Inside This Issue

Online survey, global participants

Inviting participants

Do your research

Getting actionable responses

Using "none of the above"

You can help students

I. 1 V. 2  Jan/Feb 2004

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Editor's Letter

Greetings!

Welcome to the first issue of Hostedwire for 2004. In this issue, you'll learn how one company learned a $10 billion dollar lesson about conducting research--and how you can avoid making their mistakes.

In our last issue, I introduced you to Dan Greenfield, a Hostedware team member from the beginning. In this issue, I'd like to introduce you to Michael Boucher, one of our newer team members.

Introducing Michael Boucher

When he joined Hostedware in mid-2003, Michael knew instantly that the company was a good fit for his customers-first approach. "I have found that when a customer has a concern, all of the company resources are at my disposal to address any concerns. I like that and so do our customers."

Working with a customer to create two concurrent surveys and the resulting reports, he found he really enjoyed coordinating the spec discussions. "It was very cool to see how the customer and our staff worked together to complete the project," he says.

Michael is proudest of his work behind the scenes. Since his arrival at Hostedware, he's worked with his manager and technical staff to create systems designed to "insure that the project is done exactly to customer specifications the first time, every time."

You can experience Michael's customer-first approach for yourself when you work with Hostedware to create your online surveys and tests.

You can be featured in Hostedwire

Have you had fantastic success with a survey or test you've recently created? Or did you learn an important lesson with your latest survey project? When you send me an email to share the details, your story will be considered for a future issue of Hostedwire. You'll get exposure to our 4,000 readers by sharing your insights into the survey process.

Check out this issue's case study featuring Hope Edelman to learn how you can be featured in a future edition of Hostedwire.

Sincerely,
Dennis Frayne
dennis.frayne@hostedware.com

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Author Reaches Global Audience With Online Survey

In 1992, Hope Edelman began her first survey of women without mothers for her first book, "Motherless Daughters." To find her first batch of respondents, she ran advertisements in newspapers across the country seeking women who had lost their mothers who were willing to fill out a survey.

The 154 surveys she got back had to each be reviewed manually and entered into her laptop using a program called Q&A.

Hope knew there had to be an easier way

That's why, when she started her latest book, "Motherless Mothers" for HarperCollins her first stop was the Internet. "I needed to find a company to design the survey and take care of the inputting," she says.

A Google search led her to Hostedware and together they got to work on the customized survey that would form the foundation for her research for her latest book.

To attract participants for her survey, she started by sending an email announcement to a list she has collected of groups for motherless women and other contacts in the field.

The right domain name key to word of mouth

Because she expected word of mouth to attract most of the participants, Hope says it was crucial that the domain name be memorable and she was very pleased to hear that Hostedware could handle all aspects of the domain for her. They registered http://www.motherlessmotherssurvey.com so that as Hope's survey gained exposure, people wouldn't have to remember a complicated name.

"Having a memorable domain name, instead of 'http://www.hostedsurvey.com/takesurvey.asp?c=mothersurvey,' was really important so people would remember. I wanted to make sure participants could tell other women about the survey."

The survey quickly went global and Hope's original 500 responses were soon used up. "I was surprised by how quickly the survey reached 500," Hope says.

In-person interviews support survey findings

As Hope has begun interviewing motherless women in a one-on-one setting, she's finding the survey trends are backed up by her interviews. "There are some minor discrepancies--places where women seem to respond with an answer that reflects how they wish they felt, not how they actually feel," Hope says, adding that the anecdotal interviews will help her compensate for any discrepancies.

Because of the popularity of her survey, Hope has run into two problems. The first was that respondents tended to be clustered, geographically, demographically and psychographically. For instance, Hope hasn't yet had enough responses from women who were very young when they lost their mothers.

Ensuring the diversity of participants' backgrounds

Since the survey can't be changed once it's made active (to protect the validity of the research for Hope's book), Hope has changed the entry page into the survey to reflect her current needs. She now asks that only women who fit a specific profile fill out the survey at this time, so that she can ensure the survey is representative of a wider population.

Her second problem related to her paper-based survey from 10 years ago. The tangible results of the first survey made for better accountability, she says. She knew precisely how many women had completed the survey because that final step--mailing in the survey--marked its completion.

Are online surveys harder to measure?

With the online survey, she wasn't sure how to know for certain how many people who started the survey continued on to the last page. Originally, she'd planned to take the number that corresponded to the lowest number of responses on any one question (719) and say that "719 women completed the survey."

Fortunately, a recent upgrade to Hostedware's system means that Hope can view statistics of precisely how many women viewed each page, whether or not they answered every question. This is important because with a survey like Hope's, women may have skipped questions that didn't apply or that made them uncomfortable. (If you'd like to know how to view these statistics for your own surveys, contact your Hostedware representative.)

Online survey results in global participation

Overall, Hope found the online surveying process to be extremely positive. She's pleased with the results so far. Offering the online survey has allowed her to reach more women, in more locations around the world, and from more backgrounds, than she'd ever have been able to reach with a paper-based survey.

"It's exciting to see who's participating," she says. "And it's amazing to be able to collect these kind of results without all the administrative headaches I went through ten years ago."

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FAQ: Inviting Participants

	How can I invite people to participate in my survey using personalized email?
	When your survey is ready to launch and you want to email personalized invitations to potential participants, you'll find all the tools you need in your Hosted Survey menu. Start by uploading your participant list. After that, you'll have a wide variety of options for managing and tracking your invitations and any follow-ups you send online. (From the menu select Design, Respondents, Upload Respondent File and Design, Invitations.) Database fields allow for maximum personalization Your participant database or panel can consist simply of ID's and email addresses by themselves, or can be accompanied by other information, such as First and Last Names, Greeting Name, Company Name, and up to 16 user-defined demographic elements. (Select Design, Respondents, User-defined Fields.) These additional data elements can be embedded dynamically into the body of your email invitations and confirmation emails, much like a Word processor's 'mail merge' function, both to personalize your message and to provide additional information or instructions to your participants. Improved automation makes following up easy Hostedware has recently introduced the ability to schedule invitations and follow-ups in advance. Now you can prepare and schedule up to three invitations ahead of time, and just sit back and relax while the system does the rest according to the schedule you define. (Select Design, Invitations, Scheduled First/Second/Third.) If you wish to bypass the scheduler and simply send an invitation right now, you can do that, too. (Select Design, Invitations, Unscheduled.) Maximum flexibility makes invitations easy The system enables you to re-send invitations that have already been sent, send invitations early, postpone or reschedule invitations, send invitations to those who have started the survey but not completed it, and send invitations to a new batch of respondents that have just been uploaded. If you have any questions about inviting participants to use your survey, get in touch--we'd be delighted to answer your questions. You can reach us at customerservice@hostedware.com, toll-free at (800) 211-6967, or (949) 585-1500. To Top

Do Your Research--The $10 Billion Lesson

by John Leaver, Bristol, UK

Large companies know they need to stay in touch with their customers and markets, but it's not always easy. NTL (in the UK) learned some important lessons when they didn't monitor the market as they should. They paid a high price for their lessons--$10.9 billion of debt and a Chapter 11 filing (from which they've now emerged), but you don't have to.

Before meeting Aizad Hussain, the Managing Director of NTL Home--NTL's largest division, responsible for all Internet, broadband and Internet TV services, I was expecting to hear about initiatives for reducing costs and increasing margins. I heard none of this. Instead, Aizad detailed an extensive research and customer experience management project--the main focus of his work.

Fast growth leads to company getting out of touch

Aizad had a clear picture of the problems that had almost killed NTL. The company had simply grown too fast and lost touch with its customers. "When I took over, 45,000 customers per month were calling to disconnect," he notes--a 22% churn rate.

Rather than cutting costs and lowering the quality of customer experience further, Aizad has made a decisive decision to listen more carefully to his existing and potential customers. "When you're a manager trying to fix problems, you've got to know where to look," he says.

Online research gives raw feedback

Aizad has also chosen to conduct the majority of his research online. "Most traditional consumer research is done in very controlled environments, and that has its place... however, it's not raw feedback. When you put it out on the web, rich or poor, good or bad, you see it all."

During the past eight months, Aizad's web-based research and customer feedback projects have helped to reduce NTL's churn rate dramatically. The company isn't out of the woods yet, but it's clearly heading in the right direction and Aizad sees a 10% churn rate as "a realistic target." NTL had a very close shave and the story of Excite@Home shows what might have happened had NTL not made such a decisive effort to reconnect with its customers and markets.

NTL learned from Excite@Home

America's largest cable and Internet service provider in 2001, Excite@Home was at the center of the dot-com boom. It also led the online landslide, going out of business in February of 2002. The company's troubles could be traced to the 1999 merger of cable company @Home and the Excite portal.

Though the companies were based next door to each other, separated only by a small pond, it was never a comfortable partnership. Giga analyst Martha Bennet described the merger as "a clash between creative dot com types and people who essentially provide plumbing."

While subscribers rose to over 4 million, executive disputes affected services and the company lost its focus on its customers. Excite@Home ultimately lost the portal war and went into liquidation. Originally acquired for $6.7 billion, Excite was sold off for just $10 million.

Avoiding culture clashes, customer disappointment, with surveys

Imagine what a corporate climate survey might have exposed prior to the merger. And how might the outcome have been altered by a research initiative to re-focus executives on their customers?

Many theories have arisen regarding how such a large company was brought to its knees so quickly. If Excite@Home had kept in touch with its customers, they might have become unstoppable--customers only canceled service after it was clear Excite@Home wasn't listening.

Research and feedback also drive growth

Customer research and feedback projects don't just aid retention--they also drive businesses forward. As a management consultant, I recently re-branded a software company that urgently needed to boost sales. During initial analysis I discovered that the company was collecting little or no information on its customers and doing little or nothing with it.

The first step was to implement a business intelligence program to learn more about who was buying the product. Using that information, we designed a tailored image and marketing plan for the company.

Finding the time, resources, and skills to keep in touch is crucial

Many companies struggle to find the time, resources and skills to implement worthwhile research projects. Third party research companies can save you time and money while delivering a superior solution. The return on investment can be immediate, but the true value of the service is in the competitive advantage and long-term direction it delivers.

One of the key lessons to learn from the recent economic turbulence is that research should not end once a company has launched. It is the bond that glues a company to its market and is neglected at immeasurable risk. Clearly, it doesn't matter how large or fast-growing a company is--the customer is still king.

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Going Beyond Survey Basics for Actionable Results

Editor's Note: Rick Tate, a Hostedware customer, helps companies take survey results and turn them into long-term strategies. We're delighted to have him share how you can write survey questions that produce actionable results. Visit Rick online at http://www.ricktate.com, or at Innovative Thinking, Inc.’s website: http://www.think-it-inc.com.

As part of his job as a consultant with Innovative Thinking, Inc. (IT), Rick helps companies analyze and improve their results on customer and employee satisfaction surveys.

After consulting with 50-60 companies on their survey results, he's found two reasons companies don't get the maximum impact from their analysis.

Quantitative vs. qualitative information

First, he said, "the majority of surveys are highly skewed to quantitative information." Second, he believes companies often take this quantitative information and attach their own meanings to it.

He illustrates his point by telling the story of a client who uses employee satisfaction surveys on a regular basis. "Every time the survey came back, employees consistently ranked 'upward communication' as a problem."

Senior management wanted those numbers to improve, so they started holding more staff-wide meetings to encourage communication.

Finding additional information through interviews

When Rick's team came in, they used the survey results as a springboard for individual interviews. He led employees through a series of questions designed to get at what he calls the "behavioral event." The behavioral event is that event the person filling out the survey calls to mind when answering a specific question.

He asked individual employees if they felt that upward communication was a problem within the company. Then he took it one step further and asked each employee: "tell me about the last situation where upward communication was a problem."

Through this approach, Rick found that the problem wasn't that there weren't enough opportunities for staff to share their ideas and concerns, but rather that employees didn't feel like they were being heard.

"Because management had assigned their own assumptions to the results of the survey," Rick said, "they thought employees wanted more opportunities to share input and so held more meetings. In reality, those additional meetings only highlighted that employees felt the feedback loop wasn't being closed and so instead of improving the situation, the meetings actually made things worse."

Using surveys to find causation

Companies find themselves in situations like this when they don't use their surveys to find causation, Rick says. He admits that finding causation takes more time and usually requires behavioral event interviews to uncover themes behind the survey's results.

But he says that companies can structure their surveys so that they receive a better understanding of the context behind the respondent's answers.

He says that the one dimensional questions typical of most surveys are limiting. Then you're left to interpret the results without the information you need.

Adding a second dimension to surveys

Instead he suggests adding a second dimension to your survey so that you can receive the context of the information your respondents are providing.

For instance, a typical employee survey might include a question like, "How effective is my boss in setting goals for my performance?"

Instead of moving on to the next question, follow up with respondents with a question like, "To what degree do I need my boss to do this for me?"

In this way, a supervisor won't be penalized when her top employees answer that she doesn't set goals because the survey will indicate that, for those employees, setting goals isn't a necessary part of the supervisor's job.

One way to determine how to add this second dimension to your surveys is by deciding in advance what information you most want from participants. By setting out your final goals, you'll be prepared to formulate questions that will provide you with the feedback you need.

Rick believes that surveys can be an important part of setting strategic goals for a company, but only when they go beyond the typical point scale to find the emotions and events behind the most important answers.

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FAQ: Using "None of the Above" in Your Survey

	How should I approach using "None of the Above" as a survey option?
	When you ask a question that may have more than one applicable answer, you will want to use "Multiple Choice (Select All That Apply)". This option allows your respondents the freedom to choose as many of the answers as they wish. Sometimes, you may want your respondents to be able to answer "None of the Above" instead of selecting one of the pre-defined options from the list. And if they do, you may want to keep the selections mutually exclusive--allowing participants to select one or more options from the list, or "None of the Above", but not both. Adding "None of the Above" to your survey When you're designing your survey and you choose Multiple Choice (Select All That Apply), you will have the option to add a "None of the Above" answer. This can be found at the bottom of the "New Answer" page. It is separated from the other answers you have added so that you can keep your respondents from answering both "None of the Above" and any of the other answers. The process is easy for participants When your respondents come to a "Multiple Choice (Select All That Apply)" question with "None of the Above" as an answer option, they can either choose to pick as many of the other answers as they wish, or they can choose "None of the Above". If they choose "None of the Above" after choosing other answers, the answers they have already chosen will be automatically unchecked--and vise-versa: if they choose "None of the Above" and then choose another answer, "None of the Above" will be automatically unchecked. This feature makes it much easier to allow your respondents the option of choosing "None of the Above" while knowing that they are not counteracting that choice by also choosing one or more of the other pre-defined answers. It also helps with data collection and reporting--your data will be accurate rather than confusing! If you need any help adding "None of the Above" options to your surveys or tests, we'd be happy to talk you through the steps. You can reach us at customerservice@hostedware.com, toll-free at (800) 211-6967, or (949) 585-1500. To Top

You Can Help Students

Hostedware Scholarship Fund

You can support students seeking to study research, education, and performance improvement through the new Hostedware scholarship program.

Through a partnership with the Orange County Community Foundation (http://www.oc-cf.org), Hostedware has set up a new scholarship. You can make a direct contribution to the fund to help support students within the community.

To participate, make your check payable to "OCCF/Hostedware Scholarship Fund" and send it to:

Hostedware Corporation
Attn: OCCF Scholarship Fund
16 Technology Drive, Suite 116
Irvine, CA 92618

Donations are usually tax deductible* (in the United States).

You'll receive an acknowledgement of your gift. Plus, you'll be mentioned in our Fund material as a Founding Donor. This mention can even include a link to your website to provide your company with additional exposure.

*Donors should consult their tax and legal counsel for specific advice on their personal situation.

You can make a cost-free contribution

As you read in the last issue, you can help us donate $1,000 to this fund. All you need to do is confirm your subscription by replying to this newsletter with "Subscribe" in the subject or body.

When you confirm your subscription to Hostedwire, we'll donate a quarter ($0.25 US) to the scholarship fund on your behalf.

(You can also email me once you've added editor@hostedware.com to your address book or spam filter's white list and we'll make your donation).

You can be part of a $1,000 donation--completely cost free to you when every one of Hostedwire's 4,000 subscribers respond. So, please respond to this newsletter today so I can add a donation in your name.

Just click "reply" or send a new email to editor@hostedware.com to confirm your subscription to receive the Hostedwire newsletter.

Thank you to everyone who has confirmed so far!

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