This holiday season, the support team here at Alchemer decided to get together and put a bag of goodies together for you, our awesome customers. It’s our way of saying thank you for your loyal support throughout the year! We have compiled a list of the top 5 tips for maximizing our application’s unique features and avoiding unnecessary confusion and support time. Happy Holidays!

Discover Our Help Documents  

You might be surprised to learn how many help documents we have online for you if you start searching for any topic. We have hundreds of public-facing documents covering all aspects of our application. A simple search could lead you to an article where you will find just the clarity you need on any subject. You can either use our application’s search feature, by clicking ‘Help’ at the top of the application, or  Google our documents by searching for ‘Alchemer’ and your topic of inquiry. Keep your search simple, and you will be surprised how many documents we have posted for you. Happy hunting! 

Batch Your Email Campaigns 

While we encourage you to send your survey to as many contacts as necessary, we highly recommend separating large groups of contacts into different campaigns. This will help prevent delays and other unnecessary hiccups in the life of your survey campaign. Large lists of contacts, for instance, larger than 10k, may encounter loading and exporting issues which can be easily prevented with the use of several campaigns with smaller batches of contacts. To make this simple, you can easily copy the campaign from the share tab, then add another one of the smaller lists of contacts. 

Look into SMTP, DKIM, SPF 

Through many cases, we have found that SPF/DKIM problems are typically fixed by changes in our customer’s domain record, and other factors that we have no control over. We can only provide general suggestions to assist improper setups or records, other than what is listed on our public documentation. You can save time and get to a solution ASAP by working with your IT team more closely or looking over our setup instructions again.  

Play with Other Options in Reports 

While the Standard Report offers a number of style options for you to completely control the look and feel of the report, you may at times need more options to create the report of your dreams. This is why we added the Insert tool, available between any two elements in your Standard Report, to easily add new elements to the report. You can use this to add a Question, Text, Image, Summary Elements, and Tables. Additionally, we have included the following elements as options for your reports: Response Map, Device Chart, Response Counts, Response Timeline, Email Statistics, DIY Grid/Cards, Quotes, Email Invite/Contact Fields, and Crosstab.  

Know the Difference between Preview and Test Mode 

While we encourage the use of all of our test mode features, we believe it is important to note certain key factors and limitations while doing so. Firstly, when in preview mode, please note the adjustable settings at the top of the page, especially the ‘Ignore Page Logic’ and ‘Fire Actions’ buttons. Please do not ignore these settings, as they will need to be adjusted appropriately in order to accurately preview your survey’s functionality. On a related note, you will always want to test your logic setups thoroughly before launching your survey to ensure satisfactory design and function.   

While the test function in email campaigns works well to test your email’s design, there may be some small differences in the look of the actual email. Always run a final test of your email campaign by adding yourself or team members as contacts and firing the campaign before sending it to your intended audience.  

We hope these tips help you get the most out of your Alchemer solution, and we are here to help you along the way! You can submit a support request by email any time of day or night. And for those with premium support, you can reach us by phone Monday to Friday from 6 AM to 6 PM Mountain Time (or 6 AM to 6 PM for .eu accounts). Learn more about our support offerings here.   

The post Holiday Support Tips appeared first on Alchemer.

Each one has its strengths and weaknesses, and which category is right for you will depend on what kind of data you are collecting and what kind of insights you need to glean from the results.

Let’s take a look at longitudinal and cross-sectional studies and when they work best for business.

What is the Definition of a Longitudinal Study?

A longitudinal study occurs over many touch points across an extended period of time. They are usually observational in nature. By observational, we mean that the survey makers are not interfering with the subjects or survey respondents.

The most important distinction between longitudinal and cross-sectional studies, for our purposes, is the timeline. Instead of a researcher collecting data from varying subjects in order to study the same variables, the same subjects are surveyed multiple times, in some cases, over the course of many years.

Many medical studies are longitudinal, following the same 100 individuals over the course of years.  Using the same subjects in a longitudinal study allows for measurable change over a period of time to be collected.

While popular for the medical and scientific communities, longitudinal studies can have big benefits for business.

With them, you can track and measure topics as varied as:

• Market trends
• Brand awareness
• Product feedback
• Customer satisfaction
• Employee engagement
• and much more

The Three Kinds of Longitudinal Studies

There are three distinct kinds of longitudinal studies. They are:

• Panel
• Cohort
• Retrospective

A panel study will involve a representative sample of subjects, usually found through a panel services company.

In contrast, a cohort study observes subjects that fall in a similar group or demographic based on shared characteristics. This could include region, age, or common experience.

A retroactive study takes advantage of historical data, often times in comparison to updated data.

What is a Cross-Sectional Study?

A cross-sectional study, the not-so-distant cousin to longitudinal, is intended to compare multiple population groups at a single point in time. Instead of collecting data over time on a single variable, a cross-section is framed, allowing a researcher to see differences among population subsets in several categories.

An example would be a study on the benefits of jogging. In this study, multiple measurements are taken like resting heart rate, body mass index,  and blood pressure. These would be taken all across groups of varying levels of exercise.

Researchers aren’t collecting data from a single subject over several years to learn about the effects of jogging, but from many subjects just once. This is often referred to as a ‘snapshot.’

Longitudinal and Cross-Sectional Studies: Advantages and Disadvantages

The key advantage to longitudinal studies is the ability to show the patterns of a variable over time. This is one powerful way in which we come to learn about cause-and-effect relationships. Depending on the scope of the study, longitudinal observation can also help to discover “sleeper effects” or connections between different events over a long period of time; events that might otherwise not be linked.

There are, of course, drawbacks to longitudinal studies, panel attrition being one of them. If you are dependent on the same group of 2,000 subjects for a study that takes place once every year, for twenty years, obviously some of those subjects will no longer be able to participate, either due to death, refusal, or even changes in contact information and address. That cuts down on usable data you can draw conclusions from.

Another weakness is that while longitudinal data is being collected at multiple points, those observation periods are pre-determined and cannot take into account whatever has happened in between those touch points. A third disadvantage is the idea of panel conditioning, where over time, respondents can often unknowingly change their qualitative responses to better fit what they consider to be the observer’s intended goal. The process of the study itself has changed how the subject or respondent views the questions.

Cross-sectional studies aren’t perfect either. Because of their single survey nature, they aren’t fit to make conclusive observations about the direction of any given association between variables. However, the benefits could outweigh the narrow scope disadvantages for many businesses.

For one, cross-sectional studies are affordable when compared to a similar longitudinal study. With fewer touch points (no follow up), they are also much quicker in reaching an observational conclusion. Also, provided the sample size is carefully chosen, cross-sectional studies can be helpful in representing entire populations, rather than subsets. This can be very beneficial when considering policy changes.

Logintudinal Studies vs. Cross Sectional: Which is better?

Neither, really. It all depends on what you need for your business.

The idea behind both longitudinal and cross-sectional studies is, again, to create the best process in order to collect the most useful and actionable data. One is certainly not better than the other. They both serve a very important purpose, in different ways.

The deciding factor on which you use may be the number of variables you’re trying to study, the amount of time you have before published results are expected, your budget, or, perhaps most importantly, the nature of the event you’re studying.

Ready to get started with your own study? Start a trial at Alchemer.

The post What is a Longitudinal Study? appeared first on Alchemer.

Why Customer Experience Programs Miss Their Mark

A new Forrester Consulting study finds the vast majority of Customer Experience (CX) and Voice of the Customer (VoC) programs fail to respond to customer feedback. The key findings….. read more

Download the Report

Watch the Webinar

View other Alchemer webinars on BrightTALK

DEI&B

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEI&B) topics have recently come to the forefront of our thinking. But are you just checking a box or is your strategy truly adding value to your organization? Listen to this insightful Alchemer webinar to learn how to foster an inclusive and equitable working experience for your employees with a comprehensive and well-executed DEI&B strategy.

Complete this survey for more information on creating a DEIB framework.

Watch the webinar.

Learn how to write gender questions in a survey.

What’s New from Alchemer University?

Regardless of how much work and thought went into your project setup and launch, all that effort could fall flat without effective analysis and reports. Fortunately, Alchemer offers excellent reporting capabilities that often get overlooked.  

Check out the new courses.

Looking to Solve Something Else?  

You will find all of the Alchemer University courses in the Alchemer application at the bottom of the left-hand navigation menu.

Alchemer Panel Services

The Alchemer Panels team consists of seasoned professionals with deep expertise in finding the ideal audience, guiding clients in how to get the most from Panels, and ultimately, collecting the information and insights they need to make the best decisions possible. The team’s secret sauce is not just managing the mechanics of reaching your desired target audience quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively, which they do exceptionally well; but rather, ensuring that the data collected is clean, high-quality, and actionable.

We can help you and your business.

Vendor Security Risk Assessment Simplifies InfoSec

Running security risk assessments is one of the most thankless jobs in information security. Yet it’s necessary to keep your InfoSec process strong. The Alchemer Director of Compliance and Security walks us through managing risk, not questionnaires. Read more.

Tips & Tricks

Three Ways to Make Your Exports Easier to Read 

Exporting the data you collect in Alchemer to a CSV or Excel format can create some challenges when you try to sift through the exports to view your survey response data simply.

Fortunately, we have a few tips to help!

Thank you 

Thank you for reading our May newsletter. If you have an interesting story about using Alchemer, or want to provide feedback on this issue, please reach out to us by filling out this quick survey. Thank you for your business. 

The post May 2021 Monthly Insider appeared first on Alchemer.

Exporting the data you collect in Alchemer to a CSV or Excel format can create some challenges when you try to sift through the exports to view your survey response data simply. Fortunately, we have a few tips to help! 

In the example survey below the respondent answered the first two questions this way.

Problem:

The export generated for those questions will look like this:

However, this is not the easiest export to read for three reasons: 

1. Each column’s width needs to be expanded to view the complete question title. 
2. The question numbers aren’t visible.  Where does question one end and question two begin? 
3. The answers for the two checkbox questions are spread out across numerous columns. 

Solutions: 

1. Use an alias for the question titles. 

Using an alias for the question title replaces the title with a shorter name for the export. 

2. Customize the Header Format to Show Question Numbers. 

Customizing the Header to show question numbers enables those numbers to appear in the column headers. 

3. Select Show checkboxes as a Single Column. 

Selecting Show checkboxes as a single column will make all checkbox answers appear in one column.

To make the changes for steps two and three go to:  Results > Exports > CSV/Excel > Create Report > Settings.

Now when the export is run it will display like this: 

The question numbers and the aliases appear in the headers. The checkbox answer options selected are grouped together in one column. 

The post Three Ways to Make Your Exports Easier to Read appeared first on Alchemer.

While Alchemer has powerful built-in reporting features that are easy to use and present for most online surveys, NPS survey, and employee satisfaction surveys, when it comes to in-depth statistical analysis most researchers consider SPSS the best-in-class solution. 

SPSS is short for Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, and it’s used by various kinds of researchers for complex statistical data analysis. The SPSS software package was created for the management and statistical analysis of social science data. It was originally launched in 1968 by SPSS Inc., and was later acquired by IBM in 2009. 

Officially dubbed IBM SPSS Statistics, most users still refer to it as SPSS. As the world standard for social-science data analysis, SPSS is widely coveted due to its straightforward and English-like command language and impressively thorough user manual. 

SPSS is used by market researchers, health researchers, survey companies, government entities, education researchers, marketing organizations, data miners, and many more for processing and analyzing survey data, such as you collect with an online survey platform like Alchemer.

Most top research agencies use SPSS to analyze survey data and mine text data so that they can get the most out of their research and survey projects.

The Core Functions of SPSS

SPSS offers four programs that assist researchers with your complex data analysis needs.

Statistics Program

SPSS’s Statistics program provides a plethora of basic statistical functions, some of which include frequencies, cross-tabulation, and bivariate statistics.

Modeler Program

SPSS’s Modeler program enables researchers to build and validate predictive models using advanced statistical procedures.

Text Analytics for Surveys Program

SPSS’s Text Analytics for Surveys program helps survey administrators uncover powerful insights from responses to open-ended survey questions.

Visualization Designer

SPSS’s Visualization Designer program allows researchers to use their data to create a wide variety of visuals like density charts and radial boxplots from their survey data with ease.

In addition to the four programs mentioned above, SPSS also provides solutions for data management, which allow researchers to perform case selection, create derived data, and perform file reshaping. 

SPSS also offers data documentation, which allows researchers to store a metadata dictionary. This metadata dictionary acts as a centralized repository of information pertaining to the data, such as meaning, relationships to other data, origin, usage, and format.

There are a handful of statistical methods that can be leveraged in SPSS, including: 

• Descriptive statistics, including methodologies such as frequencies, cross-tabulation, and descriptive ratio statistics.
• Bivariate statistics, including methodologies such as analysis of variance (ANOVA), means, correlation, and nonparametric tests.
• Numeral outcome prediction such as linear regression.
• Prediction for identifying groups, including methodologies such as cluster analysis and factor analysis.

The Benefits of Using SPSS for Survey Data Analysis

Thanks to its emphasis on analyzing statistical data, SPSS is an extremely powerful tool for manipulating and deciphering survey data. 

Fun fact: The data from any online survey collected using Alchemer can be exported to SPSS for detailed analysis.

Exporting survey data from Alchemer to SPSS’s proprietary .SAV format makes the process of pulling, manipulating, and analyzing data clean and easy. Using the .SAV format, SPSS automatically sets up and imports the designated variable names, variable types, titles, and value labels, making the process much easier on researchers.

Once survey data is exported to SPSS, the opportunities for statistical analysis are practically endless. 

In short, remember to use SPSS when you need a flexible, customizable way to get super granular on even the most complex data sets. This gives you, the researcher, more time to do what you do best — identifying trends, developing predictive models, and drawing informed conclusions.  

For more information on the benefits of using SPSS to conduct survey data analysis, here are some helpful resources: 

• Alchemer’s SPSS Export Documentation
• Creating and Manipulating Survey Variables Using SPSS
• SPSS Variable and Value Totals: A Quick Tutorial
• SPSS Analysis Tips: The Temporary Command
• SPSS Expert: Recording States into Regions Using SPSS
• Converting Survey Variables with SPSS Syntax

The post What is SPSS and How Does it Benefit Survey Data Analysis? appeared first on Alchemer.

Alchemer Customer Engagement for Sales

Alchemer Customer Engagement for Sales is designed to help sales teams build hyper-personalized relationships with customers throughout the entire buyer’s journey. Susan McGovern, VP of Customer Value and Enablement, shares her thoughts in a recent interview and went more in depth in this webinar with SVP of Sales, Mary Beth Addison. 

• Watch the ACES Webinar 
• View other Alchemer webinars on BrightTALK 

Employee Centricity is Customer Centricity

It’s been a year since the pandemic arrived and we closed the Alchemer office in Boulder and sent everybody home. Over the last 12 months, everything about the workplace has changed. At Alchemer our customers are the center of our business. However, there’s an additional layer that’s part of that foundation – our employees. Alchemer’s VP of Human Resources, Heather Rollins, writes that fundamentally, employee centricity empowers employees to put the customer at the heart of every business decision.

Read More

What’s New from Alchemer University?

AU’s newest program includes seven courses to help you identify the best mix of distribution methods to reach multiple groups of respondents, increase response rates, and keep all the data in one project. Learn more.

Looking to Solve Something Else?  

You will find all of the Alchemer University Courses in the Alchemer app at the bottom of the left-hand navigation menu. 

Education and Research

Research is the foundation of many educational institutions, but if your survey solution doesn’t work across all your needs, you might be spending money you could use elsewhere. Alchemer offers many uses throughout campus, without giving up the centralized IT control your institution needs to protect respondents, students, faculty, staff, and alumni. Learn More.

Tips & Tricks
Employee Engagement – Anonymous Surveys by Department 

Employees are an important part of your business foundation and can provide critical insights impacting the bottom line. Whether you want a quick pulse check, or a more in-depth review, allowing your employees to provide their feedback anonymously is invaluable. Learn how to set up anonymity in your Alchemer surveys. Learn more.

Customer-Centric Extras

More in Employee and Customer Centricity:

• Get the Customer-Centric E-Guide
• Trends in Customer Centricity
• Employee Cenricity: Behind the scenes at Alchemer

The post Alchemer Monthly Insider, March appeared first on Alchemer.

Fortune 500 C-Suite: Yes, we’d all like to know what these people are thinking, but how many executives are willing to take a survey? The average CEO salary for a Fortune 500 company is $11.5 million per year, which means they make, on average, $5,529 an hour. They’re also responsible for more than 60,600 workers each. Yes, they make the big budget decisions, but finding the influencers below the C-suite is going to give you better insights into the decision-making process. 

For the record, trying to get 1000 respondents from Fortune 500 CIOs is technically impossible (it’s a math thing, 500 divided by 1000 is still 1/2, even with new math). 

Different Industries: You might want decision makers in a specific part of the company – HR, IT, Sales, Engineering – but you want them from different industries. The secret here is to ask the right question about where they work. Many people whose careers span different industries tend to believe they’re in the HR, IT, or Sales industry, and less so the airline, retail, or manufacturing industry. Many of your colleagues probably believe that they’re in the market research industry, even though they might work for a healthcare company. 

How you ask your question becomes very important here. What answers you accept is just as important. 

Non-Tech Audiences: It’s much easier and faster to find panelists who use a computer or smartphone all day at work. Targeting people who don’t takes more time. If you want to target people who don’t have a smartphone, you have to target respondents who only complete surveys on computers. If they’re answering on a smartphone, they already have one. 

By the way, you will not find gamers or influencers who don’t have smartphones. They just don’t exist. They might have had their phones taken away for misbehaving, but they still own one. 

Smartphones for Success: The percentage of people taking surveys on their mobile device is growing – so much so that about 70% of people are taking surveys on their mobile device now. If you want to reach more people, don’t restrict your survey to laptops or desktops. Especially if you want younger demographics (have you ever seen a student not on their phone?). 

Race is a Sensitive Subject: And it will continue to be for some time. However, it’s important to  remember that diversity is regional as well. You will find more Hispanic communities in the Southwestern U.S. than in the northern central states. Census-balancing nationwide will give you a racial profile that is 12.5% black, 18.7% Hispanic, 5.8% Asian, 2.3% multiple races, and 60.1% white, non-Hispanic. Asian populations increase dramatically in the Pacific Northwest, while black and Hispanic populations decline. You need to be aware of the diversity in the region you want to survey.  

Your Customers Aren’t Always Right: This is particularly true if you’re a niche player. Often companies come to us to sample a 50/50 split of current customers and people who haven’t but are in the market. This kind of research allows them to capture the most representative trends and developments in their market. Continually researching your customers exclusively biases your data and could bias your decision-making. Keep it fresh by reaching out to new people. It’s kind of like changing your socks. 

Very Specific Market with Very Broad Criteria: If you want to survey people who have bought sensible pumps and poodle skirts in the past six months are probably not going to be able to get responses from many middle-aged men in farming communities. At least not that many who will admit to it.  

Similarly, if you want people buy trucks – especially 18-wheelers – you’re probably not going to find a census-balanced respondent pool that includes yoga moms. You might have to open up your description of a truck to include SUVs or accept the people who do respond. Many companies find that their target market (truck drivers in this case, rockabilly fans in the prior instance) provide the best data.  

Also remember that different social standards travel with different generations. You might find that it’s easy to fill a panel with pot-smoking 50 and 60 year-olds, but more difficult when it comes to the 80+ age range.  

What You Can Do:  

1. Be flexible in juggling who you want to answer your survey and how long it might take to get them. We can find the people you want (in most cases); it just might cost more and take more time. Don’t expect to get 1200 responses from hard-to-find people in a couple of hours. It might take time to find them and get them to take the survey. 

2. Be realistic about how specific you get with your audience. Trying to find a book club that buys dinnerware and lives on Whiteheart Lane is going to take some time, if it’s even possible. It might be what your client or executive wants, but they will be easier to find by going door-to-door.  

3. Do a little research before proposing an audience. Out-of-work actors are pretty easy to find. Social-media CEOs are much fewer and harder to reach. Besides, they’re all dealing with who to ban and free-speech issues right now. A quick web search will show you that 10% of the global population is left-handed, but 13.1% of Americans. You’ll find that 6.1% of American children are being treated for ADHD while 4.4% of American adults struggle with it. Knowing a little about your market could help you form your survey and select the right audience. 

The post Fun with Filling Audience Panels appeared first on Alchemer.

Our name is Alchemer

We changed our name from SurveyGizmo to Alchemer. We’ve always been more than survey software and much more comprehensive than our name implied. We still offer surveys, but it is just part of what we provide. Alchemer makes you truly customer-centric, turning the voice of your customers into the right response from your organization. Read more

Webinar: Empathetic Customer Experience

Alan Webber, VP Customer Experience at IDC and David Roberts, CEO at Alchemer will be presenting a webinar on Empathetic Customer Experience. They will discuss how customers created the experience economy and how enterprises can better engage customers by creating intimacy through technology. Join us 10/29, 1:00 pm ET, for this presentation.

Audiences/ Panel Services

Learn how multiple groups are using panels for traditional market research, message testing to identify new customers, “pulse checks” on the changing economy, and more.  Learn how

Alchemer University

We created Alchemer University to transform online learning into immediate action for customers. Updates include faster access to interactive, self-paced, e-learning content.  Turn learning into action

Tips & Tricks

Ensure that you are collecting optimal input by using reCAPTCHA Action to quickly validate respondents, eliminate bots, and protect your surveys against email filters.  Learn how

Thank you

Thank you for reading our October newsletter. If you have an interesting story about using Alchemer, or want to provide feedback on this issue, please reach out to us by filling out this quick survey. Thank you for your business.

The post October Monthly Insider appeared first on Alchemer.

Alchemer transforms customer feedback into operational gold to create customer-centric organizations. We provide tools and features to ensure that the feedback you collect is pure gold. We will detail some of these features to help you make sure you are collecting validated actional feedback.

Alchemer includes the reCAPTCHA Action feature that you can use in your surveys. This action can be placed anywhere in the survey however you will get optimal results if it is used on the page of the survey. reCAPTCHA is an interface that validates whether there is a human user, based on cursor movements and clicks. It also has the ability to sense generic cursor patterns indicating possible bot presence. If reCAPTCHA senses the movement of the cursor is non-organic, it shows a second test requiring the review of images to validate the recipient.

The reCAPTCHA Action protects against botting in your survey, and it can also protect against email filters. Email filters are a point of defense in an email server that have the potential to interact with your survey invitation link.

https://help.alchemer.com/help/recaptcha-action

Why would email filters interact with my survey invite link?

It’s common for malicious attacks to be sent using a link within an email, where that link will download malicious software to your computer causing harm. Email filters have the ability to access and scan those links to ensure that no harmful files are attached. These filters can cause false completes in your survey, though placing a reCAPTCHA action at the beginning of your survey will prevent those completes.

What if I forgot to add this to my survey?

Alchemer’s Data Cleaning Tool can help polish your data to ensure that bad data does not get through. This tool looks for things such as speeding, a common sign of bots. It also looks for answer quality, scanning for fake answers, gibberish words, patterned responses, and questionable responses.

https://help.alchemer.com/help/data-cleaning

If you have any questions about the features mentioned in this article, please reach out to our support team. How to contact support 

The post Tips & Tricks: reCAPTCHA in Surveys appeared first on Alchemer.

When building your survey it’s important to lay out a clear process before you start. Begin by asking:

• What information am I looking to collect? 
• How will I be distributing my survey? 
• How long will the survey remain live?  
• How do I want to use the data I collect? 

These questions will help you collect the right feedback to address the questions you need answered. Let’s look at each one in more detail.  

What information am I looking to collect?  

What will you need once your survey is finished? Will you need the respondent’s name, email, or contact information? Often, people assume that contact data is automatically collected. However, this information is not available unless there is a question in the survey that asks for it. If you’re using our Email Campaign feature this can be pre-filled via the contact information.  

TIP: Visit our documentation regarding Question Types, this will help you learn what each question type is used for, along with its relevant documentation to learn its limitations and reporting possibilities.  

A Guide To Question Types 

How will I be distributing the survey?  

There are numerous ways you can distribute your survey. It’s best to plan this early on so that you can properly prepare your survey for distribution. Some of the ways you can share your survey are: 
 
Share a Link to your Survey 

Share Survey via Email 

Embed Survey On Your Website 

TIP: Did you know you can use the Alchemer email campaign feature to generate unique links for you to use in external email systems such as MailChimp? Our tutorial for this can be found below! 

Unique Links In MailChimp 

This is a vital follow-up question to knowing what information you want to collect. When using the Email Campaign feature you can fill out the contact information you have for your respondents to pre-populate the survey and to use in reporting tools.  

If you already have their first and last name, but need their correct mailing address, you can prepare your survey so that they can verify the information and update if needed.  

Using Data About Your Contacts in Invite Messages and Surveys 

How long will the survey remain live?  

If you’re sending your survey via email campaign, plan your reminder emails to give people a deadline. Determine whether you’d like to have your survey automatically close by setting a link close date!  

Schedule a Survey Close Date 

How do you want to use the data you collect? 

This is by far the most essential question you want to ask yourself. Using this question as a blue print for your project will help you ask the right questions and set you up for sharing that data successfully. Good questions to ask yourself are “What do you plan to do with the data?” “What do my clients or I need to see here?” Consider whether you’d like to use Standard Reports or Excel Exports to review your data.  

Standard Reports 

Excel Exports 

What are the key data points you want to ensure you have from every response? Have you tested the results to ensure the data is presented in a way you need it to? This is where it’s best to familiarize yourself with reporting limitations of questions. In the earlier documentation referencing Question Types, each respective document has its limitations listed.  

On the right hand side, refer to the “Limitations” or “Reporting”, “Exporting” sections to learn about that question type.  

Test, Test, Test! 

Ensure you’ve tested your survey thoroughly. Have you set important questions to be required? Do your logic conditions, if used, function as you intended? Manually testing your survey is highly important, however, another excellent feature you can use to test the data your survey will gather is via generating test responses. Use this feature if you need to simulate data so that you can view your reports and know in advance what to expect.  

Generating Test Responses 

You can access all support documentation via the following page: Alchemer Help & Community 

If you have any questions about the features mentioned in this article, please reach out to our support team. How to contact support 

The post Plan Ahead Before Building a Survey appeared first on Alchemer.