SurveyShop - Bridging the gap between internal resourcing and outsourcing
January 2001
For many organizations, the demand to carry out surveys - of customers or potential customers, among existing service users or employees - has grown at such a pace that creative remedies are fast needed to avert an administrative crisis. For most, it is a tough choice between outsourcing the work, at high cost, or looking at some software to do it in house then cope with the roller-coaster ride of workload peaks and troughs. But projects tend to become more ambitious as time goes by, and this can call for a level of know-how beyond what the in-house research team could be expected to know.
SurveyShop is the service arm of Snap Surveys, the producers of Snap Survey Software. Put Snap and SurveyShop together, and you have the perfectly adaptable solution
Thanks to SurveyShop, it's an either-or situation that never need arise. SurveyShop is the service arm of Snap Surveys, the producers of Snap Survey Software. Put Snap and SurveyShop together, and you have the perfectly adaptable solution. You can choose exactly what work you want to do in house, and exactly what you want to place with SurveyShop's experienced team of survey specialists - and this can be an entire project or just some part of a project.
What SurveyShop keeps in store for its customers
SurveyShop services cover every aspect of what it is possible to achieve with the Snap software, which gives it a very broad brief. For paper-based surveys, this includes setting up questionnaires, handling questionnaire mailings, both out and in, coding open-ended answers, performing data entry or scanning as appropriate. Now, for web surveys, questionnaire design and survey and hosting are offered, to the very highest levels of security, if required. Beyond that, a comprehensive data analysis service is offered, producing infinitely flexible crosstabs and charts.
Everything at SurveyShop is done using Snap, which is an attraction for many Snap users, as work can be passed back and forth in the e-mail between the in-house survey team and the people at SurveyShop, avoiding any compatibility problems. As SurveyShop is among the product's most demanding users, this has brought direct benefits to the Snap product through suggested improvements to the product, particularly on the 'power user' side. It also says something about the merits of Snap as a comprehensive survey package, that SurveyShop, a full service bureau, is able to offer the full range of services it does using Snap.
One of SurveyShop's most popular offerings is its data entry service. Fast, and highly accurate, it relieves many Snap users of this burden
One of SurveyShop's most popular offerings is its data entry service. Fast, and highly accurate, it relieves many Snap users of this burden. Data can be delivered cleaned and validated either as a Snap file or in many industry standard formats. Because SurveyShop understands surveys, through more than fifteen years in the business, its professional staff can anticipate many problems and provide imaginative solutions to tricky or technically demanding situations.
SurveyShop has introduced many of its analysis clients to the Snap range of software, and encouraged them to receive their data in Snap format so they can carry on exploring it for themselves after the first flurry of reporting
Equally popular are its analysis services. Over the years, SurveyShop has introduced many of its analysis clients to the Snap range of software, and encouraged them to receive their data in Snap format so they can carry on exploring it for themselves after the first flurry of reporting. Others clients come to them because they need specialist help with a particularly demanding project but want to work in partnership on it. SurveyShop is always happy to take on just those parts of the project where its expertise is particularly useful, and support its clients in doing the rest for themselves.
SurveyShop Case Study: Sun Valley Foods
Sun Valley Foods is a major food producer in the UK and Europe, supplying ingredients to well-known food manufacturers, grocery retailers and restaurant chains. It is part of the Cargill company, one of the world's largest agrifood businesses. Each year, Sun Valley conducts an extensive survey to establish the health and strength of its relationships with its employees across 180 different departments and work teams. The results form an important part of the company's annual report.
This year, Sun Valley switched to using SurveyShop to process the results of its employee survey. The reporting requirement is complex, with a large number of reports produced individually for line managers and departmental heads showing only the results relevant to them. The confidential nature of the survey presents a number of tricky technical issues.
"The previous year, the data took a long time to come back - up to three months in some cases... ...using SurveyShop to do the data entry and the analysis was a good halfway house..."
Julia Thomson, HR Services Manager, explained: "The previous year, the data took a long time to come back - up to three months in some cases. It was getting more and more complex each year. We looked at using Snap and it seemed a good product. But using SurveyShop to do the data entry and the analysis was a good halfway house as we can then use the software ourselves later to do more cuts, for example."
Julia worked closely with SurveyShop to get the reports absolutely right. "The people at SurveyShop were very receptive. My requirements, I think, were quite a challenge, but it was a lot of fun because they were prepared to work with us individually."
Complete results were published just three weeks after the survey closed
Complete results were published just three weeks after the survey closed, which helped to overcome some of the credibility issues the survey had been suffering from. Managers liked the improved layout and appearance of the reports, now a combination of tables and charts. SurveyShop had incorporated all the data from previous years' surveys so that comparisons could be made over time.
Julia Thomson now sees an ongoing involvement for SurveyShop on the complex projects, but is also keen to exploit Snap fully, internally. "Because Snap is so versatile I can see us doing this ourselves with smaller samples and using a subset of questions more frequently through the year. It takes a lot of effort to do a survey, so the more automated we become, the better. That is the good thing about using Snap. My ideal is to do an online survey, but with the type of business we are in, having it on paper comes in very handy."
Unlock the potential of Snap with SurveyShop
Time after time, people point to the ease and simplicity of Snap for surveys - so much so that you could be forgiven for thinking, when new and complex projects come along, that the answer lies in bringing in something more complicated. Yet many SurveyShop clients have learned that, by enlisting the help of the SurveyShop team to work in partnership on their own projects, that they can achieve what they wanted and keep the software tools they are familiar with, while learning new techniques in the process.
Working with SurveyShop offers many strategic benefits in addition to the financial ones.
- SurveyShop's rates are highly competitive.
- By being able to undertake some of the work yourself, you can keep costs to a minimum.
- Through using the same software tools, in-house skills can be enhanced.
- SurveyShop can offer a low-risk approach to developing new techniques or services internally.
For instance, rather than being forced to learn by your own mistakes on your first web survey, you could get SurveyShop to work through it with you. When the project is complete, you will have all of the files from a well-designed project that has worked - not only the data, but also the set-up files to incorporate in your future projects.
It is a mistake to think that SurveyShop is only for those who don't use Snap for themselves: working in partnership with your own in-house team, SurveyShop has just as much to offer those who do.