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Survey software allows for effective design and management of online polls, surveys, and questionnaires for market research, gathering staff feedback, measuring customer satisfaction, and many other applications.
The first online questionnaire and survey software tools were more traditional tools with anonymous respondents, and a long list of questions and could only be accessed on the computer. Since website feedback emerged, however, online survey software tools have evolved and continued being popular for online marketers.
Being easy to use and a great way to continue communication with a targeted audience while collecting important feedback is another reason why they remained so popular. When shopping around for survey research software, it's important you know what features to look for.
Here are seven survey research software buying tips:
1. Design
Choose survey research software that provides you with over 100 question variations. It should support advanced question types as well like:
• Rating
• Constant sum
• File upload
• Matrices
Each question type should have options to sort and randomize answers and define validation rules. You'll want the ability to be able to design your survey with features like:
• Text piping
• Conditional logic
• Parameter substitution
• Branching and skipping
• Answer generation
2. Distribution
Choose research online survey software with a built-in robust email engine where you'll have the ability to send invitations and track the responses you get with delivery rates. You'll want the ability to organize your contacts in your address book with distribution lists you can import from Excel or Outlook. You'll also want the ability to post a link of your survey in your social media accounts or website or be able to embed it directly into your web page.
3. Management
When looking for survey research software, you'll want to choose one that's powerful, but simple to use. It should have a modern feel and look to it and come with a rich text editor for formatting and styling your survey questions and text. You should also have the ability to administer assessments as well as use a scoring engine for calculating scores and displaying them with informative interpretations.
4. Internationalize
You'll want to be able to create your online survey in any language you want. The survey software should come with a built-in spell checker as well that accommodates any language and spots difficult to find errors. You should be able to switch languages at any time and not affect your data. You should also be able to customize the validation messages your respondents will see.
5. Branding
Choose survey research software that will provide you with survey templates already professionally designed or that provide you with the ability to create any design you want through the use of a simple template editor. You should be able to:
• Use different colors
• Use drop shadows
• Add your own logo
• Change the size and shape of buttons
• Change the fonts
• and more
You should also be able to generate special templates that work great on tablets, mobile devices, and touch screens.
6. Collaboration
The survey software you choose should allow you to create and manage a team of users that have various access levels through privileges and roles. You should be able to collect responses anonymously or associate them with contacts in your address book. SSL encryption should be in place to secure all communication and keep it safe.
7. Leveraging
You should be able to copy and reuse anything you create in your survey tool, like pages, surveys, visual elements, and templates. It should have separate libraries for you to store your questions. You can share these libraries with other users of your organization or you can reuse the questions in the libraries for future surveys.
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