An on-going problem in survey research is finding and keeping suitable respondents. A panel lets you keep a database of qualified and willing participants. You can use the panel to select appropriate people for a project and reward those who participate. Many of the most successful survey research firms use a panel to rapidly create samples of people ready and willing to take their surveys.

Web-based CATI (Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing) Software

Traditional telephone interviewing requires that all the interviewers be in a central location to connect to a server over a local network.  The Survey System's Web CATI Module works with our desktop CATI software and Web survey software to bring telephone interviewing online.  Now your interviewers can work from anywhere they have a browser and an Internet connection. 

Interviewers log in to a particular study and see a Web page showing the next available telephone number, an opening script and any other information, such as a name that you have associated with that telephone number.  You can also let them see the results of prior attempts to call that number and any comments left by themselves or other interviewers. 

Interviewers can make calls using standard telephones, VOIP or a feature such as Skype Extensions for Firefox, which lets them click on the phone number to make a call.  They then click a button to start an interview, make an appointment to call someone back or record the result of the call attempt.

Our Web CATI software lets you produce all the various live online detail and survey summary reports you need to effectively manage your project. These include total and per-hour results-by-interviewer, results per day or per attempt, the number of telephone numbers still active, cooperation rates, and more.

The Survey System can automatically enforce quotas based on pre-existing information or questions in the interview. You can view the data while interviewing is in progress.

Off-line and Online Software for Smartphones and Tablets

The Survey System offers off-line survey software for Windows 6.5 and earlier smartphones and PDAs. These small, light devices are ideal for conducting in-person surveys at malls, amusement parks, movie theaters, airports, and other public locations. The Survey System's Mobile Survey Software Module offers superior features for conducting both simple surveys and complex interviews with sophisticated logic.

Off-Line Surveys & Voice Capture

Our Voice Capture Software Module solves the problem of recording extensive comments on smartphones and tablets by letting you record respondents' answers in their own voices. You can later play back these answers for coding and analysis.

On-Line Mobile Surveys

The Survey System's Internet Module and Mobile Module work together to create Web surveys optimized for smartphones' and tablets' small screens, including appropriately-sized text input boxes. View a sample Mobile Web survey. See Web survey software for a description of online surveys.

Unlike many other packages you only need enter your question and answer choices and logic instructions once whether for smartphone or tablet interviews (CAPI), Web surveys , email surveys, paper questionnaires and telephone interviews. The Survey System will adapt them into the necessary format for each type.

Software for E-mail Surveys, Web Page Surveys, Online Surveys

There are two ways to do online surveys using the Web/Internet or an intranet:

• E-mail surveys

• Web page surveys

When using email surveys you send a survey to a list of respondents, and they reply with their answers. When using Web page surveys, you post your questionnaire on a Web page. People then visit that page and answer your questions. The Survey System's Web/Internet Survey Software Module includes both types of surveys. Email surveys are described on a separate page. Web page surveys are described here. Sample online surveys are presented below.

As part of a comprehensive online survey software package, The Survey System's Web page questionnaire software offers sophisticated questionnaire logic features not found in most "Web survey" software packages. These features mean higher quality data. After you collect your survey data, you can produce more impressive tables, charts, and text reports than you can with other packages. You can even produce reports online.

Another benefit of this comprehensive web survey software solution is that you enter your question and answer choice text and any logic instructions only once. Then you can use them for Web page surveys, email surveys, paper questionnaires, and telephone interviews.

Web Survey Software Appearance Features

• Put all your questions on a single page or divide them into as many pages as desired

• Use background colors or images and logos

• Vary fonts and colors

• Set left and right margins

• Show pictures and video

• Play sound files

• Use option buttons, checkboxes, drop-down lists, and text fields

• Use graphical radio buttons and checkboxes

• Make buttons and boxes larger than standard size

• Highlight choices as the mouse moves over them

• Click on labels to select choices (makes your surveys easier to take!)

• Show related questions in grid format

• Select parts of a picture by clicking (ideal for testing advertisements)

• Select words in a paragraph by clicking

• Use sliders to enter numbers

• Rank items by dragging images or text

• Show all or part of your questionnaire as a data entry form

• Use your site's page template

• Include links that pop-up other sites or pages

• Save your appearance choices in a file to reuse as needed

Questionnaire Logic Features

• Use individual or overall passwords to control who completes your questionnaire

• Skip questions based on answers to other questions (branching)

• Show previous answers in the text of current questions (piping)

• Only show answer choices that were picked (or were not picked) in a previous question

• Randomize answer choice order

• Randomize question order

• Calculate values

• Require answers to some or all questions

• Show a running total of a series of related answers and check the result (constant sum)

• Check that answers are not higher numbers than allowed

• Make sure answers such as "None" cannot be picked together with another choice

• Combine Web survey answers with previous information from the same people

• Establish quotas to achieve a balance of different kinds of people

• Redirect completes, over-quotas, and not-qualifieds to a sample supplier

Email Integration & Invitations

• Email invitations to people to take your survey

• Include individual names and passwords

• Include passwords in a link to the start of a survey - recipients do not have to enter them

• Email reminder messages to those who have not completed a survey or thank-you messages to those who have

• Send email automatically from Web surveys to thank respondents or to alert management to dissatisfied clients

All editions of The Survey System include the most commonly used survey statistics, including:

• Percents

• Medians

• Means

• Standard Deviations

• Standard Errors

• Chi-squares

• Differences between Proportions

These are enough for most researchers to establish significant differences between data points. However, for those researchers and survey takers with more sophisticated statistical needs, such as university dissertations or academic research publications, the Advanced Statistics Module adds the following more advanced techniques:

• ANOVA - Analysis of Variance (One-way, Two-way, Repeated Measures)

• Correlation (Pearson and Partial)

• Multiple Regression (Standard and Stepwise)

• Descriptive Statistics

Descriptive Statistics tables can use banners to show answers given by different groups of people. They are ideal for showing how many people live in each zip code, for example.

Voice Capture Software & Recording Systems Modules

Standard capture of comments and similar answers require a painstaking manual transcription process that is subject to errors and misinterpretations. For example, did your respondent say in response to a question about a TV news announcer ...

THAT’s an anchor man!!!
Or did he say ...
That’s an anchor man?”

A paper transcript probably won’t tell you. The Survey System’s Voice Capture Software Module can immediately tell you what your respondents really meant by recording answers in their own voices.

Benefits of The Voice Capture Software Module of The Survey System

The Voice Capture Software Module:

• Records and plays back actual voices.

• Captures the feeling and intensity of responses.

• Creates dazzling presentations.

• Saves time during interviews.

• Playback-only software is available to offer to your clients.

With the Voice Capture & Recording Software Module, you can also code each response based on its content and use these codes to produce numeric tables or to group similar responses together during playback.

During playback, interviewees can be classified by up to four variables, such as age, sex, geography, income. Their comments are played back through a sound-equipped PC.

Interviews can be done by phone or face-to-face with laptops or PDA's. The impact of consumers actually talking about products in their own words gives an immediacy and impact to your presentation that has to be experienced to be believed.

The Voice Capture & Recording Software Module of The Survey System works with the Professional and Enterprise Editions.

CATI (Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing) Software

The Survey System's Telephone Interviewing Software and Survey Sample Management Module manages telephone samples and enforces quotas. It works with the Professional Edition and Interview Stations to provide sophisticated CATI survey software rivaling packages costing thousands of dollars more. Our Web CATI/Online Interviewing option lets your interviewers work anywhere they have an Internet connection.

Telephone Survey & Interviewing Software

You import a list of phone numbers (plus names and other information, if available). The Survey System can combine the answers to telephone survey questions with pre-existing information you have about the people you are calling.

The Survey System presents telephone numbers to your interviewers for manual or automatic dialing. You can use a modem or save money and call via Skype, which can use the Internet to call standard telephones.

After a telephone call, the interviewer selects a result (Complete, No Answer, Busy and so on).  They can make an appointment to call someone back at a specific date and time and can leave comments about call attempts. You can restrict which interviewers can handle certain types of calls, based either on the results of previous call attempts or on prior information you have about respondents. You can also determine results automatically, based on answers to survey questions.  You can schedule calls by time zones. 

The Survey System offers a wide variety of computer assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) logic options. Other telephone survey software options affect the information and choices available to interviewers, such as call attempt history and allowing incoming telephone calls.

With our CATI software, you can produce all the various detail and survey summary reports you need to effectively manage your project. These include total and per-hour results-by-interviewer, results per day or per attempt, the number of telephone numbers still active, cooperation rates, and more.

The telephone interviewing and CATI survey software modules can automatically enforce quotas based on pre-existing information or questions in the interview. You can view the data while interviewing is in progress.