5 reasons to choose Snap instead of Qualtrics

Qualtrics is undoubtedly a market-leading online software platform for the market research and insights industry. However, although it has a big user base, it doesn’t mean it is the right tool or, indeed, offers the best value. Qualtrics was acquired by the monolithic SAP in 2019, leading to increased pricing and, as far as one can tell, a drift away from medium-sized businesses providing market research services. So, how does Snap compare with Qualtrics? Let’s look at five key differentiators.

1. Market research or not market research

There are a lot of platforms you can use for surveys and customer feedback. However, the field narrows when you want a software tool that is flexible enough to handle a variety of survey types or styles and flexible reporting, as typically required by a research or insights agency. Templated questionnaires and automated outputs may work well for brand managers looking for customer feedback for their products, but researchers need flexibility.

Snap’s flexibility

Snap has successfully enabled research agencies worldwide to conduct surveys of all types. This is not to say, for example, that Qualtrics’s reporting is unimpressive – it is good – but Snap will allow you the flexibility you need for every kind of survey and allow you to analyse data in most ways your clients may need. As someone recently told me, Qualtrics can look good in a 20-minute demo, but dig a little deeper and products like Snap come into their own.

2. Customer support

Every product has its market, yet few products span every market. We believe that we fully understand the needs of our Snap customer base, typically coming from medium-sized research agencies. We understand the flexibility they need in their surveys, the urgency of fielding surveys, producing results etc. In brief, we understand the world our clients work in. I believe this is important.

3. Features and ease of use

There are differences between fully featured and full of features. Some products offer a one-size-fits-all approach; Snap is different from Qualtrics in this regard. It is true that scripting languages, such as Forsta, provide more flexibility than Snap in survey design. However, that comes with a big downside – it needs experts to drive the software and can make simple things more difficult. Snap is fully featured, giving you the tools you want for any survey type, ensuring that your survey is engaging for respondents.

4. Pricing

Transparent pricing is one of those things that the internet has brought to the world as a welcome side benefit. I find it disappointing when a product does make its pricing clear or when add-ons increase the price significantly or unexpectedly. Snap has transparent pricing, offering packages that suit companies and teams of different sizes. Similarly, the cost of conducting more interviews in future months or years is clear. This transparency is essential as getting locked into a system and finding that it doesn’t work if you grow can make business decisions difficult. Qualtrics is widely described on various posts and forums as expensive, starting at $1500 as a minimum, but more realistically, it would seem, starting at US$5000 per year. The cost of any add-ons and more users can increase this figure. Hopefully, with Snap, our pricing is easy to understand.

5. Beyond Qualtrics and Beyond Snap

The insights business is sprawling into new areas. What’s more, it will continue to sprawl into more new areas. The days of face-to-face interviews, data entry from paper questionnaires, a set of crosstabs and a report in PowerPoint have not disappeared but represent just one of the many ways survey data is processed. What does this mean as a research agency? In simple terms, it means you need to be agile to meet the differing needs of clients. It means the software you use must make it easy to transfer data to where you need it.

When do I need data manoeuvrability?

I call this ability to move your data where you need it data manoeuvrability. The destination for your survey data may be a PowerPoint report, but it might be a simple dashboard, a highly customised dashboard, or it might need to link into a business information (BI) systems platform for your client. En route to these destinations, you might need to connect with other business data, business models, KPIs, or other diagnostics. That’s without even thinking about AI.

Why data manoeuvrability is important

Systems like Qualtrics are indeed powerful platforms. However, they offer a solution to a problem, neatly packaged in one system. This solution is fine if your requirements fit that neat package. However, research agencies are problem-solvers and need to have data manoeuvrability. It needs to be a simple procedure to link to another system. Snap does this with easy-to-use hooks to meet your needs. It is inevitable that as research expands into other areas (and other areas expand into research), this will become increasingly important.

Summary

Just as Snap will not be the right choice for everyone, Qualtrics will not be a good fit for every company. Putting aside the pricing models, Snap offers an affordable growth path, allowing you to expand your business into other areas. Although there are undoubtedly more Qualtrics users worldwide than Snap users, Snap is likely to be a better choice if any of the above five key differentiators apply to your business now or are likely to in the next two to three years.

For further information or a demo of Snap, please contact nikki.sunga@mrdcsoftware.com.