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Positive Respondent Identification Technology
Brings Convenience, Faster Results, and Lower Costs to Serious Market Research
Orlando, FL - September 22, 1997 - CustomerSat.com, the premier
provider of market research and customer satisfaction measurement
services using the Internet, has developed new technology
that solves a key problem of Internet survey research - identifying
and controlling respondents to surveys on the Worldwide Web.
The new technology, announced today at the American Marketing
Association's annual Marketing Research Conference here, is
available immediately.
"In the past, due to an inability to identify, track and
control respondents, Web surveys have lacked the scientific
rigor of conventional telephone, postal, and e-mail surveys,"
said John Chisholm, president and CEO of CustomerSat.com.
"Positive Respondent Identification ™ technology merges the
rigor of conventional survey methods with the advantages of
the Web - respondent convenience, faster results, higher quality
data, and lower costs."
Positive Respondent Identification (PRI) Technology
™
CustomerSat.com Positive Respondent Identification ™ (PRI)
keeps unauthorized respondents from completing Web surveys,
and ensures that authorized respondents complete Web surveys
only once (or only as many times as allowed). PRI integrates
e-mail, Web, and database technologies into a single solution.
One or more unique Web page addresses - Uniform Resource Locators
(URLs) - containing the Web survey are generated for each
respondent. Each respondent is e-mailed an invitation containing
the personalized URL. Respondents either click on the URL
or copy and paste it into a Web browser to access the survey.
A Web program reads the URL and checks it against a data-
base to confirm that the respondent is authorized to complete
the survey, and to keep the respondent from completing it
more than the number of times specified by the surveyor, usually
once. The database is updated after every respondent completes
the survey.
"CustomerSat.com Positive Respondent Identification ™ advances
the current state of surveying on the Internet," said Andy
Sernovitz, president of the Association of Interactive Media
(AIM), a Washington, DC-based non-profit trade association
which represents the interests of over 300 major Internet
companies. "In the future, we expect to see most Internet
survey research adopt technology like PRI."
Replaces "Old-fashioned Cookies"
According to Steven A. Runfeldt, CustomerSat.com Vice President
of Research, Positive Respondent Identification ™ technology
replaces unreliable Web browser "cookies" (marker files) for
controlling respondents. Before PRI, a Web survey would insert
a cookie into a respondent's Web browser to indicate that
the respondent had completed the survey. But cookies are inadequate
for three reasons, says Runfeldt.
First, many Internet users are uncomfortable with cookies
and have learned to reject or delete them. Second, cookies
are usually tied to a Web browser, not to an individual, and
so prohibit multiple legitimate respondents sharing a workstation
from completing the same survey. Third, cookies do not travel
among different PCs or workstations, so that someone who accesses
the Internet from multiple PCs could circumvent cookie controls.
In contrast, PRI makes no changes to a respondent's Web browser,
is specific to an individual e-mail addressee, and works from
any PC or workstation a respondent might use to access e-mail.
By freeing respondents from having to remember and key in
cumbersome passwords, Positive Respondent Identification ™
can increase survey response rates. Since stray Web surfers
are prohibited from accessing survey pages, PRI enables even
secure or sensitive surveys to be conducted via the Web. PRI
can also be used by market researchers to ensure balanced
demographic samples for Web-based surveys. Any respondent
with e-mail and access to the Worldwide Web can be surveyed
using Positive Respondent Identification ™ .
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