Those wanting to conduct online research have a variety of products and services to choose from in the market.

DIY Tools

There are a number of DIY or self-service tools that allow people to conduct their own online research. On a technical level these can be split into two types; those that you must purchase and install on your PC and those that you subscribe to online.

Products that you purchase and install tend to be provided by companies that have been developing and selling survey software before the online revolution took place. Their offering is usually based on older software with modules bolted on that allow the surveys to be deployed online. There are a number of drawbacks to this approach. The software has rarely been created specifically to provide an online service and therefore its focus is elsewhere resulting in more limited levels of capabilities. The fact that the software has to be installed on a PC means that it can only be accessed from that machine and also has to be upgraded regularly in order to apply bug fixes or upgrades.

Subscription based DIY services provide the ability to login to an online application using your web-browser and develop and deploy your survey online. There is no need to purchase and install any special software on your PC. These services have been developed specifically for the purpose of online research and are therefore more focused in that area than the software products you have to buy and install.

The advantage of using self-service tools is that generally speaking they provide a fairly low-cost solution to many online research needs. If you need to interview a relatively small number of people with a straight-forward questionnaire then a DIY tool is definitely worth considering.

The obvious downside is that you have to do the work yourself which means having suitably trained resource available which in itself comes at some sort of cost to the company. Other disadvantages arise from the limitations in what can be achieved in using these tools. Generally, they lack the level of sophistication that is often need for more comprehensive and demanding studies. In particular they are usually limited in their ability to integrate to third party sample or panel providers and to manage any form of quota controls in the sample structure. The surveys tend to have a ‘functional’ rather than ‘polished’ look about them and lack facilities such as suspend/resume, complex routing mechanisms and facilities to integrate external data. Other drawbacks can include a lack of integrated facilities to provide both sample management communication and useful analysis of the data collected.

Consultancy Services

Those not having the resources available to use DIY online research tools or having more complex requirements than self service products can cater for should consider the use of a specialist consultancy such as ORS.

The fundamental benefit delivered by a specialist consultancy such as ORS is the extension of your team to include expert knowledge and experience of conducting online research whilst leaving internal resources available for other duties. The capabilities of the ORS technology platform exceed that of the self-service tools and can be extended and customised to meet the most demanding of project requirements. The online surveys and other deliverables used in the research are generally of a much higher quality than can be achieved with self-service tools.

Whilst the cost of a consultancy will always be higher than that of a DIY tool, packages such as the ORS Standard Survey Package have been designed to provide a fully comprehensive and cost-effective solution for most ad-hoc online surveys.