The Survey System vs Alchemer: Which is a better fit?

Gregory K: Hello, my name is Gregory. I'm an owner. I give Alchemer a five out of five star review. For more reviews, click below. I chose Alchemer for my company as a replacement for SurveyMonkey. I had been using SurveyMonkey on and off for a number of years, and while it's very functional and very easy to use, there were certain features that were lacking in the SurveyMonkey platform that Alchemer provided. Essentially, I was looking for five capabilities in a survey software. I wanted there to be the capability of producing cross tabulations at the end of a survey. I wanted the capability of collecting image heat maps where a graphical image is presented to respondents and they click in an area where they were interested or that was confusing and that the data is then rendered in a heat map on top of that image. I also wanted to be able to do video dial testing. I wanted questions that had time limits for exams, and I also wanted a capability, even if it was rudimentary, for conjoint or discrete choice question designs. I found that Alchemer was one of only four software platforms that had all five of those available, and by far, Alchemer was the most cost effective one of those four. So that's why I chose Alchemer. I think getting started with Alchemer was fairly easy. I do have behind me almost 30 years of market research experience, and I have used a lot of different survey software platforms throughout my career, so I probably came out of the gate with a little bit more of an understanding about how survey software tools work. While I found Alchemer fairly easy to use, I could see someone who is a complete novice or only has maybe one year of experience in market research that they may have some difficulties with the complexities of how to render a lot of the different optional features in different questions in Alchemer. But for the most part, I found it no more or no less complicated than other competing software platforms like Forsta or Qualtrics. I think before obtaining Alchemer, it would be a good decision to try to reach out to any of your friends or colleagues in the research industry to find out if they have any experience with Alchemer or what they have heard about it. The platform used to be called Surveygizmo, so I think that would be important to include in your research as well, because whatever opinions people had about Surveygizmo would essentially apply also to Alchemer, so reach out for personal reviews or opinions. I would also look on sites like Capterra that provide a more quantitative look at what people review. And the last thing I would suggest is go ahead and call the folks at Alchemer. They're located in Colorado and they're very knowledgeable about their own platform, and they have a very matter of fact and not a pushy sales tactic like some other platforms that I encountered did have, where they just wouldn't leave you alone even after you told them you're not going to go with them. I would say talk to some of the sales folks at Alchemer. They're good and they understand, I think, what the market researchers' perspective and what their needs are so that they're able to answer those questions effectively.