The Internet Survey Method: the Most Internal Control Checks - Research Paper Example

RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES Questionnaire The purpose of this questionnaire is to help both the companies that are using the internet for advertising their products, the advertising companies, the website programmers and most especially you the users of the internet whether your are customers or suppliers of business or services to exchange views, comments and suggestions for the improvement of the selling company's services and goods. Please answer the questions using the best knowledge. Your valuable comments and suggestions will be submitted to the companies concerned for them to study so they can improve on the quality of their services and goods. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Name Age Country Sex Occupation Please place a check mark on the spaces below. How many average hours per week do you use the internet Less than 20 hours ( ) 11 to 40 hours ( ) 41 to 61 hours ( ) Over 61 hours ( ) What is your major reason for using the internet Communication to friends and relative ( ) 1 News reports ( ) 2 Sell my goods and services ( ) 3 Buy goods and services ( ) 4 Play computer games ( ) 5 Listen to music, movies etc. ( ) 6 Others __________________ When you buy and sell goods which is your major money transfer method do you use Pay pal ( )1 Visa Card ( )2 American Express ( )3 E gold, Platinum gold, etc. ( )4 Western Union ( )5 Bank Wire ( )6 Others _________________________ Do you have your own website Yes ( ) No ( ) If you are advertising in the internet, what is your major method of advertising Pop up ( )1 own website ( )2 Special offer ( )3 Links to your website ( )4 Others _________________ ( )5 Which type of advertising method attracts you most Free offers if the main product is bought ( )1 Free trial period that expires ( )2 Websites with beautiful enticing girls ( )3 Websites with testimonials from satisfied clients ( )4 Others _________________ ( )5 Which type of follow up or inquiry method do you prefer Automatic computer choice method ( )1 Live chat method ( )2 E mail inquiry method ( )3 Others _________________ ( )4 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Referring to the above question and task, discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the use of online survey. ( 1,000 words ) Use of Online Survey to gather data: ADVANTAGES Cost. As compared to surveys done personally, the cost of actually doing the survey through the use of e-mails and websites is glaringly much much smaller than if the surveys were done personally. For example, if you need to get the response of persons surveyed as to which softdrink product taste better, then the taste test promotional strategy has to be done in many places and such a practice truly is costly. Time. As far as time is concerned the survey (Kinnear, 1996) through the use of the internet can be processed faster than if the survey will be done personally. As a clear example, if you give a survey to prospective clients in the United Kingdom or the Germany or Korea, all you have to do is just join a chat club like yahoo messenger and other chat sights. You can qualify your search for prospective survey takers (Churchill, 1995) by stating in the chat sight that you want to contact someone in the United Kingdom or German or Korea or even other destinations. If you are an American citizen and you are in need of getting the research data of prospective customers in the United Kingdom, Germany or Korea, then the survey researcher (Triola, 1995) or the company contracting the survey researcher will have to pay the very high cost of plane tickets to these target markets. The company will also have to pay the hotel accommodations and the food costs of the researcher or researches. Fairness. As compared to the personal survey, there is more credibility and neutrality when the survey respondents fill up the survey forms. Since the survey researchers and the survey respondents do not meet personally, then there is a factor of privacy involved. Since the survey respondents are not being rushed during the internet survey as compared to the personal survey transactions where the survey personnel are rushing indirectly the survey respondents' work through the body languages or stern faces of the survey researchers, then the DISADVANTAGES Few people use the internet. More than fifty percent of the people have no time to use the internet. These people include the old folks belonging to the forty years old and above because the computer age had not yet reached them during their younger days. As the saying goes that it is harder to teach an old dog a new trick, therefore many of the older generations will resist the change from their old ways and the use of new technology such as the computer and the internet. Most of the time the people use the radio, the newspapers, and the television to entertain themselves and to be updated on news that will greatly affect, the world, his country like the United States, his county, his community and his family. This is the reason why the newspaper advertisements, the radio advertisements are very costly .The company has to pay a large advertising amount in order to capture the market segment that is his neighbor, his countrymen, people with the same sports and leisure activities like him. Viruses. Another reason is that the survey forms could be infected with virus. Once the company softwares are infected with viruses, the company has to use an anti virus like the Mcaffee or the Norton and other virus removers. The danger, though, is that the anti virus program could be outdated or too old that it can not remove the new and modern day viruses that have recently been concocted by virus programmers. Credibility. The credibility of the survey data as filled up by the survey respondents could not be trusted one hundred percent. The reason is that there is a possibility that the survey respondents were not serious enough to exert extra efforts to fill up the survey forms to the best of their knowledge or ability at the time of the survey form fill up. In short, there is a possibility that some of those survey respondents have filled up the survey with the idea that the survey is just waste of their time so they fill up the survey forms without, sometimes, reading the questions completely. Privacy. There is even a strong probability that a small percentage of the survey respondents intentionally give false answers as a consequence of their anger that their privacy has been invaded when they are asked to give confidential information in the survey. To hide their privacy, they may give false answers such as indicating that they are women when in fact they are gays. Whereas if the survey respondents are personally invited to answer the questions. There is a stronger basis for that small percentage of respondents not to answer the survey questions as this is a violation of their right to privacy. This is putting it one way on the side of the negativist. But in general, around more than eighty percent or more of correspondents would accept the survey questions as a venue where their small voices can be counted, recorded and processed so that the readers of the survey study can help these small unheard voices through improvements in the products and services currently being used by these complaining small voices. The complaints and suggestions of the small voices can now be used as one of the criteria to improve the quality of service that is presently being implemented. CONCLUSION: The advantages of using the online survey to do service work is that it is less costly than personal surveying, it takes lesser time to conduct as compared to personal surveys and there is better show of fairness as compared to personal survey. The disadvantages of using the online survey is that only a small portion of the United States population really spend some time opening emails, looking for new friends, and there is a danger that one of the incoming mails may have a dangerous virus attached to it so that when you open your email, all the important files inside your computer will be destroyed by infection. In conclusion, Since the survey that is done through the internet is less costly and covers more areas to test in a shorter period of time as compared to personal or face to face survey research. It is therefore better to choose the internet survey method provided most internal control checks are implemented to give us a more reliable research data so that interpretation of such data will be the same if all the entire population has been asked to answer the survey questions. REFERENCES: Kinnear T., Taylor J., Marketing Research, McGrawHill, N. Y., 1996 Churchill, G., Peter P., Marketing, Creating value for Customers, Irwin, Massachusetts, 1995 Triola, M., Elementary Statistics, Addison Wesley, N.Y., 1995 Read More