Clicktools vs. FluidSurveys (Discontinued)

For any organization that is using salesforce.com and needs to implement a survey system that directly ties back to their salesforce.com system I would highly recommend Clicktools. We tried building our own customer satisfaction survey and it was not worth the effort, especially as our questions are ever changing. The integration with the case module was easy to configure

Incentivized

I think FluidSurveys is appropriate for almost all scenarios. For now, the only time I used another product was when the survey I was managing was being done using tablets (such as Ipads or Samsung tablets) and I used ODK Collect. I think FluidSurveys now has the option of uploading the survey to a tablet and collect the data through it. However, I have not tried it. ODK Collect is an open source and free software compared to FluidSurveys. Thus, if the user wishes to use tablets, I might recommend using ODK Collect even if there is some learning to do in terms of coding your question in an Excel sheet for it to be "uploadable" to the ODK Collect "hub" (the server).

• Integration with SFDC: Makes it easy to trigger survey sends - and store survey results within SFDC - so that multiple departments and stakeholders can view results.
• Hidden Questions - Since we are mostly surveying our customers, we use Clicktools Hidden question fields to improve the survey experience. This way we don't need to ask the person filling out the survey their name or company - but are still able to attach the survey to their profile within SFDC.
• Ease of Use - Clicktools is a robust, yet easy to use software. As someone who manages a team of people that deploy Clicktools, I don't use the product everyday, but I have a very small learning curve when I do need to jump in and create a survey.

Incentivized

• User-friendly. For the majority of the general and basic tools you can use with FluidSurveys to build surveys are simple to use and intuitive. When certain issues come up, the service is quick (chat room) and effective.
• Anonymity: the software has the reputation of being safer in terms of safeguarding private information the respondents share by answering surveys (this is mainly due to the fact that the servers are in Canada). Thus, indirectly, they increase response rates.
• Extensive possibilities: FluidSurveys offers a plethora of possibilities and options that really renders the experience interesting in terms of micro-managing each details of the surveys you are sending out there. When the invitation leaves by email, it is exactly how you want it.

• Using conditional questions (if yes, then skip to question 5, if no, continue to question 2) can be tricky initially. And it can be really tricky once you have multiple conditions that send a person all over the place. Be sure to test repeatedly so that you know that your customers are getting to the questions they are supposed to be at and not being kicked out early. There are certain nuances you will pick up on over time that make conditional questions easier - BUT you can clone surveys, so build once and then work off your own template.
• No matter how many questions types are available, inevitably you will find a question in which Clicktools does not have a type to support it. They do have quite a few options though... just wish their matrix option was more robust.
• Not many template "themes" to pick from - surveys look very bland.

• There should be more flexibility and customizability with regard to survey design (e.g. background, fonts...)

We have loved using Clicktools and will continue to use it for the foreseeable future. The price and Salesforce integration is what really sets it apart from any other solution out there. I have learned a great deal about surveys and how to manage them in a CRM by using Clicktools. We will certainly be renewing our contract.

We are very happy with FluidSurveys. It is a simple and intuitive tool, has a good variety of sample survey templates, allows real-time response analysis and easy report-generation feature. We have been able to access support very quickly from their team when we had a question / concern. We will most likely upgrade to the Ultra version, though, as the branching options in Pro package are somewhat limited

It's fairly intuitive, produces a great product and the customer support is fantastic. I only lowered the score because I find that the in-depth surveys that we run most often can take up to five minutes to produce results, which can be tiring since the interface only allows me to open one window of Clicktools so I can't run multiple results at a time. When I asked support if this was an issue that could be fixed they said it was because the graphics took time to generate the data.

Incentivized

I think the average person can very quickly pick up on the basics of the system: they would have no problems programming and launching a basic survey. Organizations may benefit from having people of different backgrounds getting their hands dirty in the system: at a minimum, both web programmers and opinion research advisors should be solicited for input or help.

ClickTools is always available when I need it. The interface is quick and does not drag. Survey responses show up quickly after a survey is submitted. The survey analyzer is swift as well. There is no waiting around for something to process when you are using ClickTools.

I get frustrated by not being able to find the answers to my questions online by myself. I would rather search FAQs and find things that way, but it seems I always have to contact support to get the answer I need. They need a more robust support center so you can do it yourself. But on the upside, when I do contact support, they respond immediately and usually solve my problem quickly

If you are setting up integration with a CRM (Salesforce) get this done early on in the process. You can always do it later, but it's easiest to lay your foundation first and then build up and around it later

Secure, integrated with Salesforce and allows for better graphics that can be presented to customers. It produces a valuable tool for our sales team by collecting data and turning it into something that is comprehensive and easy to navigate and fun to look at, vs numbers and data gathered onto a sheet.

Incentivized

From a Government perspective, FluidSurveys offers some qualities that make it stand out:

• It is located in Canada;


• It's servers are located in Canada;


• They are willing to host user-group meetings, so that Government departments can explain how they have implemented a wide variety of tasks with it (and people can get very creative with FluidSurveys! If they can use an in-house option they've already purchased to conduct non-survey-related tasks, it introduced major cost savings to taxpayers. So it's also very important to share this type of creativity with other departments).

• Increased employee efficiency: due to the fact that it links to the Salesforce, it saves time to update our stakeholder records. It is, at least, a 100% ROI.
• Better customer service. The data we collect help us improve our operations. It is hard thought to estimate the role of Clicktools in the retention of our clients.

Incentivized

• The cost savings in using FluidSurveys to conduct research, rather than outsource it, has saved us hundreds of thousands of dollars over the few years that we have been using it. Contracting out research is costly, so if you have the right people/skills and technology to do the work in-house, you're able to conduct a lot more research than you would otherwise be able to.