Survey Software User Guide: What You Need to Know

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Survey Software User Guide: What You Need to Know qualitative data
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In the research landscape teeming with options, choosing the right survey software demands careful consideration. The right platform can help you gather insightful data efficiently, streamline the data collection, and enable you to make informed decisions. 

This guide aims to help you navigate the ever-evolving landscape of survey tools. Whether you are a seasoned researcher aiming to uncover business opportunities or a data-driven decision-maker, this survey software user guide will help you select the platform that aligns with your research needs. 

What is a survey software?

Survey software enables businesses to create surveys, share them over various channels, and collect and analyze the gathered feedback to uncover insights. Such a platform helps you gain a holistic understanding of customer experience, perception, and satisfaction. By leveraging multiple channels, you can reach a broader audience across the world and gather diverse feedback. 

At the end of 2021, the survey software market experienced a 12% CAGR. Mobile usage enables researchers to target wider respondents, thus enhancing the usage and appeal of survey software.

Survey software not only helps you understand your customer’s satisfaction but also gathers insights on new opportunities, unexplored markets, competitive landscape, and more. In today’s dynamic world, the platform empowers you to gather the right data you need to make informed-decisions at the right time. 

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Survey Software User Guide: What You Need to Know qualitative data

What are the types of survey software?

While discussing the discerning functionalities of the survey platform, in this survey software user guide, we’ll identify the three key types. 

1. Online survey tools:

An online survey tool is a dedicated data collection platform that gathers data across online channels. The tool allows you to share your survey link via email, website pop-up, SMS, and social media, allowing respondents to share feedback over their preferred channel.  

Read how Frost & Sullivan conducted 100k surveys across 300 industries annually with Voxco.

2. Telephone survey tools:

Telephone data collection leverages CATI, IVR, and dialers, empowering agents to reach respondents over the phone and gather data. The robust platform increases research efficiency and agents’ productivity by automating the dialing method and connecting agents with live humans. 

Read how ReconMR raised productivity by 40 % & scaled to 5 call centers with Voxco.

3. Mobile offline survey tools:

A mobile-offline survey tool is a bridge between the traditional pen-and-paper survey and modern technology. Researchers can use a mobile device and personally reach out to individuals out on the field to gather their opinions. The platform enables you to reach isolated locations and individuals with no access to the internet. 

See how Siena College conducted 3M phone calls & 96 polls in 2.5 months for the 2018 US Mid-Term elections NYT Upshot Polls. 

Advantages of survey software

There are several benefits of leveraging the survey platform. In this user guide to survey platforms, we’ll explore the many advantages you will experience using the platform. 

Survey Software User Guide: What You Need to Know qualitative data

1. Ease of survey design: 

Modern, no-code survey platforms enable survey designers without prior experience to design professional surveys. The intuitive interface and easily accessible functionality allow you to design branded surveys, apply skip and branching logic, customize themes and navigation, and more to align survey design with your brand personality. 

2. Enhance customer’s survey experience: 

Leveraging multiple channels or modes to meet customers where they are. Modern-day survey platforms allow you to provide a more convenient and personalized survey experience to your target respondent population. 

3. Centralize data gathering: 

Survey software ensures systematic and centralized data collection. Whether you collect data from email or SMS, you can gain a holistic view of all data. This lowers the risk of losing data and makes the data analysis process much easier and faster. 

4. Increase survey reach and response rates: 

The convenience of multiple channels makes it easy to reach a larger population across geographical borders and gather diverse insights. The platform enables you to send survey links via email, social media, website pop-ups, and social media, depending on the research need. 

5. Design respondent friendly surveys: 

As a part of the user guide for survey platforms, it’s important to mention that the software is as beneficial to the respondent’s survey experience as it is to researchers. The tool helps you design mobile-responsive surveys, enabling participants to complete the survey on their preferred devices at their own pace. 

 

It also empowers you to give respondents the opportunity to take the survey anonymously, thus ensuring data integrity. 

6. Cost-effective: 

The platform streamlines every step of the research process—survey creation, distribution, data collection, and analysis—and offers all functionality in one platform, leading to cost savings. It bypasses manual work and the need for multiple tools and integrates all information into one software, leading to higher productivity and operational efficiency. 

7. Data security:

A robust survey software also adheres to high-standard security and compliances, ensuring research integrity and authenticity. It safeguards gathered data from breach and misuse. 

Voxco’s Guide to Buying the Best Survey Software for Market Research.

In this guide, you’ll learn: 

  • How to decide what type of survey software might fit your team?
  • What features to look out for when you’re making a purchase decision?

What are the features you should look for in a survey platform?

What functionalities and features you should be looking at when filtering the options for the best fit is an important discussion in the survey software user guide. 

1. Intuitive survey builder: 

Most intuitive survey tools offer a drag-and-drop interface to design the survey. The platform should be easy to navigate and should enable even an inexperienced survey designer to create the survey. The navigation should convey the functionalities clearly. 

2. Multiple question types: 

To design an interactive survey, you must use multiple question types. Most platforms will offer you the basic question types like rating, ranking, drop-down, and multiple choice. It’s best also to have access to question types like sliders, drag-and-drop, image choice, multi-media, NPS, text highlighter, carousel, and more to design an interactive and visually appealing questionnaire. 

3. Answering conditions:

Additionally, in our survey software user guide we must also mention to search for answering conditions. Features like answer required, choice randomization, hide/show answer options, and answer piping can help you personalize the survey.  

4. Skip logic & branching:

A good platform will enable you to design a personalized survey experience using skip logic and branching. With question and page skip logic, branching, and advanced logic, ask respondents questions that apply to their experience based on the responses they give. 

Ask relevant questions to gather relevant and accurate answers. 

5. White-labeling:

Your surveys are also part of the brand experience you offer. Its best to align the survey design with brand personality to enhance brand awareness in the minds of respondents. Customize your survey with the brand logo, color palette, fonts, and survey URL. Design a personalized “thank-you” page, customize themes, and more. 

A robust solution should also enable you to leverage CSS customization to code your own design elements in the visuals of the survey.  

6. Multiple survey distribution channels:

Survey distribution channels are a key factor that you must consider as a part of the survey software user guide. Ensure the platform supports various channels like email, SMS, social media, and website to allow respondents to take the survey in their preferred channel. It should also integrate the data collected from each channel centrally for a holistic view of the survey findings. 

7. Automated survey translation:

Take an extra step in personalizing the survey experience by translating the survey into your audience’s language. Whether you want feedback from your current customers or from a new market, reach out to them in a language they speak to encourage participation and gather meaningful feedback. 

 

Reach out to global audiences, design inclusive surveys, and gather feedback from various geographical backgrounds to discover unique perspectives. 

8. Secured data collection: 

Ensure the survey software helps you gather data securely. Anonymous surveys and password-protected surveys are two essential features that will help you maintain data integrity and lower the risk of fraud, all the while assuring respondents of securely storing their data. 

9. Market research panel: 

It is not always possible to gather data from the entire population. Moreover, often, due to the lack of time and resources, sampling the target market may not be feasible. This is where a market research panel comes to help. 

A research panel gives you access to diverse respondents willing to take the survey and provide accurate data. The panel includes vetted and verified respondents, where you can further screen and select the survey sample as per the characteristics of the target market. 

One-stop-shop to gather, measure, uncover, and act on insightful data.

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10. Statistical data analysis: 

As we provide you with the user guide for survey platforms, you must consider the two key tools a modern integrated survey software should offer – robust analytics and reporting. 

Data analysis is a standard functionality that every software should offer you. Ensure the platform offers cross-tabulations, filtering, weighting, and other basic statistical analysis methods. 

11. Text and sentiment analysis: 

Sometimes, statistical data requires textual context to create a comprehensive understanding of the findings, such as NPS surveys. Leverage our text and sentiment analysis to gain an understanding of respondent’s sentiments and identify recurring topics. Uncover the reason for churn or dissatisfaction and find the key to loyalty and satisfaction. 

12. Interactive dashboards:

Dashboards are an effective way to convey the story that data tells you. It helps you highlight the key points and saves time from reading through pages of data. Leverage a survey platform that offers dynamic dashboards. 

Voxco offers multiple dashboards to make survey reporting and decision-making easy, such as the NPS dashboard, Text highlighter dashboard, and Text analysis dashboard. 

13. Secured platform:

As a user guide for survey platforms, we cannot miss out on mentioning the importance of a secured platform. Look for survey software that takes precautions to prevent unauthorized access. The platform should offer MFA (Multi-faction authentication) and SSO (Single sign-on). Also, ensure that the platform complies with security protocols like GDPR. 

14. Flexibility:

Does the survey tool offer flexibility in terms of the mode of data collection? In today’s world, while a huge part of the target market has access to mobile devices and the internet, there still remains quite a lot of people who prefer a phone call. 

Look for a platform that helps you customize the mode of data collection based on the preferences of your target respondents. Voxco allows you to integrate the Online, Telephone, and Mobile-Offline tools as per your requirements. 

When can you use survey software?

The survey software breaks down into multiple niches targeting various industry vertices like retail, financial services, market research, social research, healthcare, and more. To make it easy for you to determine how you can implement the software, we will explore some use cases in our user guide for survey platforms. 

1. Market research:

Survey software helps market researchers gather insights into consumer preferences, market trends, and the competitive business landscape. It helps you identify opportunities for innovations, pain points, customer needs, and expectations. 

Explore uncharted markets or dig deep into your current market, leverage survey software to gather data from consumers in real-time about the current trends influencing customer behavior. 

2. Healthcare research: 

In healthcare, survey platforms play a pivotal role in patient satisfaction assessments, patient experience, and healthcare organization expectations. Surveys help you gauge how patients feel about the services, treatments, and effectiveness of medical interventions. They also help you understand how you can enhance patient care, increase communication, and deliver patient expectations. 

3. Social research: 

In the realm of social research, survey platform is instrumental in gathering public opinions and conducting exit and opinion polls. Social research firm uses surveys to assess impact of policies, gauge public trusts, and tailor campaigns to specific demographics. 

4. Retail: 

For retail industry, survey software helps refine marketing strategy, optimize shopping experience, and meet customer expectations and needs. Retailers can gather first-hand feedback to evaluate product offerings, enhance customer’s shopping experiences, and tailoring personalized brand experience. 

Voxco helps 450+ global brands to gather, measure, uncover, and act on valuable insights.

See how we can enhance your research efficiency.

Conclusion

Survey software empowers you to reach your target audience, gather data directly from them, and make them a part of the business operations. The platform gives you the opportunity to gather accurate and reliable data that contributes to business growth and tailored strategies.  

 

  1. Look for a survey platform that enables you to design and distribute surveys, as well as collect and analyze data. 
  2. Choose software that automates manual tasks, increasing efficiency and productivity. 
  3. Look for a platform that streamlines the survey process without having too much of a learning curve or being too tech-heavy. 

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