SPSS - Customers

I&O Research

Situation

I&O Research is an independently operated full-service market research agency in The Netherlands.

Challenge

Creating surveys for different interview modes (face to face, telephone, web or CAPI) meant using different tools and therefore different skills at I&O; Research. The company was seeking a unified way to create surveys, in order to improve efficiency. Furthermore, workplace legislation changes were leading to increased employee costs among data entry staff. In order to remain competitive, I&O Research wished to automate its data service and was looking for a three year return in investment (ROI).

Solution

I&O; Research adopted a range of SPSS MR Dimensions technologies, offering an integrated solution for single-source survey authoring, web-based survey deployment, paper-based questionnaire form generation and high capacity scanning of completed forms. It also created a custom link between the authoring program and the company's existing third-party CATI system, allowing the new software also to be used to create CATI scripts for a program outside the Dimensions platform.

Our company philosophy is, wherever possible, to reduce labor and re-use information - and this solution exactly meets those requirements. This is software that gives us a competitive advantage

Results

Greater efficiency through adopting a unified means of survey origination
Savings achieved of $1200 to $1500 per job as automation reduced the need for error checking and correction
Turnaround time reduced in project definition and approval, when working with external clients, typically from 1-2 weeks to 1-2 days
Improved accuracy in data entry from paper, as 1 to 1.5 per cent error rate moves to near zero
Paper solution has acted as a "magnet" for existing and new clients
100% ROI achieved in just one year
An existing investment in CATI skills and technology protected

Dutch research agency, I&O; Research, has both enhanced the services it provides to its customers and achieved significant efficiency improvements in providing those services through adopting Dimensions software.

Edwin van de Wiel, Director at I&O; Research explained: "We wanted to have a software solution that would provide us with a unified way of creating surveys. It needed to have, among many requirements, a library for the questions we use very often, and the ability to create scripts for our CATI system. And faced with some increased staff costs, we wanted to automate our data entry too."

The solution I&O; Research chose uses Dimensions to link together both existing software from a range of third party providers, while adding new functionality from the Dimensions range, including the desired unified method for survey creation. Face-to-face and paper-based self-completion surveys are then handled using the SPSS MR paper and scan solution and Web-based self-completion can be handled within the Dimensions Web survey solution, while a special export link provides seamless transfer of surveys authored in Dimensions to the company's existing third-party CATI system. This integration has protected an existing investment in both skills and hardware in its telephone interviewing call center.

"One of Dimensions' great advantages is that it is an open platform," said Van de Wiel, "so we can integrate it with other software or create additional modules, as we require. We have built several components of our own, like the export to our CATI system, and other tools that integrate with the software we use for cleaning and analyzing the data."

The greatest transformation has been in the automation of I&O; Research's paper-based surveys. The company has found that the technology has acted as a magnet for customers and has enhanced the company's reputation and standing. This has generated additional business from existing customers as well as providing the firm with new business opportunities. I&O; Research now handles questionnaire design and scanning for many in-house research departments, including a large number of city and regional councils across the Netherlands that are regularly surveying their citizens and service users.

Furthermore, the high degree of automation has slimmed down a previously lengthy process of survey drafting, checking, correction and approval both internally and with clients, so that a typical 20-page survey can be turned round in one to two days now, rather than one to two weeks before. I&O; Research estimates these efficiency savings gained by adopting the SPSS MR paper solution to be worth between $1200 to $1500 per job on these typical projects.

Measured accuracy in data capture has also improved through automation, from an already low error rate of around one to one and one half percent, to virtually zero. The firm has increased its capacity without the need to take on extra staff — since implementation; the headcount has actually been reduced very slightly.

At every stage, the work is more efficient. This allows researchers and project directors more time to concentrate on the ‘hand crafted' parts of the job, and on caring for customers, by relieving them of the repetitive and time-consuming parts and the burden of much of the cross-checking they previously had to do.

The return on investment has also exceeded I&O; Research's expectations. Van de Wiel observed: "I thought we would have a 100 percent ROI in three years' time. But I had not considered what it would do to the image of our company. By taking this into consideration, we've achieved our ROI it in one year!"

Edwin van de Wiel concluded: "Our company philosophy is, wherever possible, to reduce labor and re-use information — and this solution exactly meets those requirements. This is software that gives us a competitive advantage."