Inc.com Picks up Prezza’s Press Release

Web Enterprise Survey Software

Feb. 22, 2007 — Prezza Technologies, a Cambridge, Mass.-based data collection software company, has released the latest version of its Web-based form, feedback, and survey software, the company said Wednesday.

Checkbox Web Enterprise Edition allows users to build customized surveys, quizzes, and tests, which can include multimedia features, the company said.

The software also helps to create other forms, such as applications, sign-up sheets, course evaluations, and tests, the company said.

Destination CRM Covers Prezza’s New Survey Software Announcement

Prezza Releases Version 4.0 of Checkbox
The company updates and renames its flagship surveying product, focusing on workflow and usability enhancements.

by Colin Beasty

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Prezza Technologies on Wednesday released the latest version of its surveying software, Checkbox Web Enterprise 4.0. The fourth-generation product offers improved capabilities around refined workflows and mobility. In addition to the matured feature set, Prezza has also renamed its technology platform from Ultimate Survey to Checkbox. Prezza also recently released Checkbox Mobile, an optional module for version 4.0 that allows customers to bring surveys onto their PDAs and laptops in support of field service agents.For Checkbox Web Enterprise 4.0, the company refined workflows surrounding surveying templates and creating new surveys, and also around structuring and analyzing data received from survey results, including real-time analysis and reporting capabilities and a multilingual surveying module option. Version 4.0 also allows users to create Web-based surveys using only an intuitive Web browser.

Prezza offers both a hosted and on-premise version of their software, though nearly 80 percent of its approximately 900 customers use the on-premise version, according to the company. For its on-premise version, the company offers a “no-limits pricing model,” giving customers an unlimited number of users, surveys, and responses. This pricing model, according to Christopher Park, director of sales, gives the company a competitive advantage over many of the other EFM vendors that charge for such extensions.

Since its 2002 founding, Prezza has moved “upstream into the enterprise segment,” says John Craven, president. While many of Prezza’s customers currently use the solution as a standalone application, as part of the shift the company is increasingly seeing its midmarket and enterprise customers integrate Checkbox with other applications, notably CRM and HR. Checkbox currently uses a framework to provide customers “with a foundation to build and plug into other apps,” Craven says, though the company plans to offer its own custom-built module as a plug-in for Salesforce.com and other solutions.

Prezza’s emphasis on usability and analysis is representative of the push vendors in this market are making, says Esteban Kolsky, senior research director at Gartner. “They’re looking to embed templates and best practices that are representative of the types of interactions a company might have with a customer. They’re providing the end user with an outline based on best practices.”

Reporting has also gained importance among customers. “The big trend right now is customers want tools that provide them with reporting features that allow them to do something with the data, not just slice and dice it,” Kolsky says. “They want to be able to make business decisions based on a summary of the information.”

CRM has always been strong in providing behavioral and transactional customer information. Measuring and predicting a customer’s attitude toward a company’s brand and its products is quite new. Kolsky says these tools will help map this uncharted ground. “Reduce, reuse, and recycle feedback information with adherence to corporate goals. That’s the real benefit of EFM.”

Link to full story here.

CRM Chump Reviews Prezza Technologies Survey Software

From http://www.crmchump.org/2007/02/checkbox_from_p.html:

Data, according to web-based data collection/survey software producer Prezza Technologies, lives. To better capture and gather the tricky stuff, a philosophy Prezza calls “enterprise feedback management” is used, “both on the factory floor where your products are assembled, and on the retail floor where they’re sold.” 

Founded in 2002, Prezza is currently benefiting from a wave of growth based on increased interest in both web-based surveying and paper-free data collection systems. The company’s enterprise feedback management program Checkbox Web Enterprise 4.0 has just been made available, featuring an upgrade in both name and function.

Prezza’s last major upgrade to Checkbox came in September 2005, when the flagship product was known as the more generic Ultimate Enterprise Survey 3.0. Ultimate Survey Professional Edition still exists as a web-based product for small- to medium-sized projects.

The software is a powerful web-based form, feedback, and survey solution that is easy to use; the main selling point of the Microsoft .NET-powered Checkbox 4.0 is its no limits pricing model, allowing as many users, surveys and responses as the largest company can produce. Also touted in the release are the web survey designer; reporting and analysis features; multilingualism; web farm and cluster support; and available source code kit.

 

Since emphasis on EFM is on gathering data and implementing information quickly, Prezza recently released Checkbox Mobile Edition. Mobile Edition is designed for those point-of-contact people in the customer service chain. Well notable in Mobile Edition is its flexibility; surveys and forms can be deployed on Windows mobile devices, tablet PCs, and laptops using Windows XP. 

In terms of industry-specific solutions, Checkbox 4.0 can be shaped to individual enterprise needs in healthcare, with consideration of government regulations such as HIPAA and Sarbanes-Oxley; public-sector, with emphasis on “citizen-centric” government programs; and financial services, in which Prezza seeks to address consolidation in the industry and hone “one-stop shop” capabilities.

As though Prezza would like to display a little of their own customer service expertise, the company has created a nice come-hither website with screenshots, example surveys and demos, test drives, downloads, and basically just a whole bunch of ways to play with Checkbox without spending a dime. And if it’s not enough, you can even order a live demo – as in live with a real person.

(This writer must say that playing on the Prezza ‘site is addictive indeed, and a thousand uses for Checkbox surveying instantly come to mind…)

For blogheads – and don’t we all love a good blog, really? – Prezza presents “Survey Software HQ.” The HQ is a good one: well kept up with and written on disparate enough yet vitally relevant topics, like McDonald’s versus Starbucks coffee.
 
Pricing for Checkbox 4.0 and related products is available at the Prezza Technologies website. In the meantime, though, I’d get to playing with Checkbox a little. You too may soon see the possibilities inherent in rapidly implementing all that customer data you gather. That is enterprise feedback management.

Prezza Releases Checkbox® Web Survey Software

Prezza’s survey software website has changed to indicate they are selling Checkbox® Web.

Beyond Survey Monkey Survey Software

For being a company run by a few guys, Survey Monkey does pretty well. They make fast, simple surveys. But they have their limits

They limit bandwidth usage by imposing fees on certain items (images, number of survey responses, etc) becuase they offer a hosted solution and are paying for the bandwidth.

They don’t allow multiple users to access their system in a directory-style fashion (some people can create surveys while others just need access to the reports).

But what you really can’t do with Survey Monkey is truly integrate the feedback you’ve collected with their tool into your business systems that power your companies business intelligence and CRM systems.

Most of the companies who do allow this integration, might charge hundreds of thousands for a professional services engagement and not let ever you get near their code. Our company, Prezza Technologies, offers a highly flexible and affordable survey software package and a .NET developers kit and source code which is priced separately.

Prezza’s Developer’s Kit includes:
- aspx and master pages
- Complete API with documentation and sample code
- Developer’s support

You need Checkbox Developer’s Kit to:

- Integrate the look and feel of the administration console with your site.
- Create custom survey and report item types
- Integrate Checkbox Web Enterprise directly with 3rd party applications
- Add additional reporting functionality tools/graphs

You do NOT need the Developer’s Kit to:

- Change the look and feel of each survey
- Change the language of the surveys
- Change the language of the administration console
- Embed video /javascript into surveys
- Replace Checkbox logo in administration console with your own logo
- Query the database directly
- Pass data into surveys from external web applications
- Integrate surveys into your existing web site

Poll Results: The End of the Dollar Bill?

Although a new dollar coin is coming soon, people have spoken loud enough for the government to realize the dollar bill is still useful.

On the Net:

Ipsos: http://www.ap-ipsosresults.com

U.S. Mint’s dollar coin program: http://www.usmint.gov/mint–programs/$1coin/

Longitudinal Surveys

Personally, out of all the types of surveys one could do, I find the longitudinal variety to be the most interesting and the most informative, simply because a trend/behavior is being tracked over a period of years.

The good news is that you don’t have to wait 10 years to conduct your second survey. Longitudinal studies  that go back in time are called retrospective studies and would be used where a researcher investigates recorded bahevior over the years (population, medical records, etc) and uses todays number to make a statement.

One of the more famous around the area I grew up, is the Framingham Heart Study. I have a few friends that go out to Framingham every few years to get their blood taken and levels checked. They are in the third generation of program participants.  Most of the now common knowledge concerning heart disease, such as the effects of diet, exercise, and common medications such as aspirin, are based on this longitudinal study.

If you like the idea of a repeating, long-term survey, there’s a neat documentary series you could watch called “Seven Up!” which follows the lives of 14 British children starting in 1964. Each new film in the series (Seven Up, Seven plus Seven, 21 Up, 28 Up, 35 Up, 42 Up, 49 Up, etc) profiles the lives of the participants at 7 year intervals. It’s not very exciting compared to some of the blockbusters or short web clips of today, but provides a much more lasting impact and effect.

Here’s some more longitudinal surveys/studys.

• Dunedin Longitudinal Study
• Minnesota Twin Family Study
• World Values Survey (repeated cross-sectional)
• Panel Study on Income Dynamics
• German Socio-economic Panel Study
• British Household Panel Survey
• Seven Up!
• Born in Bradford
• Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey
• Luxembourg Income Study (LIS)
• Wisconsin Longitudinal Study
• Panel Study of Belgian Households

Serial Surveys

Serial surveys are those which repeat the same questions at different points in time, producing time-series data. They typically fall into two types:

* Cross-sectional surveys which draw a new sample each time. In a sense any one-off survey will also be cross-sectional.

* Longitudinal surveys where the sample from the initial survey is recontacted at a later date to be asked the same questions.

(source: Wikipedia)

McDonalds Coffee Beats Starbucks in Consumer Reports Survey Results

Coffee snobs get their comeuppance in the March issue of Consumer Reports magazine.

Published reports say the nonprofit organization’s taste testers ruled the coffee served by McDonald’s beat out the pricey brew served up at Starbucks.

The magazine reportedly says McDonald’s Premium Roast Coffee has “no flaws,” labeling it “decent and moderately strong.” The java from Starbucks, meanwhile, was determined to be “strong, but burnt and bitter enough to make your eyes water instead of open.”

The testers also ranked coffee from Burger King and privately held Dunkin’ Donuts, which claims to serve nearly a billion cups a year. Neither stood up to the competition, the magazine said.

Burger King’s brew “looked like coffee but tasted more like hot water,” the report states, while Dunkin’s “was inoffensive, but it had no oomph.”

McDonald’s was not only the best tasting, but was also found to be the least expensive cup, the magazine said.

(Source: AP)

How to Evaluate and Select Survey Software in 3 Steps

The Simple Version

1. Identify Candidates – Make a List.

2. Compare Basic Attributes – It’s Spreadsheet Time.

3. Analyze Top Candidates in Depth – Pick Your Top Five, Then One.

The Detailed Version