Thursday, May 1, 2008

Vietnamese Online Survey Tools -- Công Cụ Khảo Sát Trực Tuyến

The first online survey tool in Vietnam just shows up on the radar. It is called Sirvina. The tool is still in the beta phase. You can use the services for free if you are OK with random ads placed on your online surveys. In situations where you dont want random ads diluting your company brand there are paid services, which keep all the ads off the surveys.

Comparing to other paid and free online survey tools in the USA such as Surveymonkey, Zoomerang and 4Q this new and exciting tool lacks some sophisticated business features important to business executives and analysts. Although the company website emphasizes the fact that it uses cookies to prevent the same people taking the survey multiple times there is no mention about how statistical analysis is being applied to the data of the surveys to produce the results shown to the users of the services. Industry benchmark and indexes do not exist with the paid or free services. Access to instant segmentation is nowhere to be found neither.

The main appeal that compensates for the lack of sophisticated business features is the localness of the tool. The service is built by Vietnamese for Vietnamese who are not comfortable with English-based survey sites. Sirvina will be become a fantastic online tool once it has added more features and functionalities to the services.

In term of pricing the users who have signed up for the paid services will be charged on per survey basis (Phí Tạo Khảo Sát = Số Câu Hỏi của Khảo Sát * Số Người Trả Lời * Mức Phí). The translated equation is Survey Price = Number of Questions * Number of Survey Respondent * Basic Rate. The basic rate is 40 VND, which are equivalent to 2.5 US cents. A 10-question survey with 1000 repspondents will cost 10 * 1000 * 2.5 cents =$2.5.

The truth is I dont know if Sirvina would survive the next couple years. Too many start-ups have launched and died in Vietnam recently. I hate to see Sirvina go away. It's a truly exciting product added to the portfolio for Vietnamese online marketers. Best wishes to the people who have put together the tool.