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e-Survey Features and Benefits 

• Faster results. e-Surveys compress time. 
  
  Quicker Deployment - Your survey questionnaire can be programmed and hosted on-line within hours/days of question approval or delivered via e-mail as an attachment within minutes of your approval.

  Quicker Responses - Responses come in hours or days instead of weeks or months. E-mail Invitations and attached html questionnaires can be delivered to hundreds or thousands of prospective respondents in a few minutes via the Internet.
  
  On average 50% of e-Survey responses come in within 24-48 hours, and two-thirds within 72 hours. 
  
  Eliminated is the time for questionnaire printing, handling and stuffing, postal mail time out and back, the voice-mail delays of telephone surveys, manual data entry and cleaning and transcribing of open-end comments.
  
  Data analysis software produces basic reports within hours of a survey's completion, and reports are delivered via the Internet in minutes.  
  
   

• Lower-cost
  
  e-Surveys often cost half as much as traditional surveys because many items are eliminated; questionnaire printing, handling and stuffing, postage, telephone interview costs, phone bills, manual data entry and cleaning and transcribing of open-end comments
  
  

• Higher response rates
  
  There are two key reasons for the higher response rates of e-Surveys. 

1. Convenience, ease and "no-paper or handwriting" add up to dramatically more responses - and higher quality responses.

Research shows that many more people are more willing to complete an e-Survey than a paper survey. In research we have conducted with thousands of e-Survey respondents from a variety of organizations, keys reasons surface. e-Survey research.

Many e-Survey respondents say it is convenient and easy to "point and click" through an e-Survey in the flow of reading and responding to e-mail.  Many people have told us they don't like "the chore" of manually marking choices on paper questionnaires and handwriting responses, and they describe the "bother of mailing or faxing it back" as a barrier to participation. And busy people often also reject requests to spend time responding to a telephone interview. 

Research by Professor Donna Mitchell at Louisiana State University compared the effects on respondents of electronic surveys with those of paper questionnaires. She reported that respondents see electronic surveys as more important, more interesting, more enjoyable and more relaxing than paper surveys. People were more likely to answer questions and to be more candid.


2. Ability to aggressively manage response rates using e-mail communications

Response rates can be dramatically improved by daily tracking and analysis of responses combined with periodic e-mail reminders sent to non-responders. This is especially useful when trying to complete sample sizes of specific segments of a population.

A real benefit of e-mail communications and e-Surveys over paper surveys is the ability, at no cost, to attach another copy of the questionnaire with each reminder message. 

• Higher quality of responses
  
  Research shows that e-Survey respondents, using the convenience of their mouse and keyboard, are especially more likely to complete e-Surveys and to answer open-end questions more completely, in-depth and in more detail than on paper surveys.
  
  Randomization of single and multiple-choice response lists and rotation of question sequences assure balanced overall responses.
  
  Multi-page branching, piping and drill-downs provide specific segment and if-then question tracks for tracking specific types of respondents and response patterns.
  
  

• Ease of use and convenience for participants. e-Survey respondents say that the ease and convenience of completing an e-Survey make a big difference in their willingness to participate. One person summed it up for many saying, "It was surprising easy and as surveys go, fun to do."
  
  Extra convenience - Starting where they left off - for web site-based questionnaires.
  
  In the event they were interrupted and could not complete the questionnaire the first time, respondents issued a transparent e-mail code can return to the on-line questionnaire and resume where they left off.
  
  

• Easier project management for clients (outsourced turnkey solution, password protected with 24/7on-line access to results)
  
  Outsourcing e-Surveys works well for many organizations. No expensive company IT time or involvement is required.
  
  e-Surveys can be outsourced on a turnkey basis to GuideStar. We can work with your content and questions or ours to quickly produce a professional questionnaire, implement the e-Survey and provide data and/or easy to read reports.
  
  On-line questionnaire reviews and testing streamline the approval process. No paper, and most often, no time-consuming meetings or travel costs are required.
  
  We work with clients all over the world via e-mail, phone, and fax whom we have never even met with face-to-face.
  
  Top-line trends are available to authorized users on a  24/7 basis. You can check trends on-line as your data accumulates any time during your survey's conduct. Optionally, you can also allow all participants to see the top-line trends.
  
  

• Confidentiality and privacy protection for participants
   
  As an independent research firm, we have a responsibility to protect the confidentiality and privacy of a survey respondent. This is both a moral and legal obligation which is well known by the public.
  
  Respondents generally believe and trust that third-party independent research firms have high integrity and will protect their identity by acting as a fire wall between them and the survey sponsor.
  
  However, many doubt the same is true for their in-house research groups. They suspect that "somehow people will find out what they said" and retribution will follow.
  
  Without a high level of trust, respondents will reveal little of what they really think and feel. For this reason, many organizations opt to use a third-party research firm to assure respondents' confidentiality and the likelihood of getting higher quality responses.
  
  To assure e-Survey respondents that their trust is well-founded, we employ the following means:
  

  • Questionnaire software which does not permit responses to be saved on the respondent's hard drive
    

  • Transmittal via the internet of packets of responses
    

  • Privacy protection designed into each file
    

  • SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) protection provides security between the respondent's browser and our web site server 
    

  • E-mail address stripping by neutral third-party servers to create anonymous data files except for surveys using transparent e-mail codes
    
    

• Greater accuracy (less opportunity for human error)
  
  e-Survey responses are electronically processed from the questionnaire to the database to the analysis. Manual data entry, the major source of error, is eliminated. And interpretation of hand-written comments is also eliminated. 
  
  Data entry and transcribing of open-end comments is done by the respondents themselves. Once entered, the original data is maintained intact through analysis and reporting. 
  
  

• Readable, more useful comments (typed, not hand-written)
  
  Clients receive typed comments along with the data. There is no waiting and paying for transcribing of hand-written comments or for coders to finish coding hand-written comments. Plus, comments can easily be sorted by demographic segment for clearer analysis.
  
  

• Flexible, low-cost communication opportunities before, during and after the survey (invitations, reminders, incentives, follow-up, reports, etc.)
  
  Effective communications with prospective participants and respondents before, during and after a survey can make a tremendous difference in response rates, quality of responses and attitudes towards participation in future surveys and about the sponsoring organization.
  
  Low-cost e-mail messages can be used for
  

  • Advance promotion of the survey

  • Invitations containing passwords and instructions

  • Reminders to non-responders

  • Incentive promotion

  • "Thank you" confirmations with custom messages depending upon the type of responses (very satisfied or very dissatisfied, etc.)

  • Summary report of findings

  • Summary report of actions being taken as a result of the survey
    

  Large-scale SQL Database Facilitates Data Mining and Analysis *(COMING SOON)

  • Data responses move instantly into your SQL data tables for integrated analysis
    
  • Flexible, immediate access to your data
    
  • New data and existing large-scale legacy databases merged for data mining and analysis

   

• Time and cost savings even with partially-wired populations. Mixed-media (combination of e-Survey and paper questionnaire) still saves time and money
  
  Although the world is moving onto the Internet at an unheard-of exponentially expanding pace compared with past technologies, the majority of organizations and individuals are not on-line yet. 
  
  For a fully-wired organization, e-Surveys are the superior choice. For partially-wired organizations, e-Surveys can still save time and money by achieving quicker results from the e-mail-enabled segments of the population. More often than not, these are the key target population segments; managers, professionals and field sales and service people. 
  
  The responses of these key groups can be analyzed and reported in advance of the return and processing of the paper questionnaire responses. When all responses are in, the e-Survey and paper questionnaire databases can be merged for overall reports and gap analysis.
  
  

Copyright 2003, GuideStar Communications. All rights reserved.

For more information, contact:
Ira Kerns
Phone:  212-426-2333 
Fax:  212-427-7514
e-mail: info@guidestarco.com

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