Poll: Healthcare Companies Say Online Research Displacing Phone and Mail Research - Online Survey Leader Zoomerang Offers Top Ten Tips for Creating Effective Surveys
The healthcare industry is changing the way it conducts research. According to a recent Zoomerang survey, healthcare companies are shifting from tradtional research methods to online research methods. Here are ten tips for creating effective online surveys.
Mill Valley, CA (PRWEB) June 22, 2005 -- Healthcare companies and
organizations say online research, one of the most affordable and effective
marketing tactics, is displacing phone and mail research, according to a recent
Internet survey by Zoomerang, maker of the leading global online survey
software.
Based on the study, more than three in five healthcare
industry professionals involved in online research (63%) report shifting from
paper or mail research to the Internet. In addition, nearly 2 in 5 (37%) are
moving away from phone research in favor of online research.*
Zoomerang
Vice President and General Manager Paula Rivers explains, "Healthcare
professionals are shifting from traditional research methods towards online
research because, simply put, it makes great business sense. They are realizing
that the tool can potentially expand their ability to make informed decisions
and help grow revenue, lower costs and increase productivity."
Among
those healthcare professionals in the survey who are benefiting from
productivity gains, more than 2 in 5 (43%) say that productivity has increased
by more than 20% over the previous year. Also, among those who are benefiting
from cost savings, nearly 3 in 5 (59%) report lowering costs by 10% or more over
the previous year. Similar trends are cited among those who are benefiting from
increased revenues.
Online survey usage has penetrated 20% of the
healthcare sector and is growing steadily among adopters. Nearly three-quarters
(74%) of health care industry professionals involved with online surveys report
increased usage of this technique over the previous year.
Online surveys
are an easy way for industry decision-makers to obtain the feedback they need to
help them make critical decisions. Through online surveys, healthcare
organizations large and small can query their customers about their satisfaction
with care or services, accomplish a host of human resources-related functions or
even obtain feedback about education and training efforts.
Top Ten
Tips
Obtaining quality feedback means asking the right questions. Here are 10
tips from market leader Zoomerang for creating effective surveys:
1.
Clearly define the purpose of your survey.
Spend time up front to plan
objectives. For example, you might want to find out if your customers are
satisfied with your company’s service.
2. Keep the survey short and
focused.
It shouldn’t take a respondent more than 10 minutes to complete a
survey, so it’s generally better to focus on a single objective.
3. Keep
the questions simple.
Make sure your respondents will understand the
questions. Don’t make the questions complex and avoid the use of
jargon.
4. Used closed-ended questions whenever possible.
Closed-ended questions make it easier to analyze results and can take the
form of yes/no, multiple choice or a rating scale.
5. Keep rating scale
questions consistent.
If you use rating scales – for example, rating
customer service on a scale from 1 to 5 - keep them consistent and make sure the
meanings of high and low remain the same.
6. Make sure your survey flows
in a logical order.
Start with the broader-based questions, later moving to
those that are narrower in scope, and make sure that one questions naturally
leads into another.
7. Pre-test your survey.
Before launching your
survey, be sure to pre-test it with a few members of your target audience to
help you uncover glitches and unexpected question interpretations.
8.
Schedule your survey by taking the calendar into account.
Keep in mind that
Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are the best days to deploy your
survey—you'll generate more responses than if you send it out on one of the
other four days.
9. Offer an incentive for responding.
Incentives
typically boost response rates by an average of 50%. However, if you do decide
to offer an incentive, be sure to keep it appropriate in scope.
10.
Consider using reminders.
While not appropriate for all surveys, sending out
reminders to those who haven't yet responded can often provide a significant
boost to your response rates.
About Zoomerang
Zoomerang is the
leading online survey software and the most popular tool around the globe for
obtaining vital feedback at rapid-fire speed. Since its 1999 debut, it has
quickly gained momentum, growing a "fan base" of users in over 200 countries
worldwide. To date, over 1 million Zoomerang surveys have been launched and over
27 million responses recorded.
Zoomerang customers range from
multinational corporations to small businesses and nonprofits. DuPont, Johnson
& Johnson, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and United Way are just a few of its many
high-profile clients. Zoomerang is owned by MarketTools, Inc., a leading
provider of full-service, online market research services headquartered in Mill
Valley, California. For more information on Zoomerang go to www.zoomerang.com.
*Zoomerang deployed this survey in
May 2005 via e-mail to healthcare professionals nationwide. The results for the
overall sample have a sampling error of plus or minus 7.43 percentage
points.
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/6/prweb253842.htm