Survey Company

It is important not to post a survey online publicly if you need a response from a specific target group. There are several ways to do this. You can, and should, make the survey web site link a "hidden URL," meaning it's not linked anywhere else on your web site and not found through Internet searches.

Include the link only in the email to the targeted group. You can ensure survey respondents only respond once by using the survey security settings within your online survey software application. If you are concerned about the content of your survey being copied, it is simple enough to lock the code to prevent copying and pasting. It goes without saying that someone who is determined to copy the content will find a means to do so, but there’s no point in making it easy for them!

If you are afraid that content of your online web survey will leak, you need to take every precaution to prevent it. Selecting a web survey company who houses their servers in a SAS-70 environment will give you the highest level of security. If security is important to your organization or your client, make sure to ask your survey company about data security. There may be times when a client wants a completely secret survey, and therefore online surveying may not be the best choice. However, there are high-level security features like encrypted connections if you decide to forge ahead with an online survey. For most surveys online, the standard security precautions will prove more than enough for your purposes.

By now most of us know about the many benefits of online/electronic surveys. Some of the major benefits that come to mind include: Access to a possible world-wide population, negligible distribution costs, data is automatically analyzed or exported to other databases with ease, pre-programming the question order, easily trackable response rates (or choose anonymous responses), automatic reminders, thank you's, and auto-close dates. Additionally there are great perks such as spell checkers, and built-in math calculations.  

Some less well-known benefits that make online instant surveys even more desirable include: adding "help buttons" or links that can provide your respondents with additional explanations, designing surveys that are easily pilot tested, progress bars for respondents, required questions, validation (only "acceptable" answers are allowed), branching, piping and skipping patterns. 

We can already see the many benefits to online web surveys without writing out an exhaustive list. However, here are some considerations to keep in mind before committing yourself to an online survey design: Do you have a survey form software tool that can keep up with advancing technology? That is, does your instant survey software have the ability to include all the features mentioned above and more, such as importing pre-written questions to save time? Does your survey company's software have a "back-up survey" policy in case of technical glitches? Are your surveys hosted on secure URLs to provide respondents with confidence in your electronic survey? Can you customize your online survey form with your own brand? 

Whether you'd prefer paper questionnaires or online survey forms to for quality data collection, Cvent can assist with both. Check out all the useful info that's covered in Cvent's online data collection blogs, or sign up for a free webinar to learn more survey best practices.

Cvent offers a variety of Pre-Designed Survey Templates you can choose from for your first online web survey. These internet survey templates contain default questions, email, welcome and thank you text which you can utilize when designing a questionnaire. You can also choose from over 50 different graphical templates to suit the look and feel of your survey forms. Here’s a list of the different pre-created survey templates that you can use to build the base of your survey:


Besides this vast list of pre-designed questionnaires and graphical survey templates, Cvent also offers you a Question Library, which is filled with Customer Service, Demographics, Event, HR/Training, Marketing/Sales questions that you can utilize in your survey.

So! Go ahead and Sign up for an online web survey free trial account now and enjoy these á-la-carte features absolutely free.

According to The Center for an Accessible Society there are over 49 million Americans living with a disability of some type, with over 30 million between the ages of 21 and 64. That's nearly 20% of the population or 1 out of every 5 people.

Cvent Web Surveys provides federal, state and local government entities with an on demand, feedback management solution. As a web based survey company, our online polling tool enables government officials to quickly and easily gather feedback and analyze the opinions of constituents, while increasing survey response rates and ensuring data protection and security.

Section 508 refers to a statutory section in the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (found at 29 U.S.C. 794d). Congress significantly strengthened section 508 in the Workforce Investment Act of 1998. Its primary purpose is to provide access to and use of Federal executive agencies’ electronic and information technology (EIT) by individuals with disabilities. The statutory language of section 508 can be found at www.section508.gov.

Section 508 requirements are separate from, but complementary to, requirements in sections 501 and 504 of the Rehabilitation Act that require, among other things, that agencies provide reasonable accommodations for employees with disabilities, provide program access to members of the public with disabilities, and take other actions necessary to prevent discrimination on the basis of disability in their programs.

Why should you use Cvent's online survey application?

What's in your business research toolbox? Surveys are one of the most popular business research methods. With the popularity and wide spread availability of the internet, online survey suites have made it easy to create online polls to survey company employees, develop help desk surveys to identify ideas for improving customer service or conduct market intelligence surveys to gain a better understanding of your business environment.

You may be thinking, Why do I need to invest in an enterprise survey solution to conduct business research or surveys? It's a fair question, but if you go with a survey research tool without enterprise survey software features you're going to have a hard time limiting user permissions, separating your customer service survey templates from your work performance evaluation forms from your market survey samples, or managing your contact database from one system.

All businesses should have a survey program in place for various forms of research. Sometimes people think surveys limit their fact finding abilities, and they may not be able to identify underlying problems. My question is, then why are you only using quantitative surveys? Surveys aren't the only business research method you have in your toolbox. There are still focus groups, employee ideas, social media conversations and good ol' fashioned internet searches.

How do you feel about social media and business? What about your executives, marketing, human resources and customer service departments? A recent study published through eMarketer found more than eight in 10 management, marketing and HR executives said benefits of social media include relationship and brand building. According to eMarketer, execs also view social media as a good tool for recruitment and customer service. 46% of survey respondents believe social media enhances employee morale.

It's great to see opinion survey results showing the attitude towards social media is changing. If you follow this blog, you know I'm a believer in social media and it's ability to provide real value to organizations.

Not all is bright and shiny in eMarketer's survey report, however. Executives still have their fears about social media strategies. More than half of the survey respondents who did not use social media said they didn't know enough. In addition to a lack of understanding, execs worry about confidentiality and security problems, as well as decreased employee productivity. The good news is, I think these concerns will continue to shift in future attitude surveys. In fact, we've already seen a shift since Feburary 2009.

Survey reports from a global survey conducted by a security software company in February showed 50%-60% of companies surveyed blocked social networking sites, and 62.8% of managers polled thought employees shared too much on social networks. Between the February and July survey results, we've already seen a shift. Not a huge shift, but there is a shift happening. Instead of simply ruling out social media, execs are beginning to admit there may be value they just don't know enough about it.

If you're a social media expert, I'm thinking you have your work cut out for you. There is a continued need for information about social media and their potential value to be explained to executives.

We know Cvent Web Surveys software allows you to automate survey invitations, reminder invitations to non-respondents and reminders to partial survey respondents, but what about other types of emails you can automate with our email survey software tool? Most survey companies' feedback management software have a lot of features, but not all of them have robust email marketing capabilities. It makes me wonder what pain customers feel when they need to send survey emails.

Thankfully, our clients don't need to feel any of that pain, and they don't have to waste extra time trying to create workarounds or moving data between systems. Cvent has the rules for sending emails already set up for you - all you need to do is turn them on and make any necessary edits.

One email type I think often gets ignored is the automated completion survey emails. Depending on how you're conducting a survey, how you want to use this email will be different.

Take these survey examples:

1. You're offering a free eBook after completing the survey. Consider utilizing the completion email instead of providing the link on the Thank You page or redirecting survey respondents.

2. You're gathering product feedback and want to give respondents a promotion code to use on their next purchase. It seems unreasonable to ask respondents to write down a promotion code you post on the Thank You page. It's often more convenience to have the code in your inbox to reference when you're ready to purchase. Besides, isn't the point of offering a promotion code as an incentive to drive more revenue?

3. You've created a customer feedback survey and want to share results with respondents. You can create a parked report and automatically send them the link to check the survey results when they want.

You know your survey methods and practices better than I do, but hopefully you see how you can utilize automated Thank You emails to survey respondents besides just a simple Thank You - not that simple thank you's are a bad idea.

I read an interesting article posted on Research's website. The over all article talked about the quality of online research and survey samples. However, the part I found most interesting was at the very end. People always assume there's a problem with the quality of survey respondents and survey samples, but really it should be around the quality of the online web survey itself.

People want to believe the issue of low response rates or problems with survey respondents completing the survey have to do with the actual sample. But what if it's a matter of miscommunication from the survey writer translating questions into the survey design then reaching the survey respondent who reads and interprets the survey questions and responses.

Navigating through market research and survey best practices can make you feel like you're lost in a maze, so I can see why market researchers and those creating surveys using survey development software would prefer to place the blame on their survey sample, but ultimately they're prolonging the problem.

So the question becomes: What are you doing to prevent a miscommunication as a result of your online survey? One answer that should be pretty obvious is to select a web based survey company who offers question-response survey consultations. Cvent's Professional Services group is always happy to help you improve your online surveys and help you develop survey questions that get you the data you need for your survey analysis. Contact us to learn more about how our Survey Professional Services group can help you build better surveys,

When I think about Cvent Web Surveys software features I typically think of our robust contact database that allows you to track activity history and segment lists; our email marketing engine that allows you to send survey invitations; our libraries that allow you to quickly select pre-designed graphical templates, utilize pre-built survey question and responses to get their survey out the door quickly; and survey question logic ranging from sub-questions to skip and branch to pipe and finally other advanced logic.

However, I often overlook the fact that clients can customize the footer of their online survey questionnaires. It should be no surprise that we empower our users to use the footer associated with the graphical survey's template, create their own footer image and add footer text. A survey should reflect your brand, from the header to the footer and throughout the graphical layout of the survey. Some survey companies force survey designers to have their default footer on the bottom of every survey. Instead, we give survey designers complete freedom over the online survey's design.

So what might you even want to put in your customized footer? I would tell you it depends on the type of survey you're doing. If you're offering an incentive to generate survey responses, you may want to include a link to any restrictions or contest rules. If you're collecting personal information in the survey, it may be important to include your organization's privacy policy. If you're conducting a branded survey (versus a blind survey), company logo and other information may go in the footer of online market research or customer surveys. Want your survey footer to exactly match your website's footer? Go for it. Being able to match your survey templates to your website is one of the reasons to chose our web survey solution.

Ready to get started building your own online survey with a customized footer? Sign up for our free trial account and get started today.

When working on questionnaire design, some people worry about using open text boxes because there's no way to ensure the answers are entered in the format you need them. Take this survey question example, assume the survey project requires anonymous answers:


If someone says yes, you should have follow up questions asking for name, phone number and email address so your team can follow up effectively. But how do you ensure someone enters a complete email address or that the phone number format is consistent? That's where response validation comes in.

Cvent's survey building software allows surveyors to define the format of the open text box one line questions in the question creation process. In the case of a phone number, this prevents you from having to reformat all the phone numbers.


By defining your question format you save yourself time when it comes time complete your data analysis. If you're ready for that step now, check out these tips for how to analyze survey data from open ended questions.

Being able to get a comprehensive view of your survey research results in useful reports to share throughout your organization is a critical part of most survey programs. Sometimes being able to manipulate the survey data to see the various views can be quite a task. With Cvent Web Survey software tools, surveyors have the ability to filter their data down to get the survey reports they need.

In Cvent's online survey application, you have the opprotunity to slice your data in ways that are meaningful to you and your organization by adding filters to any of our reports. These filters can be related to contact data, such as geographic location, title, product purchased, etc.; or you can filter based on survey question responses, selecting survey respondents who answered a specific way. With up to five filters available, survey reports can get very specific. For example, you could run a report to see how all respondents living in Virginia who said Yes to question four and Satisfied for question twenty-nine responded to other questions.


The take away is: you can see your data the way you need. You don’t have to create multiple surveys, you don’t need to ask demographic questions you already have answers for, and you can use that information in reporting.

Many of our clients want to slice and dice data instead of looking at aggregate responses. Not all online survey companies give you the ability to segment your data this finely within the reporting section. Instead, these online survey tools may require it be done by hand. If being able to slice your data into different views is something you need, why waste time doing it by hand? You can learn more about how Cvent can help save you time on your next online survey project by signing up for a product demonstration.

A lot of thought and time goes into survey design, from question creation to the graphical template to the email message and list segmentation. But, when you sit down to design your questionnaire, are you thinking about page breaks? Page breaks in an online survey is often an over looked feature that can increase a survey's usability and decrease abandonment rates.

Typically online survey software solutions give you more control over the survey respondent experience. Next time you create a web survey, keep these page break tips in mind:

• Don't break on every page. Like everything else, there are always two extremes, never inserting a page break and always inserting a page break. Neither approach is ideal with online questionnaires. One long survey where the respondent just has to keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and... can be pretty intimating.

• Try to combine demographic and screener questions on one page. These types of questions are typical at the beginning and end of a survey, and they're usually expected. Keep it quick and easy for the respondent by condensing them into as few pages as possible.

• Survey question logic doesn't work on one long page. To effectively use skip and branch logic, as well as other advanced conditional logic, page breaks are essential. It's not a matter of it's intimidating for the user or encourages them to change answers. It's a matter of the survey software needs to "take in" the answers in order to put the respondent back on the correct path.

• Gives survey respondents the chance to abandon the survey. If you're using page breaks in excess, after a few pages, your survey respondents may begin thinking about leaving your web survey all together. It's easy to start adding page breaks and lose track of the over all usability from the respondent's point of view, consider the pros and cons of using a progress bar when you have a lot of page breaks in your survey.

• More page breaks takes the respondent longer to complete the survey due to page load times. We live in a world of fast internet connections, but there still internet users who have slow connections. If you've added a lot of graphics to your survey, load times become even more of a pain for your survey respondent.

• Cannot send partial email survey reminders without page breaks. Many online survey company's applications, including Cvent, can only save a respondent's answers when they click to the next page. It's a great feature to be able to send a reminder to survey participants if they abandoned the survey without finishing it, and give them the chance to pick up right where they left off. However, without page breaks, you're taking this feature out of your survey toolbox.

• Final tip: Think about how long each page of an online survey would be if it was printed on paper, is it reasonable?

A colleague of mine was recently filling out a post event survey online for a tradeshow we attended. She turned and asked me, "why is this trade show survey so long?" There could be lots of answers to this question: they're asking too many non-essential questions or they're not utilizing online survey tools efficiently or they didn't set clear survey goals. In her case, it was the surveyor's lack of utilizing technology to enhance the respondent experience. There was no logic being used. Instead, she had to read every question to find out if she needed to answer it, after answering "No" to a previous question.

What a waste of her time.

Online surveys like the one she took make me wonder time and time again, do organizations even care about the respondent experience? Do they care about the customer's satisfaction with the engagement? I think a lot of organizations think of a survey as a tool for them to find something out and forget that the survey experience is a touch point.

Technology has come a long way. Web survey companies have designed tools to help organizations conduct customer surveys, put lots of time and money into developing these tools to improve the respondent experience, boost response rates and enhance survey reporting. But time and time again, surveyors fail to use one of the most important features: Logic.

I'll admit, for some people, survey logic may sound like a difficult feature to implement. Let me assure you, with a good online survey tool, using survey question logic is just as simple as adding or editing a question. Skip and branch logic are probably the most common types of logic found in an online questionnaire. When used, and used correctly, branch and skip logic keeps the survey relevant and engaging (the more engaging the survey is, the less likely respondents will abandon it).

Need a quick review of skip and branch logic? Consider this example survey for a moment:


Skip logic allows respondents to skip forward in the survey based on their response to a question. In the example above, if someone did purchase something from the store, they would skip the Net Promoter question.

Branch logic allows the surveyor to send respondents down different paths depending on how they respond to a question. In our example survey, branch logic could be employed to separate everyone who had visited the store from those who did not. If they visited the store they would answer the next five questions, if they hadn't they would be rerouted to the last question before the demographic questions. At the end of each branch path, the respondents can be funneled back into the same survey path and have the chance to respond to the demographic questions.

Things to keep in mind when designing a survey with logic:

• Always flow downstream. Skip and branch logic don't send respondents backwards in the survey, only forward. I once heard someone describe a survey like a river: it only flows downstream but there are channels that leave the main path, sometimes returning to the main river further down.

• Closed questions only. As you can imagine, it would be difficult to create rules for skip and branch logic for an open ended question. If you want to be able to insert logic after a question, make sure it's not an open ended question.

• Page breaks are important. Like with anything else, surveyors have preferences about how to group questions and insert page breaks. Skip and branch logic will over ride these preferences.

• Consider the progress bar. We've recommended the use of a progress bar in the past as a way to reduce abandonment. However, if you're using logic to reduce the number of question from 100 to 20, a savvy respondent might suddenly notice they're almost done, go back, change an answer and see what happens. This could easily mess up your data. If you're offering an incentive and using screener questions, a progress bar could be a real disadvantage. If you want to use a progress bar, be sure to disable the previous button.

• Test, test, test. Like with any other survey, it's important to test it to a sample sub-group. But when using any kind of logic, always make sure to test each possible path to ensure the survey flows the way you intended before sending the survey to any respondents.

Remember, if you ever find yourself writing "If you responded 'XYZ' to the previous question," stop immediately, take a deep breath, think about the tools you have in front of you, then start again. Successfully implementing skip and branch logic can quickly pair down a long online survey to fewer than 30 questions because respondents only see questions relevant to their responses.

Already working on a survey project but need help? Cvent's Professional Services Group would be happy to consult with you to develop an engaging and relevant respondent experience. Contact us to learn more.

If you run web surveys and use email marketing to solicit responses, you may encounter deliverability issues. The common myth surrounding "Undeliverable" is that ISPs and organizations block messaging at the server level. We're not suggesting ISPs and organizations aren’t the cause for some of your undeliverables, but they can’t shoulder all the blame.

There are some things marketers should be doing to boost deliverability, especially when your customer research, training evaluation or employee satisfaction surveys rely on it. Here are a couple quick tips to improve email deliverability:

• Clean your lists. Following best practices to increase open rates and survey responses through email marketing doesn't matter if you ignore bounce backs. Using a web based survey company such as Cvent helps keep contact lists clean by automatically cleansing your database. It marks undeliverables so that those contacts never receive another email. Beyond that, you should have a monitored email address for bounce backs.

• Monitor results in real time. As a best practice, we suggest testing any survey before launching it to your entire list. This should include message testing to a segment of the list you plan to use. If you have the wrong messaging go out to your contacts, you're going to be hurt by spam complaints. Monitoring results in real time helps you identify and fix small problems before they ruin the integrity of your entire set of contacts.

With many survey companies offering web based survey tools, it's easier than ever to gather customer feedback. But are you going about it in the right way?

Often times organizations who solicit customer feedback with web surveys fail to gather true, honest opinions by using questionnaires that back respondents into a corner or don't afford them the opportunity to voice their opinion. A common mistake with a lot of customer satisfaction surveys is asking too many irrelevant questions. For example, did you really need to know the last time a customer visited your website if they are discussing a purchase from the store?

Check out a few tips for creating a customer satisfaction survey when you want to know if a customer or client would recommend your organization:

• Start off by asking respondents if they would recommend your organization, product or service based on their most recent experience; make "Yes," "No," and "I don't know" possible answers;

• Use advanced logic to find out more about why they picked the previous answer, providing either a pre-determined list of reasons or a comment box;

• Ask the respondent to describe how he or she would recommend (or recommend against) your organization, product or service; this will help you understand a lot about your offering and where customers see value;

• Finally, ask how you could improve. Respondents have a different frame of reference than you do—their ideas may be so-so, or they may be the most innovative you've ever heard.

Of course, you may need to use additional logic to ask other appropriate questions, but the main idea is to keep it short and always allow respondents to answer “I don’t know.” If you force them to pick an answer, you skew your own data and ultimately learn very little. Use a short, relevant question approach to gain valuable information without frustrating respondents with long surveys and questions for which they have no opinion.

In a struggling economy, high customer retention is critical to your organization's success. A surefire way to improve and maintain your customer retention is to offer great customer service. After all, keeping customers satisfied with your support services increases loyalty and makes them want to stick around.

Web based surveys are an easy, efficient way to gauge customer satisfaction. User surveys can easily be implemented by sending a quick email survey invitation to customers after each customer service call you receive. You know you're reaching customers who had a need for customer service, so a follow-up survey invitation is a great way to capture their thoughts immediately after receiving assistance.

Customer service satisfaction surveys sound like a fit for your business? Here's the catch: some survey companies only allow respondents to submit questionnaires one time. That means users reaching out to customer support more than once—whether for related or unrelated issues—can only give their input and respond to user satisfaction surveys once. You'll never know if their satisfaction level stays the same or changes, and why.

Recognizing this problem, Cvent's online survey tool allows for multiple responses from the same respondent. You can easily specify if survey respondents can take the survey just once, an unlimited number of times, or a specified number of times.



If your customers don't have a good experience with your customer care department, you can expect to see a drop off in contract renewals and a diminished reputation in your industry. Offering exception customer service is an excellent way to add value to your offering.

Contact Cvent today to find out how you can benefit from our online survey experience with an all-encompassing toolset of survey templates, question libraries, the assistance of a Professional Services Group and more.