So you have developed some great surveys. Now you need to determine the best way to distribute surveys and an easy and convenient way for respondents to return the completed surveys. A survey is useless if respondents do not receive the survey in a timely and convenient manner and if they do not have an easy and convenient way to return the survey.

Traditionally surveys were conducted either in-person, by telephone, or mailed to respondents. Each of these survey delivery methods has its drawbacks. Often the in-person surveys were done in the office or at the retail location for which the survey was designed to obtain feedback. A problem with face-to-face surveys is that often the time of the survey is not convenient for the respondent. Maybe when the potential respondent is visiting your office or store they are in the middle of a busy day or at the end of a long day and when asked to complete a survey they decline or they rush through the answers. There is also the concern that the responses in face-to-face interviews are not confidential and could easily be tied back to the respondent which, especially with employee surveys, could compromise the honesty of the answers.

Telephone surveys are a popular way to conduct customer surveys. Often however the call comes at an inconvenient time and once again the respondent would either decline to answer or would rush though the answers.

Mailed surveys are either thrown away or stuck in the corner to be answered at a later date and often are forgotten and never responded to.

Today the web and email has revolutionized survey distribution.  Companies can easily and in a timely manner distribute surveys to employees and customers through emails or web pages. The internet makes the survey distribution process painless and inexpensive. The respondents can easily complete the surveys at a time and place convenient to them and easily return the survey with the click on their computer.

There are many survey software and web survey tools that allow you to easily design professional email or web surveys which meet your unique needs even if you have limited technical expertise. These tools allow you to send the survey via email or put a link to the survey on your webpage or in an email invitation. You can choose to have the responses sent by email or entered directly on your website. You can design reminder emails and automatic acknowledgements of responses received. Some of the companies offering survey software or web based survey tools will also distribute surveys for you.

Many of these tools include filers and cross tabulation features to help you easily analyze the responses without reentering the data. Some of the web based tools allow real time data analysis as the responses are sent the data is organized according to your specified criteria. Many include the capability to portray the data in charts and graphs or allow you to download the data into your own spreadsheet.