In the past few years, yellowSquares has grown into a highly respected provider of support services to market research agencies. Director Chris Mawn attributes much of their success in the area of Web based market research surveys to the flexibility and cost-effectiveness of using Professional Quest.

BUSINESS OVERVIEW

Chris Mawn and Gillian Milne have over 20 years combined experience in the market research arena. They founded yellowSquares in 2003 to provide online research support services to other market research agencies. A key service provided by the business was the design, distribution and analysis of Web based market research surveys.

THE CHALLENGE

It was key to their business to find a Web survey software tool that would allow them to provide their clients with high quality and flexible solutions to their Web research needs. While there are a number of players in this market, key concerns were the level of support available within Australia, the flexibility of the product (with particular focus on the ability to turn jobs around quickly) and interoperability with existing applications such as Surveycraft and SPSS. It was important to have the right balance of features and cost – the market was dominated by packages that are extremely flexible, but are both complex and very expensive. In general, it was felt that only 60% of the features were truly needed, and the cost was excessive. “The challenge was to find a software tool that was sufficiently powerful to support the needs of our business, without extreme cost and complexity” said Chris Mawn. "Dipolar's Professional Quest software met this challenge well."

WHY PROFESSIONAL QUEST?

Chris Mawn had been fortunate enough to have used Professional Quest in a previous market research agency, and therefore had extensive knowledge of the software’s capabilities. At that time, there was no market research specific features, however the software still provided sufficient functionality for many market research projects. “I liked the Professional Quest product, and the Dipolar team were very accommodating in adding some additional functionality to suit our needs” said Chris Mawn. As the industry’s online research methodology has matured over the past few years, Dipolar has continued ongoing development of Professional Quest to the extent that there is now a market research specific version that supports all key needs and best practices for market research surveys.

BOTTOM LINE

All Web survey consultancy services provided by yellowSquares is now administered using the market research version of Professional Quest (Professional Quest MR). This is a thriving and highly successful business that is well respected within the industry. Dipolar and yellowSquares have developed a close ongoing relationship that ensures continued development of the product in areas that are of specific benefit to MR surveys.