QuestionPro vs Qualtrics: Choosing the Right CX Software

QuestionPro and Qualtrics are established customer experience (CX) software for conducting surveys and analyzing feedback.

While both tools can help manage customer experiences, optimize market research, and collect customer feedback, they each have their own strengths and drawbacks. For example, Qualtrics is an ideal CX management tool for all business models, whereas QuestionPro may struggle a little with the complexity of B2B customer journeys.

On the other hand, CustomerGauge is a great alternative for businesses looking for a platform tailored to B2B and B2B2C customer experiences. The platform is ranked by Gartner as the #1 voice of customer platform for B2B. However, it’s not ideal for B2C businesses.

So, which software is right for your needs? We’ve compared QuestionPro, Qualtrics, and CustomerGauge, highlighting each tool’s strengths and drawbacks, to help you make an informed decision

Introducing QuestionPro, Qualtrics, and CustomerGauge

Qualtrics

Qualtrics was founded in 2002, and has since become one of the largest providers of customer experience management (CXM) software. The platform provides a comprehensive suite of features to help you collect customer feedback, analyze it, and take action based on the insights.

Qualtrics has a suite of different tools, such as Qualtrics CustomerXM and EmployeeXM, for managing customer and employee experiences respectively. The platform supports omnichannel data collection and offers advanced analytics and insights to help you interpret data.

• Price: Qualtrics CustomerXM’s pricing starts at $1500 annually.

• Best for: Businesses of all sizes, with its largest market share being enterprise.

• Top 3 industries: Financial Services, Retail, B2B.

• Customer service G2 rating: 8.7 for Quality of Support.

• G2 score: 4.3

QuestionPro

QuestionPro is an advanced survey that helps businesses conduct market research and collects customer feedback across different channels.

The platform lets you conduct multilingual surveys, and also supports different survey types (such as timed surveys) and different question types (such as price sensitivity questions).

It also comes with some features that Qualtrics lacks, like Community Management, which allows you to manage panelists in an online community.

This feature is great for keeping track of longitudinal studies, which span over long periods of time.

• Price: QuestionPro’s ‘Essentials’ plan is free and the Advanced plan costs $99/month for one user. You’ll need to contact QuestionPro directly for a quote for their Teams plan.

• Best for: Small-to-medium-sized businesses that need advanced features at a reasonable price.

• Top 3 industries: Higher Education, Non-Profit Organization Management, and Education Management.

• Customer service G2 rating: 8.4 for Quality of Support.

• G2 score: 4.3

CustomerGauge

CustomerGauge is a CX platform designed specifically with B2B needs in mind. It helps B2B companies manage customer experience programs, grow account sizes, and tie CX to revenue.

CustomerGauge focuses on Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys because they’re short and easy for customers to complete.

But, it’s not limited to that metric alone. The platform complements NPS data with insights from other metrics, like Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), Customer Effort Score (CES), and metrics that track how frequently customers engage with your brand.

Most CX survey software is focused on data collection, however, CustomerGauge goes the extra mile to help you turn insights into action. We help leverage CX data to grow existing accounts through upsells, cross-sells, and B2B referral marketing.

• Price: Contact our team for details.

• Best for: Mid-market and Enterprise B2B and B2B2C companies aiming to grow account sizes and reduce churn.

• Top 3 industries: High-Tech, Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG), and Manufacturing.

• Customer service G2 rating: 9.6 for Quality of Support.

• G2 score: 4.6

QuestionPro vs Qualtrics vs CustomerGauge: Gartner’s Verdict

Gartner’s 2020 Critical Capabilities Report assessed how well the top 14 customer experience vendors fared in real-world use cases, specifically for Enterprise B2B.

The report covered core product capabilities such as customer journey orchestration, advanced predictive and prescriptive analytics, and case management features. Of the three software we’re reviewing, CustomerGauge, ranked 1st, with Qualtrics coming in 3rd.

However, QuestionPro ranked quite low, indicating that it’s not an ideal fit for the B2B use case.

Gartner’s report clarified that QuestionPro lacks experience in implementing multi-departmental voice of customer (VoC) programs and has less-advanced analytics capabilities.

QuestionPro, Qualtrics, & CustomerGauge According to G2

It’s not just the expert view that matters — before you invest in customer experience management software, it’s important to know how other customers fare with each product.

G2 is one of the most reliable sources of customer reviews for software. Their comparison table reveals how customers feel about QuestionPro, Qualtrics, and CustomerGauge.

As you can see, CustomerGauge has the highest overall rating, coming top for all categories except “Meets Requirements”, which goes to QuestionPro.

Meanwhile, Qualtrics CustomerXM scored the lowest across all categories.

How Customers Feel About QuestionPro & Qualtrics

What do users really think about QuestionPro vs. Qualtrics? Let’s explore what they have to say.

QuestionPro Customers Say…

Strengths

QuestionPro is praised for its ease of use and ability to help businesses improve their customer experience programs. Users on G2 have said:

• “QuestionPro is a simple, intuitive survey platform with various question types and is great to capture the impact of our program. During the pandemic, we have to heavily rely on e-survey to measure our results, and QuestionPro helps us tremendously.
  
  With their library of template questions, we can also get things done quickly and easily. QuestionPro also provides integration to other apps as well as live reports to share among our team.” (Head of Research, mid-market)

• “For someone new to creating surveys, it was relatively easy using QuestionPro. We are a nonprofit and having our members give feedback using QuestionPro is very helpful, both by giving us information on how our programs are working and also by being able to show potential funders that our services are making a difference.
  
  We utilized the custom field option which was helpful for us to track feedback by ID, without requiring survey takers to give identifying information.” (Administrator, small-business)

Cautions

Although QuestionPro has received a lot of praise for its ease of use and reliability, some users find its data export features limited and setting up question logic a little difficult:

• “It is meant for business, not academia, and it shows in some of its question options. Downloading results is awkward, as it is difficult to get the results in the format you need without changing a bunch of options.

The csv and Excel exports don’t seem to respect the set variable names. Survey logic and flow is not as easy as other platforms. No link to live results via a csv.” (Teaching Associate, Higher Education, Enterprise)

• “Question-logic function was not intuitive to figure out and I needed customer support to assist with implementing the question-logic function. Making the question-logic easier to implement would improve user experience a great deal.” (Clinical Research Coordinator, Enterprise)

Qualtrics Customers Say…

Strengths

Qualtrics is loved by customers for its excellent customer support and user-friendly platform.

• “I really like the features that allow me to customize my survey with skip logic and embedded text. I also love their customer service. There is almost no wait time and the people on the phone are either able [to] help me through my problem or they log into my account and fix it for me. 5 Stars.” (Senior Data Analyst, Enterprise)

• “That is a very friendly-user platform. You don´t need to be an expert in statistics or technology insights to use the software. For example, I am from the Research & Development category, and for me it is very practical when I want to have insights fast and analyze data from consumers. Predictive tools and correlations are very useful for R&D.” (Scientist, Personal Care Products)

Cautions

Some customers have highlighted certain limitations for customizing your surveys and executing them:

• “Customization is very difficult in this tool. Generally, grid type of questions where you need to show multiple columns with different look and feel is complex” (Team Lead, Small Business)

• “If you have a large, difficult survey it can take some time to test and assure that the survey is working the way it was intended.” (Assistant Director, Gift processing and Data Management)

CustomerGauge Users Say…

Strengths

CustomerGauge users praise the platform for how it facilitates sophisticated customer feedback programs and advanced NPS capabilities.

• “Implementing CustomerGauge has allowed us to develop a sophisticated customer feedback program that is easy to manage and report on. The best part of our experience with CustomerGauge has been the ongoing support and collaboration they have provided for helping us to continually improve our program.
  
  Easy integration with our CRM and a variety of reporting tools within the platform have also allowed us to customize our process and get important data to the right people within our organization.” (Administrator in Industrial Automation)

• “Great tool for NPS. I enjoy the ability to be able to mark an NPS score in someone else’s name and the ability to mark a case as closed so you can easily monitor where your efforts need to lie when following up during an NPS ask. Reporting was also very good via CustomerGauge, though it takes a while to set up…

It was a very powerful tool for quickly analyzing any themes and patterns found within the data collected from a client NPS ask.” (User in Information Technology and Services, Enterprise)

Cautions

One customer advised CustomerGauge to improve the platform’s automation capabilities:

• “I would like email reminders to be a thing when you put a follow-up in someone's name. To expand, if a case remained open for a long period with no action, rather than me following the case up by running a report and checking on the status of the case, I'd prefer the CSM got an automated nudge.” (User in Information Technology and Services, Enterprise)

Pros and Cons of the 3 CX Platforms

QuestionPro and Qualtrics are both established CX vendors that let you leverage market research and customer feedback to grow your business. However, the two platforms have different strengths and weaknesses, so it’s important to choose the software that best aligns with your business needs.

For example, while QuestionPro is excellent for market research and surveying customers, it doesn’t cater well to complex customer journeys like those in B2B.

On the other hand, Qualtrics is an advanced CX platform that’s one of the best choices for enterprises. Meanwhile, CustomerGauge remains the best choice for B2B and B2B2C businesses.

To help you make an informed decision, we’ve put together some pros and cons of each platform.

QuestionPro

Pros

• Value for money. QuestionPro offers many advanced features that more expensive competitors offer, at a lower price.

• QuestionPro supports omnichannel data collection. Thanks to its offline features, it centralizes your data in one dashboard. QuestionPro also collects multimedia data, including photographs, video, audio, and location.

• 24/7 support. QuestionPro prides itself on delivering excellent customer support, 24/7.

Cons

• No formulae. Some customers pointed out that QuestionPro’s platform lacks formulae functionality. Formulae help researchers and CX teams get more out of questionnaires through simple calculations such as averaging the results, and more specific ones like calculating values between two fields.

• Lacks advanced analytics and insights. According to Gartner’s Critical Capabilities report, QuestionPro falls short in its analytics. It lacks areas of analysis like geospatial, video, and predictive analytics that its competitors offer.

Qualtrics

Pros

• Suited for all needs. Qualtrics is great for both small-scale researchers and enterprise needs. The web-based tool is easy to set up, and the vendor’s complimentary employee, brand, and partner experience software help manage your experience program.

• Multi-department capabilities. Qualtrics isn’t restricted to a few departments. Rather the platform is primed to drive CX across various departments – e.g., marketing, sales, product, and customer support. In comparison, QuestionPro is less experienced here.

• Deep analytics. Qualtrics offers deep analytics and insights to help you filter, classify, and interpret CX data. Users can also forecast sales and understand the impact of CX on revenue via the statistical analysis tool.

• Advanced customization. Qualtrics supports almost 50 languages, and it lets you use your own graphics and multimedia content. It also supports advanced survey logic, like branching logic (based on questions that have been asked already).

Cons

• Overwhelming interface. Qualtrics’s platform is quite feature-rich, which comes with a downside: it takes time to get used to the software. Many users have expressed that Qualtrics comes with a learning curve and the interface isn’t intuitive.

• Expensive. Many users have pointed out that Qualtrics is quite expensive, and the platform isn’t affordable for smaller businesses. However, enterprise users with more complex CX needs consider Qualtrics to be worth the investment.

CustomerGauge

Pros

• Higher response rates. CustomerGauge has an average response rate of 15%, which is higher than what customers have experienced with other platforms, like Qualtrics (typically around the 1-2% mark). CustomerGauge also has a portfolio of clients that achieve over 35% response rates (such as ICON, who secured a 100% with Account Experience).

• Tie CX to financial data. CustomerGauge uses the monetized NPS metric to tie NPS scores to financial data, helping B2B businesses understand the impact their CX programs have on their revenue. This helps businesses prioritize retention efforts, increase up-sells, and grow revenue through referrals.

• Primed for B2B needs. Gartner’s Critical Capabilities report gave CustomerGauge the highest score for enabling B2B organizations, and mentioned how the platform is tailored to helping account, relationship, and customer success managers grow revenue by enabling sales.
  
  CustomerGauge helps B2B businesses prioritize B2B customer experiences through the Account Experience methodology.

• Close loop capabilities. Closing the loop quickly, at every level, is a core part of CustomerGauge’s methodology. The platform lets you set targets and alerts for closing the loop at the frontline, management, and executive levels.

Cons

• B2B focus. CustomerGauge is tailored to B2B business needs, so it’s not the best choice for B2C businesses.

• Not ideal for academic purposes. While QuestionPro and Qualtrics are popular choices for academic research, CustomerGauge has more of a commercial focus.

If you’re a B2B business looking to grow revenue and improve customer retention, CustomerGauge is the best CX platform for your needs.

Book a demo to find out more!