On-line Surveys and Questionnaires

In less than a decade the Internet came and conquered the world. Whereas up to now the developed world has benefited from new expertise for years before it would eventually filter through to the undeveloped world, the Internet has turned out to be a leveller. By being available to all it has introduced something new, or been responsible for changing the way certain things are done.

An example of something new would be E-bay, that has brought sellers and buyers together in a manner that was not possible to do before; an example of a revolutionised process would be in conducting surveys and questionnaires.

There are very few people who would ever argue against the benefits of a survey when they are used to determine the level of customer or employee satisfaction, gauge public opinion or provide market research.

However, historically the reason that questionnaires were used sparingly was that the effort required to create the survey in the first place was cumbersome, and the effort and cost needed to disseminate the customer satisfaction surveys survey, gather the results and then analyse the results were rarely insignificant.

For a lot of people, the results, irrespective of how useful they proved, were typically tinged with a 'never again' feeling having experienced the quantity of effort that used to be required.

Then along came the Internet to revolutionise the process.

Preparation

Though a word-processor holds untold benefits over paper and pen for normal writing and correspondence, when it comes to something particular like preparing and designing a survey it is to some degree as practical as using a wet fish.

It can be accomplished, in the same way as a hammer can be used with a screw, it is far from ideal. Word-processors are good for correspondence, documentation and general writing; spreadsheets are perfect for dealing with numbers and on-line questionnaire websites are ideal for creating questionnaires.

With a web-based questionnaire web site questionnaires can be created, designed and easily modified using any browser through the use of fast and easy interfaces. All the difficult formatting is taken care of as, unlike a word-processor, the questionnaire software knows all there is to know about surveys and questionnaires.

Distribution

The Internet is the most effective form of global communication known to man. Gone are the days of printing hardcopy questionnaires, stuffing them into envelopes and mailing them, all costly and time consuming. With the net questionnaire once created they're good to go usually by sending the hyperlink to the questionnaire in an electronic mail or by establishing a hyperlink to the survey on an internet site; processes that are both rapid and just about free.

Collating

Where as in the past completed surveys and questionnaires needed to be posted back and then collated by entering the information into a database either manually or by utilizing some type of optical reader, on-line questionnaires update the database in real-time.

The Internet has revolutionised the entire process and in doing so has made something that was considered useful, but expensive and cumbersome, into a resource that is so fast and simple that questionnaires can be utilized to deliver advantages to many other everyday areas.

With questionnaire websites the boundaries to conducting surveys and questionnaires have been torn down. Now they provide a cost effective and easy resource that's open to not only the small charity and local community group but additionally the biggest of the world's multi-nationals.

No longer are geographical borders of any concern a questionnaire can now be published to the entire world as simply and for a similar cost as a local or internal group.

Easier to Test

In addition, questionnaires can now be easily tested from start to finish to make sure that not only is the survey straightforward for the respondents to complete but in addition that the information gathered is in the proper format to provide the required intelligence.

Easier to Complete

No longer is there the need to ask respondents to skip specific questions based on their earlier responses, with on-line surveys and questionnaires you only need to ask respondents the questions that are related to them as based on their answers irrelevant questions can be skipped with the respondent automatically being directed to the next relevant question.

Partially Completed surveys

Prior to online surveys if a respondent didn't totally complete a survey they would rarely bother sending the partially completed questionnaire back. With on-line surveys there isn't a problem as the data is collated in real time so information from partially completed surveys can still be counted.

In short on-line survey websites have revolutionised the world of surveys and questionnaires.

In summary on-line questionnaires are quick, they're easy and they are cost effective.