Online research specialists SurveyMonkey is raising the stakes in Australia launching its local audience database after opening up a dedicated Australian office in May.
The company, which specialises in online surveys for both SMEs and large organisations, is now hiring 25 customer operations, sales and account management staff with plans to be one of the largest providers of research in the region by next year taking on the likes of Nielsen and Roy Morgan and others.
Australia is the first region outside the US to gain access to the full suite of Survey Monkey products and capabilities.
SurveyMonkey audience general manager and vice president Brent Chudoba said the fast track service with can allow companies to turn around surveys around in as little as 48 hours using the recently recruited audience.
Companies have been able the use SurveyMonkey in the past to survey their own cusomer databases, however the expansion now means they will be able to tap into SurveyMonkey's own database of respondents.
The company expects to have recruited more than 20,000 people to its panel within the next few weeks giving it a critical mass of a wide range of demographics it can now take to the market.
“One-in-10 Australians take a survey on SurveyMonkey every month,” Chudoba told AdNews.
“So 10% of the population is seeing a SurveyMonkey survey – there are all kinds of surveys, it might be about a book club, it might be about a university study, it might be about a newsletter you subscribe to and when people take that survey we then recruit them to join our panel.”
Part of the SurveyMonkey model is to link responses to charity donations and Chuboda said it created an environment where survey respondents are more honest with their answers.
“People are reluctant to lie for charity,” he said.
“They would rather quit the survey than lie just to get a charitable donation.”
He said that the company would also be improving its use of mobile survey using apps over the coming months as customers sought to get responses from audiences when they were in situations such as commuting, at events or shopping.
The mobile and tablet apps (currently on IOS) will be come more important as SurveyMonkey uses Australia as a springboard into markets such as Asia where smartphones are becoming the most common online access device.
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