What is our primary use case?
I work with clients from the APAC and EMEA regions at a consulting firm.
The tool is also quite good. We get regular updates on Qualtrics as a weekly product update, so the product is upgraded every week.
So, use cases differ from industry to industry. I have dealt with the medical industry, banking, finance, and other sectors. Depending on the domain, customers reach out to us based on their use case.
It can be an after-sales customer experience or a website feedback survey. It can also be post-transactional feedback, getting feedback from the customer transaction-wise. There are different touchpoints for different industries and different use cases. I get a lot of custom use cases to solve.
How has it helped my organization?
The real-time feedback mechanism in Qualtrics is quite good. We make the dashboard beforehand, and the customers get to use it. They can see when the response is coming in and see all the charts and everything, how it's coming up.
What is most valuable?
Workflows are very powerful. There are a lot of good things, but I feel workflows are the best. You can connect Qualtrics with any CRM tool and push or pull information between them.
It can also be integrated with other tools like Power BI. Some people feel that even the dashboard is improving a lot, and it's quite good. Personally, I feel that Tableau and Power BI are much better than iQ.
Text iQ is very powerful. It's a text analysis tool that analyzes open-ended comments. It can read all the open-ended comments based on the query you have checked and distinguish between negative and positive comments. It gives the sentiment score and categorizes the comments into different topics. It's quite powerful and helps customers a lot.
AI-driven initiative:
- Qualtrics has recently used a lot of AI in Qualtrics. One is Text iQ, which is an AI tool that uses natural language processing.
- Another is the AI chatbot that assists with support inquiries. If my query is not resolved, I can reach out to Qualtrics support, which is available 24/7 by phone or email. The AI chatbot is quite helpful.
What needs improvement?
There is a lot to improve in Qualtrics.
1. The dashboard is quite slow compared to other dashboards like Power BI and Tableau. The attractiveness of the dashboard also needs work. For example, if I want to move widgets from one page to another, I have to do it one by one. If there are many widgets, I cannot multi-select and move them.
2. In workflows, they can be categorized into folders. Currently, there is no folder structure. So, Qualtrics should introduce folders where you can put multiple workflows in one place.
3. Qualtrics can also introduce AI features to suggest how to build a survey. For example, if I make a grammatical error or if I input a query that a client is looking for a particular kind of survey with a specific use case, it should automatically suggest some templates for building a survey.
There are a lot of things they can improve on. These are just a few.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have worked with Qualtrics for around two years. I have the SaaS version of the solution.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
There are issues sometimes. It happens if we have missed something. Sometimes Qualtrics does a data centre cleanup, and they give information, but sometimes it hampers our work. There are times when things can go wrong, but it is controllable. It doesn't cause major impact.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is scalable. The number of users depends upon the license and how many users are allowed. It can be 15, 20, even 50 people.
How are customer service and support?
There is a room for improvement.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
There is SurveyMonkey, which is quite good, but not comparable to Qualtrics. Qualtrics is way ahead of SurveyMonkey. There is Medallia as well, and Confirmit. Every platform has pros and cons.
Qualtrics has a lot of pros. For example, the workflows are very good. They integrate with a lot of things, like Salesforce, Google Sheets, Tableau, Power BI, Snowflake, Canvas, and more. Qualtrics has a lot of pros compared to other tools like SurveyMonkey. But with respect to the dashboard, I think Qualtrics should work on it. Even the survey-taking experience, I feel that Hotjar and SurveyMonkey are better than Qualtrics. The survey-taking experience is quite good, but it is quite improved in Hotjar and SurveyMonkey.
How was the initial setup?
It is very easy. Qualtrics provides Basecamp videos on their support site. When we reach out to clients interested to build questionnaires, we provide them with these videos, which are helpful.
It's quite user-friendly, and anyone can build surveys. We also give training for the dashboard, but there are videos clients can view to get started and build some things in Qualtrics.
Implementation strategy:
- The implementation strategy starts with a kickoff. Sometimes, there's an internal kickoff where we, including the Qualtrics account executive, discuss the client's use case.
- Then, there's a kickoff call with the client where we explain each deliverable from our side and theirs. We give a timeline with a rough project plan, which the client can tweak.
- We suggest weekly calls with the client and ask for the Qualtrics account credentials. They should create an admin account for us, and then we get started with the build work. We have weekly calls with the client.
The project flow depends on the client's use case and its complexity. Sometimes we start with single sign-on and custom email domain setup, then SSL setup, followed by the survey build, XM directory setup, and so on. Then we move to the dashboard, and if there's any Text iQ work, we do that, along with Customer Advisory work.
However, the flow of the project depends on the clients and their use cases.
Integration capabilities:
- Qualtrics supports integration, but it depends on which CRM tool we use. There are three methods to integrate with another CRM tool: JSON event, SFTP, and API calls.
- JSON events require creating a workflow and a web service task to pass information from Qualtrics to other CRM tools. It involves creating a data load and adding all the information you want to pass.
- SFTP is used to pull information from a server into Qualtrics, like pulling a contact list. Qualtrics provides its own SFTP server, but you can use other servers like the client's FTP server or even Google Drive.
- API calls are used for pushing information from Qualtrics to any CRM or pulling information from any CRM into Qualtrics. One example is a refund use case where the client was selling earphones. As soon as the earphones were sold on the website, the information would come into Qualtrics, and a service would be triggered from Qualtrics. The customer would then receive a survey via email.
What about the implementation team?
The resources required for the deployment depend on the project. If it's a very huge project, an enterprise project, then three to four people are needed. But if it's a normal project with an implementation duration of four weeks, then two people are sufficient.
Even sometimes one person can handle the whole project. Mostly, we go with two people handling the whole project. Even if it is a year-long project, then two people are sufficient. But if it's a huge use case, then there are more resources involved.
It is not that difficult to maintain. It depends on the project. If it is a survey with a lot of Javascript and CSS involved, then scalability is a question. But if it is a simple survey, maintenance is not an issue.
What was our ROI?
The ROI is quite good. There are a lot of big clients that use Qualtrics. So, the return on investment is good, and that's the reason people go for Qualtrics.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Pricing depends upon different kinds of use cases. I think 8,000 to 10,000 pounds is an average. It depends from use case to use case. For example, I worked for the London Stock Exchange, where Qualtrics was around 66,000 pounds.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend it to other users. My advice to other users would be to reach out to Qualtrics support and the XM community, which is quite helpful.
If a particular use case is very peculiar and unique in nature, users can reach out to the XM community, where people from all around the globe who use Qualtrics can help you out. If you are stuck anywhere, they can help. The XM community is quite helpful.
Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner