Computer Associates |
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“Quask was able to give us 10 times the response rate at a quarter of the cost. In today’s market when it is critical to respond to customers quickly, the information Quask gathered for us enabled us to respond immediately. In addition, because of the high response we received online using Quask, we were able to get a much more accurate picture of our customers.”
David Ball, Channel Manager, Computer Associates
Situation
Computer Associates International, Inc. (NYSE: CA) is a leading eBusiness software company. CA's world-class solutions address all aspects of eBusiness Process Management, Information Management, and Infrastructure Management in six focus areas: Enterprise Management, Security, Storage, eBusiness Transformation and Integration, Portal and Knowledge Management, and Predictive Analysis and Visualization.
Computer Associates wanted to gauge its brand awareness in the Pan European marketplace, and find out whether its offerings were properly communicated to its customers. In addition, CA wanted to measure its support service and identify potential leads. To do this, the Company decided to conduct a major survey to its end users. They were aware that this survey would be a major undertaking, with 70,000 + clients, communicating in 5 languages. This survey, as a first look at the mindsets of these users, would provide extremely important data.
CA developed a list of 23 questions that would best help them to understand their users and give them a useful picture of their needs. The questions focused on CA’s technical support and pricing, as well as users’ thoughts on features of the product, the marketing of the product and the sales and services.
CA was very interested in finding out how familiar these users were with CA’s strategy in the following areas: storage, security, enterprise management and enterprise modeling. CA wanted to understand how effective its communications and its product marketing in these areas was.
Prior to contacting Quask, CA had started developing a paper-based survey. Concerned with getting the best ROI from their survey, CA decided to supplement the paper-based survey with an online survey using Quask.
Key Issues
• Wanted to make sure that CA got the best ROI from conducting this survey.
• Survey geared for 70,000+ users (45,000 via paper and 25,000 online) and it had to be translated and deployed in 5 languages.
• Managing data from all the paper respondents would prove to be extremely difficult and CA wanted a solution that allowed it to just plug in the responses when they received them.
Action
CA discovered Quask after searching extensively online. Quask (“questions you ask”), a provider of online survey software, recognized the need for a Web-based data collection solution that offers quick and easy surveying, enhanced response rates, as well as improved economics of doing research.
CA found Quask’s process fast and easy, and decided to entrust the online portion of this crucial survey to Quask’s FormCaster. This modern, easy-to-use software tool includes sophisticated form creation tools that create visually rich and personalized surveys. Using Quask ASP service the entire project was outsourced to the Quask team based in the UK, Square3 Ltd.
Implementation
The paper-based version of the survey held up the launch with various logistical problems, while the email survey was quickly created and ready to launch at the agreed-to date. The email survey completely replicated the paper survey, with one exception: the email survey included Quask’s unique Emoticons—visual images able to register emotions.
Process: CA sent 25,000 e-mails and 45,000 hard copy surveys to addresses. 70,000 people total were sent the survey.
Result
Responses: The paper survey received less than 600 responses from the 45,000 questionnaires sent out, resulting in a 1.5% response rate. The survey sent via e-mail received 2,300 responses out of 25,000 sent out, resulting in a 10% response rate—5 times that of the paper version at an eighth of the cost.
Within 24 hours of sending out the email survey, responses started coming in right away. In addition, CA was still receiving responses from the e-mail 4 weeks after it was sent out, proving the longevity of online surveys for responses. The paper survey took over 6 weeks for the responses to return.
One of the most helpful features of Quask’s online survey software was its easy to read data analysis documents. Since a major part of the surveying process is manipulating and understanding data, this function helped CA save time and money and directly access the important data. Also, CA was able to receive a regular update on the survey, which helped with reporting progress.
Next Steps
Computer Associates gathered critical data with this survey, identifying additional sales opportunities as well as strengths and weaknesses in its product portfolio. CA is using their data to shape the priorities of the organization, using the information gained to determine how CA will get the best ROI. They received useful feed back on the following:
• Technical support
• CA’s product awareness
• Resellers’ performance
• CA pricing, features, strengths
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