Why you should always ask for a sample
Software vendors promise a lot: beautiful reporting, powerful dashboards, professional PDFs. But the report is what your participants actually receive, and with that the face of your research. If it disappoints, that reflects on your agency, your association or your brand.
So for every tool you consider, ask for a real sample report, not a marketing brochure. Pay attention to three things: is the report personal, meaning based on the answers of this specific participant? Is the comparison with others presented clearly and honestly? And would you dare to send it to your best client with a straight face? On that last criterion, most automatically generated PDFs fall short.
The structure: from foreword to conclusion
A BenchLab report opens with a cover and a foreword in the brand style of the organisation running the study, with the participant's name woven in. Then follows the core: for each theme in the questionnaire, a chapter in which the participant's own answers are set against the benchmark, the average of similar participants.
Each chapter combines charts with readable commentary: where are you above the group, where below, and what stands out. The report closes with a conclusion that is composed individually for every respondent, so even two participants with similar scores read their own story. Not a loose set of figures, but a document with a beginning, a storyline and an end.
The charts: comparing at a glance
The heart of every chapter is the benchmark charts. For each question, the participant sees their own position relative to all other participants, for example as a bar chart with their own score highlighted, or as a distribution showing how many organisations chose which answer. That way a participant sees at a glance: here I am ahead, here I am behind.
An important detail: the comparison is made with the study's actual participant group, not with a national average from an external database. That is exactly what makes the report valuable, because the participant cannot get these figures from this comparison group anywhere else.
The brand style: your brand, not ours
The report appears entirely in the brand style of the organisation running the study: your logo, your colours, your font, your tone of voice in the foreword and commentary. There is no BenchLab logo anywhere. For consultancies and research agencies that is essential, because for them the report is part of their own service. The same goes for industry associations: the report feels like a member benefit from the association, not a product from a software vendor.
The brand style layout is set up once and then applies to every report in the study, no matter how many participants take part. So every report looks as if it was designed by hand, while it is automatically ready immediately after completion.
Receive a report yourself with your own answers
Better to experience it than to read about it. On this site you will find a demo survey that takes about ten minutes to complete. Immediately afterwards, you receive a personal benchmark report based on your own answers, exactly as your future participants would receive it.
That is also the best test for any vendor you are considering: if a tool claims that participants receive a valuable personal report, you as a visitor should be able to experience that yourself, right? We are happy to take that test. Click the demo link at the bottom of this article and judge the report yourself, through the eyes of your most critical participant.
Further reading
View your own benchmark report
Complete the demo survey and receive a personal report with your own answers right away. Rather see a report in your own brand style first? Then schedule a demo.