Are you thinking of running a survey or using a form for methods to gather feedback, or collect sign-ups for an event? Over time I’ve had the joy (and agony) of working with various tools and software to collect all kinds of data throughout my short career. From Customer Service satisfaction data to email addresses, Course feedback and other kinds of personal or professional data.
I’m listing three tools I’ve used so far, alongside some pro’s & con’s and use-case examples. Hopefully this will help you make a somewhat more educated decision on which tool to use for your own goals. So here are Three easy-to-use data-collection tools you can start using today.
Let’s get started!
Before we continue: I am not sponsored by any of the services listed below. This is based on my own experiences with these tools & services. I may receive a commission if you make a purchase or sign-up for a service through any links on my website however.
#1: Google Forms
If you have a G-mail or Google Account, you have access to Google Forms. A rather simple, but quite powerful surveying and data-collection tool.
Google Forms allows you to quickly set up a, somewhat simplistic, data-collection form within minutes.
It will also automatically create a Google Sheet in your Google Drive, where all the data is deposited upon collection. Quite handy and easy to set up rather fast.
The downside though, is a lack of customization. You are limited in terms of look & feel of your form. You can edit the top banner, title and make use of various question-types and add pages, but that’s about it.
Google Forms is ideal for quick and easy data-collection. E.g. as a sign-up sheet, or a quick survey on how someone experienced using your product or service. You can have open and closed questions, as well as ratings and sliders You can even have an upload box where people could upload pictures or documents that you request.
For any kind of quick data-collection effort, that shouldn’t take too much time, effort or thought, Google Forms is ideal. Also, it’s completely free to use! But if you want more elaborate surveys, you are probably better off with one of the paid or trial versions of the following two tools.
Access to Google Forms is done via your Google Account, similar to Drive/Gmail etc.
#2: Typeform
Typeform is an iconic, and also extremely simple to use, form-creator tool. It’s distinctively different from Google Forms in the way that it has it’s own unique look & feel to it. Every Typeform consists of a string of questions created by yourself.
The respondent then goes through the form in a natural and smooth experience. Each question is loaded only after the previous one is filled out. Either the page fades to a new question, or automatically scrolls down further to the next question.
At no point will there be more then one full question on-screen for the user. The exception being questions asking for various inputs like first & last name. As far as variety and question-types go, they naturally have all the types available.
The power of typeform lies in how natural it works for the respondents, how smooth their experience is. No janky “waiting” for the next question, no distractions from previous questions or clutter. Just the respondent and the question on-screen.
The free version is quite powerful as well, offering almost all functionalities including a powerful AI generator. The (big) downside however, is that you are limited to the amount of responses you can collect per month.
If you want to collect more then 10 responses per month, you will need to upgrade to at least the basic plan. For €21,- a month you can then collect 100 responses a month, with the option to upgrade even further to a maximum of 750 responses a month (for a price, of course).
While powerful, and very user friendly, it all comes down to the size of your audience and your use-case. If you want to use it e.g. for a “first come – first served” sign-up form, you can easily use the free version for that purpose.
The moment you want to collect larger sets of responses, you’ll have to draw your wallet though, making this tool’s usability limited without a budget.
You can simply do a google search for Typeform, or access it via my referral link here. I may get a small commission if you subscribe to Typeform, full disclosure!.
#3: Qualtrics
If you want to really up your game when it comes to data-collection, Qualtrics is most likely your best bet. It features powerful tools like display logic, conditional questions, survey flow and other respondent-direction tools.
You can also put a verification check on certain answers, in case you want to make sure you are capturing email addresses in the right format and stop pranksters from filling in bad data.
While it’s pricing model has recently pivoted towards tailored business solutions, making you request quotes and all that stuff, they do still offer free account options as well. The free version does come with some limitations, such as only a select few (8) question types to make use of and no more then 3 active surveys overall. On the other hand, you do get a whopping 500 responses as a limit, which is considerably more then TypeForm. Also, there is no expiration or trial-period, free is free forever.
Asides from that, it’s results-processing environment is also a big plus. You can decide to export the responses you collected via Excel, CSV or SPSS table-format. But you can also generate and customize reports within qualtrics itself, allowing you to build quick overviews of your responses, such as NPS score, open feedback or other rating/score data you collect
Qualtrics is often already in use at universities or other large public organisations. If you are a student, chances are likely you can make use of your universities Qualtrics environment as well.
While it might take a moment to find your way around Qualtrics, once you get the hang of it it’s going to be a powerful tool in your data-collection arsenal. It basically does everything you can think of in terms of data collection, processing and extraction. But that functionality does come at a price.
You can sign up for a free Qualtrics account here to give it a go.
Conclusion
There are plenty of tools out there to start collecting data in a more professional way. From free versions like Google Forms, to paid versions like Typeform or Qualtrics. And these are not the only ones out there, a quick google-search will net you even more options.
Ultimately, you will almost always end up having to pay for a service if you want to make the most out of it. Therefore, I would advice you to start out free to see if you are actually gathering data at all. Then, from your first results, determine if what your collecting is worthwile. If you end up with a subscription, only to gather next to no useful feedback, that money is not well-spent in my opinion.
Ultimately, the best thing you can do is read up on what works best for your situation. You are not the first, and won’t be the last, to start exploring these kinds of data-collection methods.
I hope this overview at least gives a clear idea of the possibilities and use-cases out there for these three tools!
Good luck!