The QuestionPro Blog

When conducting a survey -- there are a broad set of "Do's" and "Don'ts" -- Keep in mind that you are asking your customers, users or partners to spend their time and give you feedback. Think about this for a minute -- you are asking someone to spend their time and give feedback for YOU -- In most cases without any real tangible and immediate benefit for them.

One of the easiest way to build confidence for users to spend 10/20 minutes of their time is to put together a "Intro" page that describes the survey, explains why you are soliciting feedback and explains your privacy policy and statement.

What are the key messages you want to convey in your INTRO page? Explain to your users:

1. WHY are you conducting the survey? To better understand opinions? Is there a deadline?
   
2. How LONG will this survey take? You are asking users to spend time -- Have you ever asked someone to spend time with you, without telling them how long?
3. Your PRIVACY STATEMENT - Who will have access to the data? Is the data anonymous? Will the privacy be protected?
4. Explain clearly any INCENTIVES that you may be planning on giving. If you have images, insert an image of the incentive -- This will increase the response rate and participation rate.
5. Finally, have clear instructions on WHAT TO DO NEXT. Make it clear that the user has to hit "Continue" or the submit button in order to participate. Explain what to do if users do not want to participate.
   

I still see lots of if ideas for QuestionPro coming into my inbox. While we have our own tracking system for reviewing ideas internally, I find myself going to our own IdeaScale portal and checking for new ideas there instead. I love seeing our customers make suggestions that I haven't even had the time to think about!

Got an idea for QuestionPro? Submit it today at http://questionpro.ideascale.com.

A new web application in this day and age wouldn't be complete without a few widgets. Of course we threw in a widget for IdeaScale! You've probably noticed the widget we have on our blog in the right nav, for the QuestionPro IdeaScale portal.

IdeaScale widgets let you display hot ideas, and ideas that are currently being worked on within your portal(s). Its a great way to drive traffic to your IdeaScale, and thus, get more ideas!

Everyone wants to do branching, but it can be a little confusing to figure out! We threw together a quick help video that should clear up a lot of the confusion. Check it out on our YouTube Channel, or below.

One of the most elegant features within QuestionPro is its collaborative nature. Via dashboard and sub accounts, an organization can control how results are shared and to whom. Unfortunately, it takes a little while for people to understand how powerful it is. We've published a video piece that provides a great overview (below).

We are constantly trying to dream up new ways to help people create powerful surveys, quickly and easily (QuestionPro for Dummies, help articles, blog, etc). Our latest incarnation is the QuestionPro Training Video Series.

We've taken some of our most requested help items, and had our screen-casting team start producing a video walk through of each topic. You'll start seeing these embedded right in with our help articles, as well as available as a YouTube channel! So tune in now and enjoy!

I get lots of questions that fly by about different URL options for surveys. At QuestionPro, we support all different types of "URL Branding" options, depending on the extent of your needs (and how much technical jargon you can handle).

Default URL

To start, we have the default URL. Each survey in QuestionPro is assigned a unique survey ID, which you'll see in the unique URL that is automatically created for each survey. The default URL for a survey looks as follows:

http://www.questionpro.com/akira/TakeSurvey?id=XXXXXX

Where XXXXXX is your unique Survey ID. More discussion on that here.

Short URL

The default URL is a bit lengthy and when you are mailing the links (snail mail) or giving the links on phone, its tedious to get the URL right. To make survey distribution even easier we provide the Short URL option. For each survey in QuestionPro you can set up a unique Short URL. For example:

http://demo.questionpro.com

http://mysurvey.questionpro.com

More info on creating short URLs here.

Custom URL Branding (aka CNAME or sub-domain redirect)

QuestionPro also provides a completely branded solution. The Custom URL Branding option allows you to pick a URL (or use an existing domain/sub-domain) for all your survey initiatives. So instead of the URL being from QuestionPro.com, you can make it look like its coming from your organization, but still host the survey with our tools. For example:

http://surveys.mycompany.com/akira/TakeSurvey?id=XXXXXX

Note: with the Custom URL option, you will be unable to use SSL in your surveys (this is a limitation of SSL technology). More info on Custom URL branding here.

We are launching a new series of blog entries for best practice solutions for common problems. These are a little more in-depth than the standard knowledge base/help that QuestionPro has.

Here is the first one:

Survey On Multiple Websites : Issues, Analysis and Implementation

Problem Statement:

I have multiple websites and I would like to conduct a survey (popup, link) on all those sites. I want to however be able to analyze the data on a per-website basis -- So I can view the stats for a particular site, as well as view the aggregate data across all the sites. What is the best way I can achieve this? The survey itself (structure, questions) is exactly the same.

Solution Overview:
The key here is that the survey structure is the same. If you have the exact same survey structure for the survey, you can use Custom Variables in the URL to identify which link users are clicking on and tag the data as it is collected with the custom variables.

Implementation Details:

Use the "Custom Variable" option within QuestionPro. With QuestionPro
every survey has a unique URL. Its something like: (xxx is the unique
identifier for your survey)

http://www.questionpro.com/akira/TakeSurvey?id=xxx

Now, you can also add custom parameters to the URL that also get
captured when someone takes the survey by clicking on the link. For
example:

http://www.questionpro.com/akira/TakeSurvey?id=xxx&custom1=flowers.com

http://www.questionpro.com/akira/TakeSurvey?id=xxx&custom1=roses.com

Now both the links lead to the same survey (identified by xxx), but in one case, the
value "flowers.com" and the other case "roses.com" will be captured
along with the data.

The good news is that QuestionPro provides for easy segmentation
based on Custom Variables.

Simply go to the "Grouping/Segmentation"
section and create data sets for the segment you want to analyze. Use the System Variable Grouping screen to create a data segment where (custom1=flowers.com) and another data segment for custom1=roses.com.

Screenshot:

You can even separate multiple values to do aggregation. For example of you had 40 websites/URLs and you wanted to collate 10 of them together and view the analysis for the 10 of them (as a single unit) you can separate them out with commas and create a data segment for the 10 of them:

Another option is to use the Banner Table analysis to automatically compare all the data (with the aggregate data) for each unique value of a custom variables.

Screenshot:

This will produce an excel report analyzing the data for each data segment and compare that to the overall data.

References:

Custom Variables
http://www.questionpro.com//help/131.html

Detailed Help on System Variable/Custom Variable Grouping/Segmentation
http://www.questionpro.com/help/301-inline.html

Detailed Help on Automatic Banner/Pivot Tables:
http://www.questionpro.com/help/301-inline.html