Ensuring a Smooth Research Engagement with Your Survey Programming Provider

When an organization decides to conduct a survey, it may opt to contract a survey firm, such as IntelliSurvey, rather than manage the process in-house. This is most often the case when the research team has limited capacity or lacks specific expertise.

Several key considerations and steps must be followed to ensure a smooth and effective collaboration with your survey programming provider. 

Defining Research Goals

Defining clear research goals is crucial for the success of any online survey project. Here are five key points to consider: 

Primary objective: Decide what you want to achieve with the survey, such as understanding customer satisfaction, market trends, or employee engagement. 

Topics: Start from your project issue tree to determine which topics the survey should cover. 

Hypotheses: Build a detailed list of hypotheses to test in the survey. 

Template outputs: Develop standardized documents or tools to ensure consistency, efficiency, and effectiveness throughout the survey process. 

Target and questionnaire design: Consider who you want to talk to, what you want to ask them, and how your questions will be delivered. These answers should align directly with your research goals.

Tip: Market sizing has design, timing, and cost implications. Always check early on if your research has to cover this objective. 

Partner Considerations

When choosing a survey programming partner, it’s important to consider how their services will meet your needs. For example, IntelliSurvey has been programming surveys for over two decades, giving us an unparalleled depth and breadth of expertise. We are known for our research experience, extensive panel partner network, and white-glove support for our clients' success. 

Programming expertise: IntelliSurvey has assembled the right mix of people, processes, and proprietary technology to make even complicated projects feel simple. Our programmers have centuries of combined experience, and we have developers on hand for more complex requests. 

Panel access: We do not own our own panel and are not beholden to a specific panel partner. We have access to over 100 sample providers and often use a blended sample multi-source approach to reach the desired pool of respondents faster, reducing your field time and providing insights more quickly.  

Respondent recruitment: We have access to both domestic and international panels that use a variety of methodologies (online, telephone). Because we don’t have a panel ourselves, we have very few limitations on which panels we can bring on board to meet your research goals. 

Data Quality: At IntelliSurvey, data quality is always top of mind, and it starts before respondents even begin your survey. Our team reviews your screener and quality-check questions within your survey. Then, through blended sampling, we tap into high-quality sample across multiple panels. For surveys fielded by our team, we also employ stringent data quality practices throughout fielding and after close. 

What to Include in an RFP?

If you are working with IntelliSurvey, you can expect a call once we receive your RFP to learn more about the research and its goals. For us, an RFP isn’t simply a transaction but rather the kickoff of a partnership to deeply understand your needs so we can translate that into a successful study.  

Whether you are requesting a quote from IntelliSurvey or another data collection partner, it is helpful to include the following information:  

Research objectives: Share your goals, including whether or not you require market sizing. 

Target audience: Describe your audience’s characteristics, such as demographics, firmographics, and other attributes.

Market: Include any regions or countries where your survey will be conducted.

Completes and quotas: Specify the total number of completes required (e.g. n=500) and any key sub-quotas (e.g. country, gender). 

Length of interview (LOI): Share the estimated survey length and number of questions. 

Incident rate (IR): Provide the qualifying rate(s) or proportions of the audience that would be eligible to take part in your study. 

Survey content: If available, share a draft of the questionnaire. 

Project timeline: Indicate the questionnaire delivery date and when you need the final data. The duration of a project varies depending on several factors, including LOI and IR, so make sure to include those in your RFP.

RFPs do not need to be long. You can keep it brief and still include the necessary information, as shown in the example below.

The IntelliSurvey Process

Once you’ve accepted our proposal, we get straight to work. To illustrate our process, here’s a detailed breakdown of how we handle a survey project. 

Questionnaire Review

When we receive a questionnaire, our team takes time to review the screener and check that appropriate quality measures are included in your survey. For more in-depth assistance, our in-house research team offers services to help ensure your questions capture the best data for your research objectives and will yield the results you need for data segmentation, analysis, and data cuts.

Programming

Project manager assignment: Each study has a dedicated project manager who is responsible for ensuring a smooth engagement from start to finish. 

Specs confirmation: Your project manager will work with you to confirm the project's specifications to verify complete clarity and understanding. 

Final questionnaire delivery: You deliver the final questionnaire in Word format. 

Programming: IntelliSurvey’s expert programmers program your questionnaire into a fully functioning survey instrument. 

Testing and iterations: A test link is sent for you to review the survey and note any edits that are necessary to send back to our programmers. Using IntelliBuilder, you can also make small edits directly to speed up the iteration process, such as correcting typos or adding a new response option to a question.

Survey signoff: You have signed off on the final product. The survey is now ready to go into field. 

Fielding

If you’ve engaged IntelliSurvey to manage fielding for your project, the following steps will be involved: 

Soft launch and data check: IntelliSurvey conducts a soft launch with a small group of respondents to ensure the survey is working as expected. Once you sign off that the data looks correct, the survey moves into full launch. 

Full launch: Your survey is sent to the full sample group using your chosen distribution methods (panel, email, expert network, etc.)

Progress checks and data cleansing: IntelliSurvey’s project coordinators closely monitor the survey’s progress. Data cleansing happens throughout the fielding time, ensuring that poor respondents are discarded and do not count towards quotas. 

Example fielding report:

Initial reporting: Our online reporting portal allows you to access results in real-time as they are collected and download the data at any time. You can even set up automated emails to keep you abreast of progress. 

Final data cleansing: After close, we perform a final data cleansing to ensure all poor-quality respondents have been removed. 

Analysis and Reporting

The IntelliSurvey platform provides real-time access to reporting and data analysis tools. These tools are built automatically as surveys are programmed, so they’re accessible on demand from testing through fielding and after close.  

Our analytics suite includes tab books, individual response reports, frequency reports, data management tools, weighting, MaxDiff, TURF analysis, and more. Raw data can be exported at any time in various formats, including Excel, SPSS, Tableau-friendly vertical CSV, and more. 

Example analytics report: 

Table and chart outputs are fully integrated and ready to use during testing and beyond. You can set up recurring reports to send automatically while your survey is in field, or wait until your survey closes to work with the final data. 

If you need more in-depth support, such as aggregated charts and graphs, output reporting, or executive summary reports, our in-house research team is available to assist. 

Complete Customization

IntelliSurvey is known for handling complexity with ease, and we’ve yet to meet a survey we couldn’t handle. No matter how intricate or straightforward your needs are, we can accommodate nearly any request. 

If you are interested in learning how we can elevate your next research project, please contact us today.