ongoing (longitudinal) project.
SelfSurveys does not support email surveys.
What differentiates SelfSurveys from the competition?
Ease and speed of use SurveyWIZ™ was designed to save you time and get your survey up and running as soon as possible.
Price-fixed Survey Packages - you will know exactly what the project will cost before you start. You only pay for the surveys you conduct. There are no set-up or ongoing maintenance fees.
Competitive Pricing - SelfSurveys is one of the best values in the survey research business
Foreign Languages - SelfSurveys has created a unique multi language design that allows you to conduct Surveys in other languages.
Support for Mobile Devices (Pocket PC) - you can conduct surveys at off-site locations, conduct surveys and track the results of ongoing surveys while out of the office.
What are the equipment requirements?
There is only one requirement: a computer with an Internet connection and a web browser.
Can someone help me create my very first survey?
Absolutely! We want your very first experience with SelfSurveys to be as great as the twenty-fifth. If you would like us to walk you through the process, contact us. We provide the highest levels of service and support to you and are always happy to help (at no extra charge).
What about security?
SelfSurveys is completely secure. The web site and databases are password protected, hidden safely behind appropriate firewalls, and encryption during data transfer is available using secure socket layers (SSL). All your data, your participant’s data and your survey data are confidential. SelfSurveys never sells nor provides any data to any third party.
Please see our Privacy Statement, and Terms and Conditions of Use Statement for more information.
How much does it cost?
SelfSurveys.com SurveyWIZ™ tools are available to you free of charge. In order to conduct a survey, you must have opened a SelfSurveys account. You pay per survey, there are no set-up costs or ongoing maintenance fees.
We have 3 or 4 people in the company/dept. interested in SelfSurveys. Can multiple people use the same account?
The results of your surveys can be shared freely among all users, but each SelfSurveys account is designed for a single user.
How long does it take to get a survey online?
Your survey can be online within minutes. Enter your questions and answers quickly and easily using our DesignerWIZ™. Choose your options and customize your survey with your logo. Preview your survey, make any necessary corrections, then activate your survey instantly, store it or schedule it for a specific time. You are in control; there is no need to wait for anyone.
What skills do I need to use DesignerWIZ™?
No programming skill is required. Any user, novice or expert, familiar with standard Microsoft Office-style software can create professional looking surveys with our easy-to-use DesignerWIZ™.
No survey design skills are needed. DesignerWIZ™ offers a large library of survey templates to assist you in creating surveys. In addition, you also have access to a library of your own questions from the SelfSurveys you have already created.
Can I conduct a survey in Spanish/French/German?
Yes. SelfSurveys supports the full Windows ANSI character set. You can also translate all labels used in the documents, such as the Other Specify blanks and statistical labels.
Is it possible to create custom help text for questions?
Yes. You can customize help text for every question within your survey.
How many questions can I include per survey?
As many as you need. With SelfSurveys you can ask an unlimited number of questions. Although, the ideal length is no more than thirty (30).
How easy is it to modify and customize surveys?
DesignerWIZ™ enables you to quickly and easily change any question/response at any time.
Does SelfSurveys have a library?
Yes! Our Library of documents includes complete survey templates with
questions and answers, survey design 101, the do’s and don’ts of online surveys, suggestions for writing great email invitations, the surveys you already created using SelfSurveys and a list and description of the available question types
Can more than one-person work on the same survey file at a time?
Yes, although the rule "last change wins" applies.
How do I invite people to take the survey?
You can send an e-mail invitation to the people who you want to participant. Included in the email is a hyperlink to a unique URL that SelfSurvey provides. You can also provide a link from your website or banner.
Can I create a survey and post it to my own web site?
Yes. You can create a frameset and host the survey in one of the frames.
How do you restrict access to a survey?
When we host your survey on our servers, we provide you with a unique URL to display the survey. This URL will not be provided to any other person or entity, but we will provide your survey to any web browser requesting your unique URL.
If a participant loses connection or discontinues taking the survey online, will partial responses be captured?
Yes, if the connection is lost, or if the participant discontinues during the process of taking the survey the data already collected will not be lost.
If an ISP disconnects the respondent from a web survey hosted by SelfSurveys, can the respondent log back in & pick up where they left off?
No, this functionality is not supported by SelfSurveys. The customer would have to take the survey over from the beginning if connection is lost.
Does SelfSurveys allow a participant to complete a survey and then come back and change the responses on another day?
No. Once the participant completes a survey and submits it the survey is closed.
Can I see the results in real-time?
Yes. You can monitor the status of your survey online from your computer anytime, anywhere, with easy-to-read reports. Or simply export the data to Excel or your favorite statistics package for further analysis.
What reporting capability does ReporterWIZ™ have?
ReporterWIZ™ quickly delivers professional looking charts you can deliver directly to your client. You can also export your data to many popular file formats – Excel, Word, or XML. Advanced users can also use their favorite statistics package to analyze the data.
Features of ReporterWIZ™
Survey Participation Trend
Cross Tabulations
Bar Charts
Publish reports to a Web browser
Analyze reports with Microsoft Excel
Export reports to XML Format (XML) or Comman Separated Values (CSV)
Why conduct an online survey?
It is cheapest and fastest way to conduct a survey. It is scalable, can handle the smallest to the largest survey population.
When is an online survey appropriate?
When you need to know now. When you have a limited number of questions to ask ( ideally not more than thirty). When a representative sample of potential participants have online access. When you have an email list of opted-in potential survey participants. When you want to survey your employees or site visitors.When the information you need can be collected from a self-directed survey.
When is an online survey inappropriate?
When the people you want to survey; are not online, have not given you their email addressses or have not opted-in to do surveys. When the survey is too long, the subject is inappropriate to do online, or the type of information you need will not be provided by an online survey.
How quickly do people respond to an online survey?
Within 72 hours of an email invitation the vast majority of your potential participants will have completed the survey. An email reminder will encourage some, but not many more people to respond. If you rely on the participation of site visitors the number of participants will be determined by your traffic
How do I write a great email invitation?
- Use your letterhead/logo
- Keep it short and simple
- Address it to a specific person
- Leave out extraneous details
- Make it interesting
- At the very beginning state why you are conducting this survey and how it will help the participant
- Consider an incentive i.e., free product, sweepstake for cash or a product with a recognized value, a donation to a non-profit, share some of the results.
- Specify the deadline for completing the survey-encourage them to do it now
- Provide a contact person and email address
- Thank them for their participation
Do...
- Have a clear, single-minded, objective in mind (and Written down) for conducting the survey
- Write a great invitation, that grabs the attention of potential participants and encourages them to participate
- Keep the survey short and simple; use words that quickly communicate with the intended participants.
- Thank the participant for taking the survey
- Provide a contact person and an email address
- Be sensitive to the feelings and abilities of the participants
Don’t...
- Use SPAM too invite people to participate in a study
- Burden the participant with “nice to know “ questions
- Use technical terms, jargon, abbreviations, unusual phrases, or acronyms unless they are absolutely necessary to communicate with the participant
- Abuse your customers or visitors with too many surveys or surveys that are too long
First - Identify your objective
- Write down why you are doing this survey…to answer a question, to address an issue, solve a problem, to make a decision. Be very specific and clear about your objective
- The narrower the scope the more successful you will be in meeting the objective.
Second - Decide what information you need and from whom
- Write down the information you need to meet the survey objectives.
- When you have this information will you be any better off than you are now? If yes, go ahead, if not, rethink, redirect, reconsider your options.
- Identify who has the information you need.
- Determine the best way to collect the information. (An internet survey is not always the best approach)
Third - Create the survey instrument.
- Use simple straightforward and unambiguous questions.
- Make sure the words you use have the same meaning for everyone taking the survey
- Make sure when you provide the answers they are complete, mutually exclusive and fit with the question.
- Be careful when it comes to asking questions that some may feel is an invasion of their privacy.
- Make sure the questions are not biased or leading.
- Make sure the questions are placed in an order that makes sense. Start with some general questions then drill down to the specifics. Place the demographic questions at the end of the survey.
- Correct grammar and sentence construction may not produce the best questions. Try using “conversational” English.
- Group like questions together.
- Strive for the minimum number of questions necessary to collect the requisite information.
- Use a variety of question types
- Keep the number of open-end/verbatim questions to a minimum.
- Use drop-down boxes to save space
- Use grid style questions to group similar questions with the same responses
- Use “Other, please specify” instead of just adding “other” to your list of responses
- Don’t ask a question about future intentions and expect the answer to be projectable.
- Don’t expect people to remember details about some experience they had more than a week or so ago.
- Some questions are best asked indirectly
- Do not have two thoughts in one question.
- Consider placing an open-end comment question at the very end of the survey to capture relevant information the participant has, but you have not asked about.
Fourth - Test the Survey
- Test the completed survey against the information objectives. Add questions that are needed and remove those that are not.
- Put yourself in the place of the survey participants, do the questions make sense, can you answer them exactly as they are written and without any of the information you are privy to?
- Pretest the completed survey with 10 people who have not been involved in the survey process, and are similar to those that will be answering the survey on the web.
- Revise the survey and if necessary pretest it again
Interactive Marketing Research Organization (IMRO)
708 Third Avenue, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10017
1-800-447-0927
www.imro.org
info@imro.org
Council of American Survey Research Organizations (CASRO)
3 Upper Devon
Port Jefferson, New York 11777
(631) 928-6954
Fax: (631) 928-6041
www.casro.org
casro@casro.org
Marketing Research Association (MRA)
1344 Silas Deane Hwy., Suite 306
P.O. Box 230
Rocky Hill, CT 06067-0230
860-257-4008
Fax: 860-257-3990
www.mra_net.org
email@mra-net.org
American Marketing Association (AMA)
311 S. Wacker Dr.
Suite 5800
Chicago, IL 60606
(800) AMA-1150
(312) 542-9000
Fax: (312) 542-9001
www.ama.org
Marketing Research: An Aid to Decision Making
by Alan T. Shao
Find out how marketing research processes and results lead to marketing decisions that affect your customers--and you--with Marketing Research: An Aid to Decision-Making. This text teaches you the important issues and methods involved in conducting marketing research and using the findings to manipulate the marketing mix to meet your customers' needs. Reviews of statistics and key marketing concepts help you brush up on the basics as you learn more about marketing research tools and uses. A strong Internet focus keeps you in touch with the latest in marketing research technologies, helping you learn to use the Web to gather market research data more quickly and efficiently, and Excel exercises allow you to hone your skills at using this common spreadsheet application for marketing research..
Survey Research and the World Wide Web
by Dale Nesbary
Survey Research and the World Wide Web helps readers learn how to construct a survey or use the Web as a medium for targeting and surveying well-focused populations. The authors provide readers with specific approaches for collecting representative data from a variety of groups, populations and resources as well as practical, straightforward exercises that include numerous examples. Step-by-step instructions are provided to guide readers to accomplish each activity and screen shots and real-life vignettes highlighting the application if concepts and programs discussed in the text. This book is not a technical manual on how to program HTML or master Microsoft FrontPage, rather it is designed to help readers become proficient at using Web survey research tools. For anyone interested in building web research skills..
The Art of Asking Questions
By Stanley Payne
Out of Print. If you can find a used copy buy it. A copy should be on every survey writers bookshelf. A basic guide for constructing questions that work.
Marketing Research Essentials
by Carl McDaniel and Roger Gates
This text provides succinct coverage of marketing research with a managerial orientation. Designed for classroom instruction, it condenses core material into 15 chapters, allowing for easy integration of outside research projects. New features for the second edition include updated international features, as well as the application of new technologies. Use of the Internet in conducting marketing research will be highlighted throughout the text with a full chapter devoted to this contemporary issue. This book is a handy guide to marketing research that no marketing professional should be without.
AMA Handbook for Customer Satisfaction:
Complete Guide to Research, Planning, and Implementation
by Alan F. Dutka
AMA Handbook for Customer Satisfaction unlocks the secrets to planning and implementing a comprehensive customer satisfaction program-the linchpin of any effective marketing operation in the 1990s and beyond. A marketing guide with examples from large companies including Burger King and Baxter Healthcare Corp. Covers planning customer satisfaction research, designing questionnaires, conducting surveys, analyzing the results, applying the results, and maintaining customer satisfaction.
How to Conduct Your Own Survey
by Priscilla Salant and Don A. Dillman
"How to Conduct Your Own Survey" gives readers everything they need to do it themselves. Without any prior training, they can learn expert techniques for conducting accurate, low-cost surveys. In step-by-step language, Priscilla Salant and Don. A. Dillman provide the tools readers need.
The Survey Research Handbook: Guidelines and Strategies for Conducting a Survey
by Pamela L. Alreck and Robert B. Settle
Survey research is a very powerful way to acquire information focused directly and immediately on the decisions and problems of today and tomorrow. The second edition of The Survey Research Handbook provides the methods and guidelines for conducting practical, economical surveys from start to finish.
How to Conduct Surveys: A Step by Step Guide
by Arlene Fink and Jacqueline B. Kosecoff
Guides readers in developing their own rigorous surveys and evaluating the credibility of other surveys, with practical advice and instructions. This second edition is completely revised to reflect changes such as computer-assisted and interactive surveys, and gives guidelines on preparing informed consent statements for survey respondents and for asking sensitive questions about ethnicity, income, and gender. Other new topics include translating surveys to other languages, reading computer output containing survey results, and using new survey data analysis techniques such as odds rations, relative risks, and confidence intervals. Includes guidelines on preparing reports and giving oral presentations, as well as examples, exercises and answers, and appendices on performing technical computations. Useful for self-paced instruction, workshops, and formal classrooms.
Asking Questions
by Seymour Sudman and Norman M. Bradburn
The authors describe the entire process of questionnaire design from start to finish. They show how to determine information needed, phrase questions to minimize bias and distortion, obtain and use successful questions from existing questionnaires, control level of threat in questions, order questions to encourage response, select the best method of administration, adapt questions and format to method of administration, test and validate the completed questionnaire, and evaluate and review the questionnaire for improved results.