Survey Tips
Article written by Mathew Maniyamkott
Regular contributor to various magazines. Passionate about entrepreneurship, startups, marketing, and productivity.
9 min read
24 March 2023
Imagine you have to take a survey at an auto expo or a public poll at a political rally. While many online survey tools will help you do the job, they aren’t always designed for working on the go or offline. What’s more, there will be times when you can’t contact someone for a survey on their online devices – due to low tech-savviness, poor WiFi, spam filters, etc. A data collection app can bridge this gap for you.
Data collection apps are mobile applications that let you gather data on a smartphone or tablet. A data collection app collects data with offline forms. Once done, it stores a backup of the information on the survey device and auto-uploads it once you’re back online.
Let’s face it, few people have the patience for forms. Also, most users are prone to typos while typing, especially on mobile devices. An auto-fill option can reduce mistakes that crop up in data entry and significantly reduce the time to complete a survey. Overall, it just makes for a better user experience.
Think of a time when offline data collection meant taking thousands of print-outs, collating them, sorting them, and finally having to input all of that data manually. Phew! One of the best things about a data collection app is that you can grab data from anywhere, even in WiFi blackspots, and store that data offline. What’s more, most data collection platforms let you store and sync the data to the cloud when you’re online.
Did you know that 74% of US internet users are worried about their online data? Concerns like this lead people to abandon your survey if it is unbranded because they aren’t sure if the form is genuine. What’s more, each business has different survey requirements. So a data collection app should have a form builder that lets you design your survey according to your brand guidelines and business need.
One of the benefits of audio recording, obviously, is that it lets you concentrate on the interview flow and prompt more responses if needed. But it is also helpful for capturing subtle physical cues like tone of voice and pitch. So a data collection app is much more efficient when it can capture audio. In addition, if the app can convert the audio into a text format, it can be helpful for further analysis.
Geo-tagging is helpful for large-scale surveys when you have to stick to response quotas for your chosen locations. What’s more, geo-tagging enables marketers and sales teams to identify where their respondents are based and target them accordingly. So the data collection app should document the response location with reasonably accurate geo-tagging that can also integrate with mapping software.
Authenticity is the most valuable advantage of signature capture. For example, suppose you are doing an anonymous survey. You need the person’s consent to collect and use their data. Capturing their signature adds credibility to the responses and proves that the data was gathered with their consent. That’s why it’s a must-have feature for a data collection app. The signature capture field should allow the user to sign with a finger on the device.
No one wants to swim through a sea of numbers! For that reason, a good survey dashboard gives insights at a glance. For example, some of the insights you ought to get are the number of people who completed the survey, the number of page visits, the drop-off rate, and the completion rate. However, you can dive deeper and get details like the respondent’s IP address, start times and finish times. Also, the dashboard should allow the management to view replies in real-time to enable quick action on negative feedback.
Your data collection app should let you design surveys based on answer logic. In other words, the survey skips questions irrelevant to the person based on their previous answers. While this may seem like an unnecessary detail, it helps to make the survey experience smoother and save time.
The first and biggest advantage of using a data collection app is that you don’t need an Internet connection. In fact, faulty internet connections are one of the main reasons why people drop out of surveys.
Now let’s check out some more benefits of using mobile data collection apps:
Mobile forms are harder to lose – even when you delete one by mistake! That’s because most data collection apps use cloud-based software to store and update information. This mitigates the risk of data loss.
A lot can go wrong while transcribing the data from paper forms to digital documents. With a data collection device, you can eliminate this step and therefore reduce transcription errors.
What’s more, if you want to verify the information, you can easily verify it by checking the app. Data collection apps also have audit features that can help standardization and visual dashboards that spot data gathering issues.
Data collection apps are a boon for field research. With instant data transfers and almost zero manual data entry, your team can concentrate on getting insights from the survey.
Data collection apps also help you get more done with integrations with 3rd party tools. For example, you can optimize your team’s workflows, analyze multiple metrics, export the data into reports and act on the insights.
Data collection devices are portable. This makes them easy to carry around and use in different environments – leading to greater flexibility in how you capture data.
Moreover, you can gather more data types than just text, including video, audio, and photos. Especially if you are using the right online survey tool.
You can track responses in real-time on a data room collection app. And unlike paper forms, which need time and effort, report generation and sharing are almost instantaneous on the app.
This data collection platform is also a marketing goldmine because it shows demographic details like the respondents’ IP address, location, device, and other variables.
That said, which are the industries that just can’t do without an offline survey app? We’ll tell you.
Did you know that more than a third of hotel guests prefer to use online check-ins now? Things have changed with the pandemic, particularly where hospitality management is concerned. Here are some examples where a data collection app can lead to a better overall experience.
Whether the classroom you choose is remote, online, blended or real-world only, teachers today are closely scrutinized for their performance in every class. So how can a data collection app help here?
Regardless of budget, everyone wants to feel like a first-class traveler. So here are the avenues where a field data collection app can help you provide an enjoyable experience.
A lot of data collection in healthcare still happens through old-fashioned paperwork. While these may seem like a minor inconvenience, it stresses out patients in an already stressful situation. However, medical surveys, done via a data collection app, can make the experience convenient and transparent. So what else can you do?
In this article, we talked about data collection apps and their must-have features. We also discussed the benefits of a data collection app and the kind of industries that would benefit from them the most. So, what tool are you currently using for your data collection?
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