When you are happy that all the data that can be collected has been the survey should be taken down and replaced with a message letting people know that the study is over and providing a contact address for those that might need it.

Any incentives will need to be provided and lists of panel member IDs given to the sample providers used. Its useful to do this sooner rather than later as members may avoid your surveys in future if they have to wait too long for their rewards.

Once the survey is offline it is a good idea to review the data files and audit or edit the data as required. If external panellist sample has been used the sample providers should be informed about any spurious entries so that they can withhold the rewards from the people concerned and so that you don’t get charged.

If generic survey links have been used in your email invitations or respondents have visited the survey from web links or advertisements then the data should be reviewed and audited to ensure that there are not obvious multiple entries from the same person.

For certain studies such as customer, staff or membership surveys it can be a nice touch to round off by emailing those that have taken part and thanking them for participating. You may want to mention high response rates and let people know how the results will be processed and what the outcomes may be for them eg. Provide better products, services or working environment. People will appreciate this and it will help if you ask them to participate in other studies at some time in the future.

How you analyse your survey results is beyond the scope of this guide. ORS clients are provided with tabulations and verbatim reports as part of the ORS Standard Survey Package along with access to their data in an online analysis tool for further study. Please refer to the ORS Online Results Facility User’s Guide for more detailed information.