A good balanced product with some improvements needed to increase value-added
Pros
- User-friendly. For the majority of the general and basic tools you can use with FluidSurveys to build surveys are simple to use and intuitive. When certain issues come up, the service is quick (chat room) and effective.
- Anonymity: the software has the reputation of being safer in terms of safeguarding private information the respondents share by answering surveys (this is mainly due to the fact that the servers are in Canada). Thus, indirectly, they increase response rates.
- Extensive possibilities: FluidSurveys offers a plethora of possibilities and options that really renders the experience interesting in terms of micro-managing each details of the surveys you are sending out there. When the invitation leaves by email, it is exactly how you want it.
Cons
- Statistical information on invitations and reminders sent does not meet the quality standards of the other aspects of the software. It does not seperate the actual invitations from the reminders which creates a bias in terms of statistics. Thus, you have to calculate these yourself.
- Although FluidSurveys is a Canadian company, all communications with clients and the website itself are in English. Having the website translated in French would be a great idea and eventually, follow-up after-sale communications could also be bilingual. However, the options of building the surveys in many languages is very appreciated.
- When invitations are sent through the FluidSurveys software to institutional potential respondents, there is a high possibility that it will end up in these potential respondents spams (this is not the case with regular email addresses). Would it be possible for FluidSurveys representatives to "lobby" the recurrent institutional partners to have their IT sector accept invitations from FluidSurveys?
Return on Investment
- The possibility of reaching many respondents in one shot.
- The possibility of managing many surveys at once.
- I would say the ROI is even (the value of the advantages are equal to the cost and not more) because it is quite expensive. Making sure you will use it a lot is important before buying the license or else other options can be of interest to you.
