Alchemer

Great survey software

Pros:

We use this as our back up survey software or if we need to run a survey offline. I like the fact that you can customise almost every aspect of your survey and it has a huge range of question types and the inbuilt analysis and reporting tool is great as you can customise and then just share a link with the client

Cons:

It is quite expensive and although there is a free version it doesn't have many features. It would also be nice to have a better way of respondents logging in.

The best web-based survey software for research ethics compliance

Comments: Pretty good. We're pushing it's limits in our next survey design and trying to make something really visually interactive. So far our surveys have been pretty traditional for social research and everything has worked well. We will see if it's possible to make some more fun surveys on Alchemer or not.

Pros:

It's easy to use with all the modern features for all types of social surveys and the reports can do segmentation which saves a lot of offline data analysis work. A really important selling point for me was the company's privacy policy and how they make it easy to tailor their product to be used for research on sensitive topics. Uniquely, Alchemer makes it really easy to activate the "response encryption" function which is the only way to prevent the company or its survey administrators from accessing or using anonymized forms of your survey data for other purposes. Secondary use of customers survey data is an important part of most online survey software company's business. They also specifically describe the use of this function being important for research on sensitive topics like personal health. They also are more straightforward in their privacy policy language when it comes to use of the "anonymous" survey function, which blocks the collection of IP addresses of survey respondents which happens by default for all online survey software. Competitors like survey monkey offer this feature but do not have as strong of guarantees in the privacy policy that they will not collect the IP addresses for their own business uses. Similarly the response encryption feature is generally available from competitors but at a higher price point and in the case of Qualtrics only as a non-disclosed cost add on feature.

Cons:

It doesn't have the 100% smooth and premium feel that you'd expect. It's probably an 8/10 for design quality and has some quirks and occasional glitches. I've had issues with multi-language surveys and support for which Unicode/alphabet version for a language that the software supports, and separately problems with HTML script in the secondary language version of a survey being reset and erased spontaneously. Their customer support is really quick to respond on email however, and their help pages are really robust and easy to learn from.

Easy UI, Great simple analytics

Pros:

There's no learning curve to creating a survey - UI is intuitive and for 90% of our company's survey needs the question type functionality and logic meet our needs. Very easy to pull reports - Alchemer autogenerates charts, graphs, and word clouds, and has built-in filter logic. Often, our reports can be directly pulled from Alchemer itself without additional analysis in excel.

Cons:

A lot of our survey needs are around spatial data, so we often need to pair alchemer with a mapping tool as there is no way to easily ask survey takers to provide spatial/map data. Adding images to question options is not very intuitive, and images need to be edited outside of Alchemer to make sure they display correctly.

Lousy Customer Relations

Comments: In the end, very poor customer relations.

Pros:

Ease of use, better piping functionality.

Cons:

I spent several months building surveys with Survey Gizmo when I called to inquire about some coding assistance. After reviewing my surveys, I was advised by customer support as follows: Upon reviewing your K1 project with my team here, we noticed a lot of aspects that violate our Acceptable Use Policy. Specifically, collecting certain personally identifiable information. The Acceptable Use Policy prohibits use of the SaaS to exchange federal or state identification information, passwords, social security numbers, banking, credit card, or any other financial information. Avoidance of our servers would not alleviate the prohibition to collect the information that the customer is requesting. I had paid my $1800 annual fee just a week prior. Since I was collecting passports information in the field of U.S. immigration, I used the next month to test whether I could transition to Qualtrics (a far superior platform, as things turned out). I then requested a pro rata refund of my annual subscription fee. I was advised that SurveyGizmo typically only gives refunds if requested within 30 days of paying the fee, but that I might nonetheless qualify for a refund because the platform was not able to deliver the services I required. After waiting over two weeks, I was advised that my request for a refund was denied. So, SurveyGizmo = limited service + poor business ethics + indifferent customer relations.

An academic uses Alchemer

Comments: I am a non-business user of Alchemer. For my uses, I find Alchemer reasonably intuitive, with the exception of more sophisticated features (such as question branching and skip logic). Explanations of the more advanced features are explained well, however.

Pros:

Ease of use. Much more intuitive and reasonably priced than the behemoth that is Qualtrics. I am an academic user who pays out of pocket to use this so those factors matter a lot.

Cons:

I casn't think of any disadvantages of this software, given how I use it.