The Snap Year 2003 Review
January 2004
For Snap Surveys, the year 2003 could be summed up as innovative and vibrant. This brief review of 2003 provides an insight into the year's Snap activities and developments from a company and customer perspective.
Company Performance
Worldwide sales of all products and services have risen by 20% compared with 2002. More organisations have adopted Snap software as their standard survey platform. Demand has also increased for SurveyShop outsourcing services and Snap Training indicating that Snap Surveys is no longer regarded as a provider of software but a complete survey solution company.
The indicator that perhaps sums up Snap Surveys' success this year is the rise in survey productivity by its customers. The support and accounts teams in both the UK and US have been busy assisting customers with increasingly diverse and innovative survey projects.
More and more companies and organisations are realising the value of survey research and its potential to improve their strategic planning, marketing, customer relationship, personnel and information management processes.
Last year, Snap Surveys encouraged and supported best practice in survey work through its training courses, seminars and events.
Software Development
It has been a particularly strong year on the software front with the most notable event being the launch of Snap 7. The new version was a significant upgrade in technology on version 6 with many improvements for all types of survey - web, paper, scanning and PDA.
Among the new features were:
- Ability to handle larger surveys - up to 10,000 characters for open-ended answers and up to 2000 answers in each multi-choice answer list
- Introduction of flexible rich text in questionnaire design making Snap the only questionnaire design tool to support this functionality to this level.
- New rich text notes for analyses enables complete analysis reports to be prepared in Snap and published as paper, HTML or Snap e-Viewer formats.
- Powerful new data manipulation features including Hierarchical Export wizard and Join Import wizard.
- Survey wizard given ability to use survey wizards featured in new SurveyPaks
Other software developments included:
New SurveyPak survey templates and libraries for customer satisfaction and academic course evaluation.
The E-Viewer was launched as a free download enabling users to publish and distribute complete survey reports electronically. The viewer provides non-users of Snap with access to these e-reports.
SurveyPlus software utility suite came out at the end of the year offering users some powerful enhancement tools for online surveys.
SurveyShop Outsourcing Services
SurveyShop had one of its most successful years on record taking on more survey work than ever before and expanding its services to new areas.
A new addition was a SIAM Internet service for the hosting of online surveys.
Complete outsourcing project services were extended, particularly in the area of paper-based surveys.
New staff brought new expertise in areas of market research and customer satisfaction.
Training and Support
This year the Training department underwent restructuring that should stand it in good stead for future development and expansion.
New courses were launched in the area of Customer Satisfaction
Classroom training was introduced at our London offices and has taken place at Training events in Leeds and Edinburgh
The all-new Snap Masterclasses were piloted at our London Open Days.
Sector Review
Health
spacerProgress in patient consultation and involvement is gathering pace as all health units are increasing efforts to survey their 'stakeholders'. The co-ordinated 'patient-centric' approach is still a fairly new concept and is gradually being adopted across the sector.
In the US, hospitals and clinics treat patients as customers and have continued this year to use Snap solutions to monitor and measure patient satisfaction with the service they have received.
Local Government
Snap Surveys continued its considerable involvement in local government research and consultation. Councils are among the most active users of both our software and services for the purposes of their crucial consultation work such as the Best Value Indicator surveys.
We are now working with individual councils and regions to assist them in benchmarking and streamlining their processes across the organisation/ region. Our representatives have attended a number of council and area forums and meetings for this very purpose.
Education
Snap software and services are being put to good use for a range of educational functions including teaching, research, student consultation and course review, evaluation and audit. Education links are particularly strong in the US with the UK not far behind.
Projects currently under discussion include the conducting of some major student surveys for British universities preparing for an imminent QAA 'Institutional Audit' process.
Housing
Housing associations, groups and landlords have continued to take advantage of Snap Surveys' offerings in the surveying of their tenants and other stakeholders. They are increasing using survey results as key indicators informing strategic planning and decision-making.
SurveyShop conducted a number of STATUS tenant satisfaction surveys for housing associations.
Visitor and Tourist Attractions
Major users of SurveyShop outsourcing services, attractions have continued to survey their visitors in order to discover ways of improving their wares. This year, several software users have adopted the PDA as their main survey delivery method.
Other Sectors
Our customer base also increased in the areas of Financial, Legal, Banking, Retail Services, Charities and a number of Governmental departments.
Functional Areas
Customer and Client Satisfaction
Demand was high in this sector as organisations from every industry sector turned to Snap to measure and monitor their customer and client satisfaction levels.
New software and outsourcing solutions were launched in December to ease the ISO9000 accreditation process (see www.snapsurveys.com/iso/)
Other functional areas that witnessed strong growth were Market Research, Personnel, General Research and Consultation.
How do you use yours?
This year Snap software and services have been applied to a variety of imaginative uses: Here are a few examples:
- Online product registration forms
- Election voting
- Online interviewing
- Office staff opinion and preferences
- Staff appraisal reviews
- Shopper experience and preference
- Airport user satisfaction
- School transport
- Student careers
- Opinion polls
Things You May Have Missed...
Many chances to see Snap Surveys at trade shows including Insight, Direct Marketing, Social Research, Health Care, Technology For Marketing, Housing...
Several Training events
3 Snap Roadshows
and a Christmas Open Day.
Next Year and Beyond
Complacency is not a word understood by this company, so expect more in 2004.
Mercator/ Snap HQ will be extended to make room for new staff members.
New versions of Snap software are on their way.
More training courses focused on activity areas are in the pipeline.
Snap open days and shows will be bigger and better.
A key objective for the year is to work more closely with customers in all areas including after-sales service, product development and company focus.