The Decision-Making Process for Selecting an Internet Survey Software Tool
Posted by cemiller on April 19, 2008
Finally, how should you go about selecting a web survey tool?
Determine Your Needs. This should seem obvious, but it’s not. I’ve worked with companies where senior managers have become enamored with Survey Monkey, Zoomerang, or some other product because they had experienced a survey as a respondent from some tool. It shows great marketing! But when I ask them if they know if SurveyMonkey will meet their requirements for their survey, the tone of the response told me to back off. The basic tools, including Survey Monkey, have limitations.
How to determine your needs? Develop your survey questionnaire in a rigorous fashion, discussing the role of the survey in your organizational process, and being sure that the survey properly captures the true concerns of the respondent group and not what management thinks are the concerns of the respondent group. The questionnaire along with various administration requirements will become your requirements statement.
Cost Comparison. Cost comparisons can be difficult since each survey software company may use its own pricing algorithm. Pricing may be driven by the number of survey projects, the number of responses to a specific survey, the number of invitations sent for a survey, or the number of questions in a survey. Also, the features you want may drive you to a higher-level package or customization. Create your expected scenario of how you will use the survey software and look at the price.
Take a Test Drive. All of the tools — or all that you should consider — will allow you to download or use the software. Some will let you execute a survey project, limiting the number of respondents’ data in the database or some other limitation. Definitely take a test drive. Two products may compare well on price and features, but check out their ease of use. You’ll be driving this car. Wouldn’t you like to know how comfortable the seats are for a long trip?
In summary, online survey software tools can make the job of conducting survey research much easier and less expensive. When selecting a particular tool, you have many factors to consider. The most important factor is your level of knowledge of good survey research practices. Without that, you may well be driving blindly without knowing you’re blind. (I’ll give a final plug for my Survey Design and Survey Data Analysis Workshops.)
