Why use the Web? Todays fast-paced, decentralized business environment poses unique challenges for companies of any size when gathering critical feedback. Designed for the non-technical business user, Web survey solutions make it easier for enterprises to gather the data needed to make business decisions. Virtually anyone in an organization with little technical experience can quickly and easily create professional-looking surveys, right from their desktop.

One advantage in utilizing Web survey tools is their ability to rapidly acquire actionable information from clients, agents, brokers and partners. This feedback may be critical in identifying issues, concerns and trends that contribute to dissatisfaction and attrition.

Rather than the weeks or months required to distribute paper questionnaires and collect the results or to contact respondents by telephone, the Internet allows responses to be collected in a matter of minutes or hours. Bolstered with this information, organizations can take necessary actions to implement strategic and tactical solutions to increase satisfaction and client retention.

Another benefit to using the Internet is cost reduction. Web survey technology eliminates the production and mailing costs associated with conventional paper surveys. The availability of easy-to-use Web solutions means that customized surveys can be created and administered more frequently. Because Web surveys are easier to complete, response rates will be significantly higher. Survey responses can also be validated during the completion process, minimizing data entry errors. Survey results are also available for immediate analysis.

Online survey administration, which allows users to manage the survey process through a common browser, is another Web-enabled capability that delivers concrete benefits. With this functionality, users can perform a range of administrative tasks, including activating and deactivating surveys, setting response limits and cut-off dates, purging surveys, viewing reports, and publishing results on the Web.

Users also can access and distribute reports to multiple appropriate audiences or export data to popular reporting tools, like Microsoft Excel and SPSS. The productivity increase that comes through online administration enables insurance industry market research and CRM professionals to leverage their limited time more than ever.

Faced with an array of survey tools in an expanding market, how do you make the optimum choice for your business needs? Five key questions should be asked when evaluating and selecting a survey system:

Is it difficult to use? Not surprisingly, a tool that requires substantial technical expertise may see little use. One that is easily installed and requires little or no training will be more easily adopted and used. The best Web survey solutions are designed for non-technical users and are as easy to use as standard office applications. This is equally attractive to small and large businesses, because it minimizes the learning curve, reduces IT support and simplifies the survey process.

Will it require IT resources? Survey tools can be installed either as a hosted application service provider (ASP) solution through a third-party Web site or as a licensed product directly installed on a customers server. The installed option allows the client to exert maximum control over IT performance and custom configure based on their security requirements.

Initial involvement may be required from the IT department to install the software. An ASP option generally speeds implementation, minimizes upfront ownership costs and can overcome a lack of IT staff and infrastructure.

What does a sample survey look like? A great-looking survey invites more responses than one that looks unprofessional or is too time consuming to complete. A higher response rate improves the accuracy and resulting value of the data. The best survey tools on the market allow you to customize the exact look of your surveys to match your corporate identity and existing collateral by adding backgrounds, images and HTML templates.

Is the Web survey technology secure? A feature like “respondent authentication” allows only designated respondents to take a survey and precludes their responses from being collected more than oncewithout identifying questions. From an IT perspective, users can control access to administrative functions, reports and data through passwords. Security lockout features can be used to disable access after a number of failed attempts, such as using an incorrect password.

A few Web survey tools offer security features like encryption to protect the integrity of the data, such as use of the Secure Socket Layer (SSL). Stored survey responses also can be encrypted to protect the data from unauthorized access.

How quickly will results be provided? The Web dramatically reduces the time it takes to get survey results. One of the greatest advantages of Web surveys is their ability to immediately analyze and report survey results. Online reports typically include counts and percents, descriptive statistics, ranking summaries, pie graphs, bar charts and text responses.

Reports can be viewed online or published to the Web. In addition to viewing survey responses in a browser, an advanced survey tool will easily export data to reporting tools like Microsoft Excel, Adobe Acrobat and SPSS formats.

The bottom line is that Web surveys can play a pivotal role in the insurance value chain by capturing actionable information from every link in the chainagents, brokers, adjusters, clients, partnerswhich can be translated into key mission-critical business initiatives and processes.

Insurance executives can utilize Web survey technology to incorporate the voice of the customer into business decisions to optimize marketing decisions, speed product development and drive process improvements.

Sam Goodner is CEO of Inquisite, a division of Catapult Systems. Inquisite is a provider of Web survey technology and services headquartered in Austin, Texas.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, August 25, 2003. Copyright 2003 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.