Which surveying method is right for my situation?
These days the market research community is a buzz with talk of web-based research methods. The technological advances in data collection and reporting via the Internet offer much more flexibility than more traditional data collection methods. Gathering data from customers, employees, suppliers and other stakeholders through the various Internet methods available can have many advantages in the right application.

• Does the majority of your target audience have e-mail and Internet access?
• Are you collecting e-mail information on-line, or do you have a reliable e-mail database available to you?
• Do you have a dependable way to connect with prospective respondents either through e-mail or web site?
• How Internet savvy is your target audience?
• Whether business-to-business or consumer, how many respondents do you want to contact?
• What kind of information do you want to gather, for example, is it important to show respondents something to get their reaction to it?
• How sensitive is the information your respondents will send?
• What security concerns would respondents have?
• Is it important to have continuous surveying and reporting?
• What kinds of cost-per-respondent concerns do you have?

To what extent can questions in a survey be changed once the survey has gone into field?
Making changes to an existing survey questionnaire is a straightforward process. Changes are immediate and reflected online in the survey. More importantly, changes can be made to an existing survey without changing the compatibility of the new survey data with the historical data.

What is the difference between a “password-protected” web-survey and an “open” web-survey?
In general, a password protected web-survey is designed to limit access to only those individuals specifically invited to take a web-survey whereas a general/open survey is available to interested individual to take. One of the more effective and straightforward ways of implementing a password-protected web-survey is the use of a screening page for the survey where respondents enter some type a pre-assigned number or survey access code. The entered access code is then matched to an established participant list to ensure that the code is valid. If the access code is valid and has not been submitted previously, the respondent is admitted to the survey. In conjunction with cookies and other technologies, these methods can allow respondents to start a survey from the beginning or pick-up where he/she left off.

What is a reasonable or normal length for a web-survey?
Generally speaking, 15 to 20 minutes is a reasonable length of time for a web-survey; longer surveys typically require some type of an incentive. The ideal length of a web-survey can depend on any number of factors not related to the data collection, such as the type of population you are surveying, topic of the interview, and incentives being used.

How secure are Internet surveys?
Most of the issues raised regarding the security of conducting online research revolve around electronic eavesdropping or "data clipping." Data clipping can occur when data from online activity is transmitted from the respondent's "client" computer back to the “host” server, e.g., when information has been submitted at the end of completing a survey form.

With email and form-based surveys, information is transmitted as a single block and can be clipped in its entirety. The stolen information would have meaning in and of itself. It would be similar to making a completed mail-back customer satisfaction survey available to a competitor.

With more interactive approaches to web-based surveying, such as our WSN survey systems, the potential for data clipping is significantly decreased owing to several security measures:

• First, the entire WSN experience is hosted on our secure servers. All activities take place on these servers and no real data is ever exchanged across the Internet.
• Second, all data transferred and stored throughout the research experience are encrypted. Without the proper software to decode the language, the data would have little value.
• Third, the data set and data map are stored in separate areas of our servers. Even if a malicious hacker were to get a hold of and decrypt a data file, without the data map to match up the questions, no usable information would be obtained.

What types of reports are available for web surveys?
WSN offers a full-range of web-based reporting capabilities and options, including real-time reports, customized project report sites, and comprehensive web-based reporting systems designed to integrate ongoing research data with existing internal company data.

• The Net.Results™ Online Reporting System
  • Our online reporting system for web surveys, Net.Results™, offers a variety of real-time Performance and Diagnostic reporting options for web survey projects. Net.Results™ reports are particularly useful in terms of providing an immediate snapshot of respondents' feedback, tracking survey completion and drop-off rates, monitoring overall performance, and in identifying high-risk/low-satisfaction respondents for immediate follow-up.
  • Net.Results™ reporting is available at two levels: Basic and Advanced. Net.Results™ Basic reporting is available for all of our web surveys projects and includes basic frequency distributions (marginals) for all questions and a listing of the verbatim comments for any open-ended (text-based) questions. Net.Results™ Advanced reporting adds a variety of optional online crosstab and data analysis capabilities.
  • Click here for a sample Net.Results™ Basic reporting. Use "demo" for the Project ID and "demo" for the Passcode.
• Custom Project Report Sites
  • WSN also offers a comprehensive range of data analysis and reporting options developed to the specific needs of a given project, e.g., frequency breakdowns, crosstabs, banner reports, and other types of analyses. A custom project report site is particularly useful in terms of deploying the results of a research project to members of an entire organization, the general public, or to specific groups of authorized users.
  • Click here for a sample Custom Project Report Site
• Business Intelligence Systems
  • A business intelligence system offers the most comprehensive level of web-based reporting capabilities and features, often integrating internal company data with the results of the ongoing research activities. With this type of business intelligence system, internal company metrics such as retail store transactions/activities, call center transactions/activities, accounting, and usage data can be integrated with and analyzed concurrently with a company's ongoing research activities, e.g., web-based, phone, IVR, and mail surveys. A business intelligence system is particularly valuable in situations where companies need a centralized system for managing and integrating multiple sources of customer information in a single, centralized, and interactive information management system.
  • Click here for a sample Business Intelligence system

What is the security methodology used for accessing a report site?
Access to web-based reports is primarily determined by the needs of the client. In general, online report sites reside on our server and are password protected. Only authorized stakeholders are offered the login combination (username and password) to view the results of a project. Passwords may be rotated, changed on a regular basis, or changed as needed for added security. More complex login or password systems can also be developed for situations where multiple groups/units need special or limited access to data, e.g., 50 different bank branches may all have access to the same set of reports with those reports screened for the data that’s relevant to the needs of their branch. Additional security parameters can also be developed as needed by a particular project.

What are cookies?
In research, cookies can be beneficial in determining where a respondent has “left off” in the survey when returning to the survey and used to reinforce quota controls and multiple survey submissions. In general, a cookie is nothing more than a small bit of information stored in a user’s browser, usually just a code containing a string of unique text and numbers. Cookies are used to store the pages a user has been to within a specific web site (and only that web site). Any web site that needs to “recognize” a user without a password such as MyYahoo does so by storing this “key” to the user’s profile information as a cookie.

There has been huge misinformation among the greater public that cookies can reveal personal information, credit card information, or even the social security number of a visitor to a web site. There is simply no way for a web site to know more about the individual than the unique cookie code within that particular web site. Although new browsers allow users to turn-off the ability to write a cookie, most users who turn-off this feature lose a significant amount of web functionality.

What volume limitations do you have with regards to sending emails and your web survey capabilities?
Our current email systems can readily send out an almost unlimited number of emails per day. In terms of incoming survey traffic, our current systems are capable of serving over 100 concurrent respondents per active survey, and between 5,000 to 10,000 completed surveys per week. Our broadband service consists of 10mb and 100mb dedicated access.

Do you have the capability to handle large data sets?
Yes. Web-based survey data is collected/stored and compiled into an encrypted data file. There are virtually no limitations in terms of the number of cases our systems can handle in terms of the volume of survey traffic, and/or in the management/analysis of data files. On more than one occasion, we have managed data sets as large as 1,000,000 records comprised of over 500 variables.