Quick surveys, Wise to join (quickwise.co.uk)

Member Name: MrTink12

Product:	quickwise.co.uk
Date:	23/09/06 (414 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Free to join, get paid to take part in easy surveys, user friendly website

Disadvantages: Do not get as many surveys as you would like

--------Introduction--------
Quickwise.co.uk is another one of these websites that allow people to take part in market research surveys and be rewarded for their time. The company has been around since the year 2000, and has offices in London and Nottingham. The research collected from you submitting survey answers helps the company’s clients within four primary areas: (i) product, name and packaging development; (ii) brand development; (iii) customer development; and (iv) market communications. Clients of QuickWise Ltd include IKEA, Reckitt Benckiser, Beiersdorf, L'Oréal, McCain, SAAB, Unilever and MasterFoods


--------Joining the site--------
It is free to do so, and £3 will be placed in your Quickwise account directly upon you becoming a member. On the homepage it is clear where you click to register. The ‘Register Here’ is a big giveaway and can be seen on the left hand side of the page, as well as further down on the right. Bear in mind, in order to become a panel member you must: (a) have a mobile phone and be prepared to provide the number; (b) have Internet access (whether that be at work, home, internet café); (c) be 16 years or older; and (d) be a UK resident. If these four conditions are met you need to fill out a short survey providing your name, e-mail address, house number and street, post code, city, ITV area you normally watch at home, your sex, date of birth, and answer whether you live with a partner. Overall people should find it exceptionally easy to join.


--------Using the site--------
The website is very professional and would be easy for even an internet novice to navigate around. Having registered, in order to login for the first time one will go to the homepage, see on the left hand side of the page the clearly labelled ‘Log in’ and enter their Mobile phone number and Password. After successfully logging in you will see numerous options on the left hand side of the screen. The first set of options relate to QuickWise as a company with the following sub-sections;

(A) Home – this is an overview explaining about QuickWise and how your opinion counts.

(B) Operations – details the clients and how they help these various organisations

(C) News – the newsletter is published five times per annum and is based around product development, brand strategy and market communications.

(D) Facts about QuickWise – this is fairly short but does reveal the most relevant information you need about the company such as their history

(E) Contact us – lists the way you can contact Quickwise.(This information is shown at the bottom of this review for those interested).

Underneath people will see the second main section labelled ‘Panel member’. The sub-sections here are:

(I) Start page – the homepage that tells you that Macromedia Flash Player needs to be installed on your PC in order to respond to certain surveys.

(II) Surveys – lists those you can currently take part in, those answered and any missed. Remember when QuickWise send a survey it is entirely optional whether you choose to take part.

(III) Messages – view new messages from QuickWise or send a message. Sending a message should be used for any occasion where a query you have is not answered by the Frequently Asked Questions page. Having never had a problem with the website I have not ever need to send them a message.

(IV) My points – lists all deposits and withdrawals from your account, and declares your current balance.

(V) Payments – shows the available payment options, explaining how each one works (see ‘Getting paid’ below)

(VI) My details – includes all the answers you provide when registering. This is the place to go if you change job, mobile number etc.

(VII) Frequently Asked Questions – this is very detailed and does seem to include answers to everything one needs to know when using QuickWise. For instance ‘Q: ‘What type of surveys are they? A: There are many types of survey. They can, for example, concern advertising films, adverts, brands, products, attitudes or opinions’. The answers are accurate since the surveys in my experience are mainly about your view on a new poster, advert, product in development and so on and so forth.

(VIII) Leave panel – you can terminate your membership with the site at anytime. Nonetheless I would be surprised if anybody wanted to do so though.

Under these sections there is the opportunity to tell a friend about the site by entering his/her name is the top box and in the bottom box writing their email address. Currently QuickWise do not provide a financial incentive for doing this, and as such this is something that we could list down as ‘things to improve the site’.

When there is a survey to be completed members are notified by mobile as well as via email. If you want to take part after receiving this notice, members should go to the website, login and click on the survey link.

One thing I do want to tackle is the fact that some people may be apprehensive about the need to provide a mobile phone number when joining. There is absolutely no need whatsoever to worry about providing a mobile number. Quickwise do not send sales texts or give your information to third parties to try and sell you products like double-glazing or mobile handsets. Additionally there are no hidden charges when they send the text – it is 100 per cent free.

Personally I like being sent a text message to tell me of new survey, since sometimes you are out and about, and its good to be kept informed. The texts are simple, and read as follows: ‘Dear [your name]. Reply and earn £1. Log on to www.quickwise.co.uk. Reply before [specified time – usually with 48 hours]. Your password is [as you provided when registering]. Regards QuickWise’.

It is great how when invited to a survey you will receive at least 100 points provided it is completed within the allocated time frame QuickWise state in the text/email. With other sites, invitations are sent, but if you fail to fulfil certain criteria no reward is given. As such those who are used to other survey sites will find it odd how sometimes you can answer a single question and be credited with 100 points (£1). When this has happened to me a few times I have not exactly been complaining mind you. £1 for less than 10 seconds effort is good in anyone’s book. The site does say that surveys do not take longer than ten minutes to complete, and this does seem like a precise statement. The only time I can remember a survey taking longer was for a £2 survey that required answering more questions than usual on UK gambling websites. Also worth noting is that points from surveys are instantly awarded upon completing a survey. There is none of this waiting for weeks/months for you to see the reward in your account.


--------Getting paid--------
First of all Quickwise do actually pay out which is comforting to know. The aim is to achieve a balance of 900 points (£9) in order to cash out. You can redeem in denominations of 900 points at a time (900, 1800, 2700, 3600 and so on). There are four redemption choices. They are as follows:

(1) A cheque – sent to the address you have supplied in ‘My details’. The major disadvantage of using this method is that £2 will be deducted from the payment to cover bank charges. Hence if you had £9, and chose to use this redemption, only £7 would be written on the cheque received. As such I can only see this being a good withdrawal method for those with a large number of points.

(2) IKEA vouchers – QuickWise will send you a £10 voucher for every 900 points you claim. This is a nice touch, but will only benefit those who want to shop at IKEA.

(3) Transfer to your bank account (BACS) – one needs to provide QuickWise with their bank name, account number and sort code. The information has to be a bank account under your name. This is my preferred method of withdrawal and I have had no problems whatsoever using it.

(4) Donate to charity – you get to choose a recipient from a list of charities. Those of the said list include Amnesty International, British Red Cross, Cancer Research UK, Disaster Emergency Committee (DEC), SCOPE, Oxfam, Save the Children, The Blue Cross, UNICEF, and WWF

All payments are made by the end of the first full week of the month that follows the date that the payment was requested. .


--------Criticisms of the site--------
Surveys are unfortunately very occasional. Having checked ‘My points’ I joined the site 5th January 2005 and have received fifteen surveys in this time. That equates to QuickWise sending out approximately 0.71 surveys a month according to my calculations (January 2005 to September 2006 = 21 months. 15 surveys divided by 21 months equals the figure). The website does say that you can receive up to four surveys a month, so other people may have been far luckier than I have and obtained more opportunities to answer questions.


--------Summary--------
I would definite have to rate QuickWise as one of the superior market research sites available. Fair enough, you are not going to be raking in loads of cash using the website. However every pound does help, and by registering with this website, at no cost remember, you should be able to earn quite a few pounds over a long period of time.


--------Contact details--------

Website address:
http://www.quickwise.co.uk/

Addresses:
1 Northumberland Avenue
Trafalgar Square
WC2N 5BW

Adamhouse
Players court, Player Street
Nottingham
NG7 5LN

Email:
inquiries@quickwise.com

Switchboard:
0870-990 8858

Summary: One of the better market research websites you will find