Results obtained from a survey play an important role in shaping up an organization or an economy. Survey results can be sent to a reliable provider of survey data entry services to process the data and gain valuable insights. Businesses use qualitative and quantitative research to gain perspectives regarding markets and formulate business decisions that allow them to outpace their competitors. Surveys help businesses understand the motives and requirements of customers and adjust their services in a way that would bring higher long-term profits. Surveys help identify potential problems so that businesses can stay ahead of the emerging trends and make the best decisions for the future.
Surveys are often done for collecting specific information or for general data collection to be used for various analytical requirements. Conducting a survey is not an easy task. Here are some important tips that could make survey processing more efficient:
- Design of the survey: Before conducting a survey, the purpose of the survey should be clear or in other terms, survey design should be ready. It should include important elements like identifying the target audience, the medium of survey, and the question format. Online surveys can be designed with minimum inputs to ensure people’s participation. Phone survey designs are very different; they involve interactions and provide better data. The right data helps businesses take the right decisions at the right time.
- Collection of data: Data can be collected online or offline. Online data collection is more efficient and economic and the information can be shared via email, social media networks or special campaigns that attract more consumers. Offline data is collected by engaging resources to interact directly with the target audience and collect the required information by asking the prepared questions.
- Data entry and cleansing: The raw data needs to be converted into a feasible format and cleansed to remove wrong, incorrect, repetitive data that could lead to wrong interpretation. Once the data is cleansed, it can be processed.
- Processing of data: The survey data is examined by data experts and they look into the compiled information to ensure that the data is categorized correctly. Computerized or manual processing of data is carried out to derive valuable information. Huge volumes of data can be processed using business intelligence or MIS tools.
- Survey reporting: All processed data should be represented thoughtfully to the management to make them realize the significance of the data and how it can be used for making critical business decisions. Professional third party services offer advanced reporting tools that help to represent the data clearly in tables and graphs so that the management can easily understand the facts.
Let us consider the example of an important survey about data processing and the valuable insights it provided. In surveys such as this, all steps from the initial survey design to reporting must be done flawlessly if accurate results are to be obtained.
Streamlio, an intelligent platform for fast data conducted a survey “Speed of Data” with Dimensional Research. The survey was conducted among hundreds of corporate decision makers worldwide and they found that almost all of these decision makers agreed on the criticality of faster data processing. The survey also found a huge gap between where companies need to be and where they are today. 99 percent of the respondents said that data processing and acting on data quickly is important and 80 percent of respondents said that they need to do that more quickly that they currently do and nearly three quarters of companies still depend primarily on obsolete batch data processing. Even those industries that are already known for quickly acting on data such as financial services and tech companies said that they can do much better.
Although businesses have realized the importance of processing data quickly, there are many barriers that hinder the companies from doing so. Companies are struggling with the rising demands of new initiatives to enable immediate responses to customers, markets and systems by using machine learning, artificial intelligence, cloud micro services and so on.
The survey revealed the following important points:
- The importance and value of data processing is known to everyone: More than 80 percent of companies have an immediate need to process data faster and more than three quarters have identified how quickly they can act on data. Larger businesses are more likely to closely observe immediacy of data processing. Speed is considered critically important especially by respondents in energy, financial servicesand healthcare.
- A huge gap exists between where companies should be and where they are today: 99 percent of organizations have scenarios that could gain benefits from faster data processing. Top scenarios include business intelligence or reporting – 60 percent; system and applications monitoring – 54 percent; security and fraud detection – 52 percent; and customer interaction 51 percent. The main advantages are:
- Increased efficiency (68%)
- Enabling real-time customer interaction (60%)
- Responding to changing business and market dynamics (50%)
- Technology and people are barriers to fast data adoption: More than 90 percent of companies are investing heavily in technology to minimize the gap with almost 40 percent making significant investments. The top challenges include difficulty in making changes to existing solutions and infrastructure- 53 percent; finding people with the required skills – 48 percent; and scalability – 45 percent.
From the survey it was found that nearly every company understands how important it is to put data to use faster, and have current initiatives that increases the demand for fast data. According to Diane Hagglund, principal researcher at Dimensional Research, another thing that became clear “is the tangible business benefits from speeding up data processing, with more than half highlighting increased customer satisfaction and new business applications.”
Surveys provide valuable information that is necessary for any business to grow and succeed. Making data available allows organizations to readily build the data-driven application they need to react to. Although market research and data processing are important for organizations, some of them do not have the time or resources to conduct surveys, convert their raw data into digital form or analyze the data. This is when a data entry company becomes useful and can help in the following areas:
- Survey set-up and design
- Survey printing and mailing
- Web-based surveys
- Survey comment coding and entry
- Survey scanning services
- Statistical reporting services
The main advantage of having experts handling survey data processing is the efficiency they bring into the process. They are fully aware of the necessity of accurate data and skilled professionals provide customized solutions based on the requirements of the client.
