TurningPoint® Case Study

Questionmark

BACKGROUND

Questionmark has been providing testing and assessment software since 1988, and around 2,500 customers in 50 countries now use their products. The Questionmark Perception assessment management system enables educators and corporate trainers to create, securely administer and report on surveys, quizzes, tests and exams. Their clients are from a wide range of industries and education outlets including: banking, manufacturing, insurance, accounting, health care, primary and secondary education institutions, colleges and universities.

In March 2006, some 200 Questionmark users met in San Francisco for the Questionmark 2006 Users Conference. Attendees participated in the conference for a variety of reasons, including the opportunity to:

• Learn best practices for developing sound, reliable assessments
• Collaborate with the product management team on new product features
• Become experts and use products with confidence
• Get the most up-to-date assessment industry and Questionmark product information

THE CHALLENGE

The Users Conference is Questionmark's annual opportunity to have face-to-face meetings with their customers. It's a chance to receive input on customers' likes and dislikes, so they can focus on the right areas of product development. In the setting of a fun and informative softwarefocused conference, Questionmark executives wanted to incorporate technology that would engage their audience and also gather information about its users. The conference was ideal for collecting feedback from a wide range of professionals who use Questionmark's products.

THE SOLUTION

To capitalize on the insights and feedback from their attending customer base, Questionmark's conference team chose to implement Turning Technologies' audience response technology in two strategic presentations: Dr. Allison Rossett's keynote address and one general session. Using TurningPoint, interactive PowerPoint® software, presenters were able to ask their audience key questions. Attendees then submitted their responses using radio-frequency ResponseCards® keypads.

Brian McNamara, who was part of the team that prepped the presentations for the conference, stated that the process was "remarkably easy! So much so that during the keynote presentation when we opted to add in one more question, we were able to add it then and there, during the presentation."

In the general session, the presenters focused on gathering pertinent data on Questionmark users through interactive polling using TurningPoint. Attendees were able to provide feedback on their needs and opinions.

"Our customers come to the conference looking for effective ways to use our software, gain insights into upcoming product developments, network with other users and learn best practices, " said McNamara. "Using Turning Technologies afforded us a fun and savvy way to learn more about them."

CONCLUSION

Executives at Questionmark and users alike gave extremely positive feedback of their TurningPoint rental experience.

"We get a lot of favorable feedback from conference attendees. On one level it makes a presentation fun and interactive. But there's also a tremendous power in seeing results instantly. Attendees can immediately see which opinions and challenges they share in common with their new-found colleagues. And they can see that their opinions really count," continued Brian.

As for usage of Turning Technologies' audience response technology in the future, there's no question about Questionmark's commitment to continued use of TurningPoint and ResponseCard keypads. They are already planning to incorporate the technology again at future conferences, and at eight regional U.S. breakfast briefings per year. The company's London office has also used TurningPoint—as many as four times in one month alone.

For more information about renting a Turning Technologies' audience response system for your next event, contact us at 866-746-3015.