Paper survey processing: how it works

One supplier, one quote, five steps. Here is what happens at each step, what we need from you, and what you get back. The same process applies whether the job is two hundred forms handed out at a clinic or seventy-five thousand mailed to households.

1. Design: you bring the questions, we build the form.

What you send. Your questions, as a document, a draft layout or the questionnaire you used last time. Your logo, and any wording the form must carry, such as a privacy statement, an ethics reference or return instructions. Tell us whether the form will be mailed, handed out or both.

What we do. We set the instrument to Scantron specification. That means registration marks the scanner uses to locate the page, response boxes placed and sized so every mark is read, ID and personalisation fields where the job needs them, and open-ended answer boxes sized for image clipping. Every response area is set in a dropout colour the scanner is built to ignore, so it reads your respondent's mark and nothing else. We check that routing instructions ("if no, go to Q12") work on paper. We check the type is readable by the people who'll be filling it in. Then we send you a PDF proof. Before anything is printed, the artwork is checked against the scanning specification and test-scanned in-house.

What you get. A proof to approve, and as many rounds of correction as it takes. Nothing prints until you've signed it off.

2. Print: to the specification, in Australia.

What we do. Your approved form is printed in Australia through our print partners. Single sheets, one or two sides, or saddle-stitched booklets from four to thirty-six pages. Every form is printed in at least two colours: black for the text and the red-spectrum dropout colour around the response areas. Full colour usually costs no more, so your branding can carry through the whole form. Cover letters, Reply Paid envelopes and outer envelopes are printed alongside so everything arrives together.

Where the job calls for it, each form is personalised as it's printed: a respondent ID, a lithocode, a barcode or QR code, a name and address positioned for a window envelope, or fields pre-filled so respondents don't have to, such as a site code, a class or a ward.

Recycled stock is available on request.

What you get. Forms that scan. If a form we printed fails to scan because of a print defect, we replace it or capture the data another way, at no cost to you.

3. Mail: out through Australia Post, back through Reply Paid.

What you send. Your respondent list, if we're mailing on your behalf. We provide a secure route for the transfer. If you're distributing the forms yourself, send us a delivery address and quantities per site.

What we do. We merge, insert and lodge with Australia Post, using PreSort and barcoding where the volume qualifies. Every envelope carries a Reply Paid envelope addressed to us, so completed forms come straight back without the respondent paying postage. Mail that comes back undeliverable is logged and reported to you.

If you're also collecting online, the letter carries a QR code and a short link to your online survey. Respondents choose the mode that suits them.

Follow-up. Response rates rise with a reminder. We can send a letter, a postcard or a fresh copy of the survey to everyone who hasn't yet responded, and only to them. Before the reminder goes out, we remove everyone who has returned a form, everyone you tell us has completed online, and every address that came back undeliverable.

What you get. Confirmation of what was lodged and when, and a reminder wave that doesn't chase people who've already answered.

4. Collect and scan: logged on arrival, checked by people.

What we do. Returns are logged as they arrive. During fieldwork we report return counts to you daily or weekly, so you can see response building and decide when to close.

Closed responses, filled in pen or pencil, are read by optical mark recognition on Scantron equipment. Either pen or pencil reads. Before any data is released, three kinds of field are clipped as images and shown to an operator on screen for visual confirmation:

• fields you've told us are critical, such as a respondent ID or a consent question
• questions left blank
• single-answer questions with more than one mark

Open-ended answers are clipped as images and keyed by our operators, spelling-corrected by default or exactly as written if you prefer. Every returned form is also captured as a full-page image.

Behind this sits a scanning application built for your form: where each response area is, whether it's closed or open, what value each answer carries, and which fields go to an operator. It's checked on the first real batch of returns before the run proceeds. How blanks, double marks and fold-line artefacts are treated is agreed with you in writing. Some rules are set before print, and some are set once we've seen how respondents actually filled the form in. The agreed rules are then applied to the whole run.

What you get. Return counts throughout, and data that a person has looked at where it matters.

5. Deliver: the data file, the images, and what happens to the paper.

What you get. An Excel file, or CSV if you prefer, with one row per form, the open-ended responses alongside the closed ones, and column names and values agreed with you before delivery. Each row carries a link to the PDF image of that form, so the original, including handwriting, is one click from any value. Where we've mailed to a named list, the respondent ID in each row links back to the list you gave us. Delivery is by secure download.

What happens to the paper. Completed forms are held for three months, or longer by agreement, in case you need to go back to them. After that they are securely shredded, or returned to you if you'd rather keep them. The electronic data and images are held for the same period after delivery, then deleted.

Why every form we scan is one we've built.

Optical mark recognition doesn't read a page the way a person does. The scanner finds the page by its registration marks, then reads darkness at positions it has been told to expect. The response boxes themselves are printed in a dropout colour the scanner is built to ignore, so all it sees is the respondent's mark. Move a box a few millimetres, print it in an ink the scanner can see, or shift the page in the envelope and the read can fail or read the wrong position.

That is why design is the first step of every job we do, and why we don't scan forms designed or printed elsewhere. If you already have a questionnaire, send it to us and we'll rebuild it as a scannable version. The questions stay; the layout changes. The accuracy comes from setting the form up correctly before the first copy is printed, rather than trying to repair problems after scanning.

The one exception is a small run. Where setting up the scanner would cost more than it saves, our operators key the forms by hand. For that, your existing form can be used as it stands.

Paper alongside online.

Paper reaches people online surveys miss: older respondents, households without reliable internet, and people who won't click a link in an email but will fill in a form at the kitchen table. Many of the surveys we run are mixed mode for exactly that reason.

The letter carries a QR code and a short link to your online survey; the paper form goes in the same envelope with a Reply Paid return. Respondents choose. You run the online side and we run the paper side, and you receive the paper data in a file you can merge with your online responses. Tell us who has completed online and we'll keep them out of the reminder mailing.

Tell us about your survey.

Quantity, pages, whether it's mailed, whether it comes back by Reply Paid, and when you need the data. That's enough for a quote.

Get a quote or call 03 9873 0050