Why MSTA chose Zonka Feedback over Qualtrics for better engagement? A Closer Look into their Success Story

Imagine this: Your organization is heavily reliant on gathering insights to stay ahead. You’ve invested in one of the most well-known enterprise tools to collect feedback. But as your needs grow, you face survey limitations, response caps, and rising costs, making it harder to capture crucial feedback.

What do you do when your solution starts becoming part of the problem?

This isn’t just a hypothetical scenario. Missouri State Teachers Association (MSTA), representing over 47,000 educators, found themselves in a similar situation. Their reliance on Qualtrics—though once effective—had become an expensive obstacle, consuming their budget while limiting their ability to conduct essential surveys year-round.

Faced with these challenges, MSTA made the pivotal decision to switch to Zonka Feedback, a more flexible, feature-rich, cost-effective alternative. Todd Fuller, Marketing & Communications Director at MSTA mentioned:

By implementing Zonka Feedback, they were able to continue collecting large-scale feedback without breaking the bank or sacrificing functionality. But how did this transition help them enhance engagement and get educator insights?

In this blog, we’ll explore MSTA’s transformation from Qualtrics to Zonka Feedback, highlighting the reasons behind their switch and the actionable steps you can take if you’re facing similar roadblocks. Let's dive in!

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When MSTA Migrated from Qualtrics to Zonka Feedback

While Qualtrics is an impressive platform with extensive capabilities, it might not be the right fit for every organization. As feedback needs expand, so do the associated costs in this survey tool—especially for high-volume surveys and customizations. Many organizations, like MSTA, face this challenge when the cost of using Qualtrics begins to outweigh the benefits.

For MSTA, collecting thousands of responses annually became financially unsustainable with Qualtrics’ rising costs. The added charges for customization and response limits started to outweigh the benefits.

Zonka Feedback, on the other hand, offered advanced customization, scalability, and flexibility—without sacrificing features or driving up costs. Its 4.7 G2 rating (compared to Qualtrics’ 4.4) speaks volumes about user satisfaction. With Zonka Feedback, MSTA accessed enterprise-grade features at a price point that made large-scale surveys affordable and customizable.

“Qualtrics was intuitive, but it became too expensive for us as a nonprofit. Zonka Feedback provided all the features we needed at a much more affordable price, especially considering the volume of responses we could collect.” - Todd Fuller, Marketing & Communications Director

Major Challenges with Qualtrics

Even though Qualtrics is renowned as a leading enterprise feedback management software, it's not without its challenges, especially for organizations looking for simplicity, cost-effectiveness, and ease of use. Here’s a look at some common problems users encounter:

1. Steep Learning Curve & Resource-Intensive Onboarding

Qualtrics, though feature-packed, can feel like a maze. The dense interface often leaves users navigating complexity just to perform basic tasks. For those without advanced tech skills, even setting up a simple survey can be daunting.

And onboarding? That’s another challenge. It’s not just about understanding the system—it demands significant time, training, and often external support. Teams without dedicated technical resources may struggle with implementation, making it less ideal for organizations seeking a more straightforward, quicker setup.

2. High Cost & Unaffordable for Many Organizations

One of the biggest complaints about Qualtrics is its cost. Qualtrics is an enterprise-level tool with an enterprise price tag, which can quickly become a financial strain for organizations, especially nonprofits. In MSTA’s case, the price of maintaining Qualtrics was unsustainable. Their annual member survey consumed almost half of their allocated feedback quota, leaving little room for other essential surveys throughout the year.

In addition to the steep subscription fees, there are hidden costs involved in terms of time spent on training and hiring technical support. Many user reviews highlight this as a deal-breaker, citing that while the features are robust, they’re not worth the price for organizations that don’t fully use them.

3. Survey Limitations 

Although Qualtrics offers survey customization options, its response quotas can severely limit data collection for organizations. MSTA, for instance, found that their large annual survey used up nearly half of their allocated responses, leaving little room for the rest of the year’s smaller, yet essential, surveys. This created a trade-off between gathering insights from large, comprehensive surveys and smaller pulse checks, leading to a piecemeal understanding of member feedback.

For organizations needing frequent feedback, this limited response cap becomes a challenge, restricting both the volume and depth of valuable data collection.

4. Rigid Feedback Flow

Though powerful, Qualtrics lacks flexibility when it comes to launching quick pulse surveys or adapting on the go. While it excels at large, structured surveys, it can be cumbersome for organizations that need to send out frequent, smaller surveys.

MSTA, which often needed to gather immediate feedback from members during conferences or after major advocacy events, found Qualtrics too rigid. The need to create complex survey logic from scratch slowed down their feedback loop, making it harder to stay agile in a fast-moving educational landscape.

5. Inflexibility for Non-Technical Users

Qualtrics is built for power users who need customization options, but this also means you need a developer or code-fluent team member to set up advanced features like custom survey logic or integrations. For non-technical teams, this can be a major obstacle.

Even for organizations that have the technical know-how, the platform’s reliance on backend coding makes it less adaptable for smaller adjustments.

How is Zonka Feedback an Ideal Alternative to Qualtrics?

Zonka Feedback stands out as an intuitive, feature-rich, cost-effective alternative to Qualtrics, offering a powerful platform if you are looking to optimize feedback collection and customer experience. Here are some features that make it the best alternative to Qualtrics:

1. Cost-Effectiveness

In today’s competitive landscape, businesses are constantly looking for software that offers high value without overwhelming costs. Zonka Feedback offers flexible pricing, letting you pay for what you use while still offering access to a comprehensive suite of features. This makes it ideal for scaling feedback efforts affordably.

For MSTA, affordability was crucial. While Qualtrics delivered on features, its pricing was out of reach for long-term use. Zonka Feedback, however, provided them with a cost-effective alternative with enterprise-grade capabilities without the financial strain, allowing them to scale feedback collection across departments effortlessly.

2. Customizable Surveys & Flexibility

Every company has unique feedback needs and Zonka Feedback excels in providing flexibility that allows you to create tailored surveys for any occasion. Unlike Qualtrics, which can feel restrictive on customization, Zonka Feedback's strength lies in how easily you can customize or build new surveys from scratch.

For MSTA, Zonka Feedback’s versatility was key. From post-event feedback at Leadership Conferences to insights from Capitol Visits, MSTA could create surveys tailored to each event. Zonka Feedback’s flexibility also allowed them to run larger surveys like the Virtual New Teacher Summit, ensuring the right survey reached the right audience at the right time.

3. Ease of Use & Setup

Another standout feature that makes Zonka Feedback the perfect Qualtrics alternative is its ease of use, quick setup, and seamless onboarding. With a 9.3 rating in ease of use and 9.4 in setup, even non-technical users can start right away. The easy onboarding process allowed MSTA to quickly train their team and launch multiple surveys across events, saving valuable time.

And with customer support rated at 9.6, help is always at hand, ensuring a smooth experience from start to finish. This simplicity lets you focus on what matters most—gathering valuable feedback.

4. Scalability

For growing businesses, scaling feedback initiatives smoothly is crucial. Unlike Qualtrics, where scalability often comes with complexity and rising costs, Zonka Feedback makes growth effortless. It allows you to expand feedback collection across channels, locations, and teams without any steep learning curves.

Take MSTA's 2024 Annual Member Survey, for instance. This massive survey shapes their educational strategies and advocacy efforts and hence they needed to gather insights from thousands of Missouri educators, capturing their views on everything from job satisfaction to educational challenges. With Zonka Feedback, MSTA was able to roll out the survey effortlessly, reaching thousands of educators, without worrying about response caps like they had to with Qualtrics.

5. Real-Time Monitoring & Multi-User Access

For any organization, gathering feedback is just the beginning—acting on it promptly is where the real value lies. With Zonka Feedback's real-time monitoring and multi-user admin access, you can instantly track responses and make decisions on the go.

For instance, after creating custom surveys, MSTA needed a collaborative way to manage incoming feedback. Zonka Feedback's multi-user access let team members log in as admins and monitor responses as they came in. This was critical during peak survey periods like their salary survey, where fast decisions were needed to address concerns. With real-time monitoring by multiple team members, MSTA ensured no issues were overlooked, staying proactive instead of reactive.

6. AI-Powered Sentiment Analysis

With Zonka Feedback’s AI, you don’t just gather feedback—you gain insights into customer emotions instantly. Whether they’re satisfied, frustrated, or neutral, the AI performs sentiment analysis in real-time. It can even detect more nuanced emotions like anger, joy, or disappointment.

Beyond just how a customer feels, Zonka Feedback's AI goes a step further to understand intent—is the customer suggesting an improvement, asking for help, or praising your service? It also flags responses that carry urgency, alerting you to issues that need immediate attention.

Here are more features that you get with its smart AI.

• AI Sentiment Reports: These detailed reports allow you to quickly grasp the overall mood of their customers. You can track trends over time, spot recurring issues, or celebrate consistently positive feedback.
• AI Response Tagging: Instead of manually tagging feedback based on themes or topics, the AI does it for you. It labels responses by sentiment and subject, allowing you to filter and act on feedback more efficiently.
• Multi-Language AI Translations: For companies with a global customer base, Zonka Feedback’s AI can translate feedback from different languages while still analyzing sentiment and intent. This means no feedback is lost in translation, and you can understand your customers no matter where they’re from.

7. CX Automation & Workflows

Zonka Feedback’s CX automation and workflows takes manual work out of the equation and lets you focus on what matters: delivering better experiences. With this customer feedback tool, you can automate everything from survey deployment to follow-up actions. Here’s how it works:

• Automated Survey Triggers: Imagine you’ve just finished a service interaction or completed a purchase. Zonka Feedback can automatically send a survey at the perfect moment, without you having to lift a finger.
• AI Sentiment CX Workflows: The AI analyzes customer sentiment, emotion, and urgency in real-time, automating responses based on feedback. Urgent issues are flagged and routed to the right teams for immediate attention.
• Labeling & Task Assignments: Zonka Feedback’s system automatically labels feedback based on its sentiment—whether it's a complaint, suggestion, or praise—and assigns tasks accordingly.
• Custom Reports: It gives in-depth data analysis by generating automated reports based on a schedule you set. Whether it's daily, weekly, or monthly, you’ll receive comprehensive insights without digging through data to stay up-to-date.

8. Advanced Reporting & Analytics

To understand customer feedback data precisely it is important to turn that data into actionable insights. Zonka Feedback’s advanced reporting and analytics features make data analysis simple and efficient, offering a variety of features to help you track and understand key metrics.

• Snapshot Reports: Get real-time summaries of critical metrics like response rates, NPS scores, and overall satisfaction. These high-level reports provide instant insights for quick decision-making.
• Trends Reports: Track long-term shifts in customer sentiment, spot recurring issues, and identify opportunities for improvement with historical data.
• Multi-Location Reports: For organizations with multiple branches or regions, Zonka Feedback’s multi-location reports provide insights across all your locations. You can compare performance, identify strong areas, and pinpoint regions that need attention.

9. Closing the Feedback Loop

Zonka Feedback ensures that every piece of feedback translates into immediate action, turning insights into opportunities for improvement. By automating follow-ups and notifying the right people, you can resolve issues in real-time and keep customer satisfaction high. Here’s how it works:

• Real-Time Alerts: If a customer submits negative feedback, Zonka Feedback instantly triggers an alert to the relevant team, ensuring that critical issues are dealt with before they escalate.
• Automated Follow-Ups: You can set up automated responses based on the type of feedback received. If a customer leaves a low satisfaction score, an apology email or a compensation offer can be sent automatically.
• Task Assignment: From the feedback dashboard, tasks can be assigned directly to specific team members based on the feedback type. For instance, if a software company receives feedback about a bug, Zonka Feedback can assign the task to the development team immediately, ensuring the issue is logged and fixed quickly.

Impact from the Switch for MSTA in Enhancing Educator Engagement

MSTA’s switch to Zonka Feedback didn’t just solve their immediate problems; it completely transformed how they engaged with their members across the state. Here’s the impact they witnessed:

a. Expanded Feedback Collection

MSTA captured over 3,500 responses in just under a year—without worrying about response limitations. Each voice was heard, from annual surveys to quick pulse checks, giving MSTA the freedom to continually engage educators on issues that mattered most.

b. Higher Response Rates

Zonka Feedback’s email distribution system proved game-changing. The response rate skyrocketed to 94%, reflecting stronger engagement from educators and creating a more effective feedback loop. This allowed MSTA to better understand its members and guide advocacy efforts with data-driven insights.

c. Faster Survey Creation

MSTA was able to set up tailored surveys quickly, whether for large-scale events like their Annual Member Survey or smaller, post-event feedback after leadership conferences. What used to be resource-intensive was now a streamlined process, enabling MSTA to respond to emerging trends and educator needs in real-time.

d. Seamless Collaboration and Real-Time Action

The multi-user access feature meant that MSTA’s team could monitor feedback in real-time and collaborate effortlessly. With everyone on the same page, the organization could respond more promptly to educators’ concerns. This was particularly vital during peak survey periods when timely action was necessary to address feedback immediately.

e. Data-Driven Decision-Making

By integrating Zonka Feedback with tools like Google Sheets, MSTA turned raw data into actionable insights. This helped them track trends, adjust strategies, and stay aligned with the evolving needs of Missouri’s educators. With Zonka, MSTA didn’t just gather feedback—they turned it into a powerful tool for real-time advocacy and improvement.

Key Takeaways for Organizations Considering Alternatives

Switching feedback platforms is an important decision that can significantly impact how effectively you engage with your audience. Whether it’s about finding a more scalable solution or seeking better functionality, here are key considerations before making the switch:

1. Understand Your Feedback Needs

Before diving into a new platform, reflect on your organization's specific requirements. Do you need large-scale survey capabilities, better segmentation, or advanced reporting? For MSTA, managing feedback across thousands of educators efficiently was critical.

• Ask: How many responses do you handle? Are there constraints around real-time insights?
• Consider: Your feedback touchpoints—whether online, offline, or a combination—ensure the platform supports all methods.

2. Ask the Right Questions

It’s crucial to identify the right fit by asking probing questions during your evaluation process. Here are some to keep in mind:

• How many responses do you need annually? Ensure there are no response caps if you run large surveys like MSTA.
• Does it need specialized skills? Some platforms require technical expertise, which can drain time and resources if you do not have in-house developers.
• Are there hidden costs? Watch out for extra fees like training, support, or overages. Look for solutions that offer transparent, scalable pricing.

3. Prioritize Flexibility & Customization

Your organization needs a feedback platform that can adapt to different situations, whether it's quick pulse surveys, event-specific feedback, or large annual surveys. Zonka Feedback provided MSTA with the ability to customize their surveys effortlessly, tailoring them to their audience and events.

• Ask: Can you easily create different types of surveys for different needs?
• Consider: Whether you can set up workflows, adjust survey logic, and customize survey flows without relying on technical support.

4. Assess Automation & Integrations

Automation plays a crucial role in streamlining feedback collection and management. Zonka Feedback’s automated workflows allowed MSTA to trigger surveys and reminders effortlessly, reducing manual work while ensuring timely responses.

• Ask: Does the platform offer automated workflows, reminders, and triggers?
• Consider: Whether the platform integrates seamlessly with your existing tools, like Google Sheets or CRM systems, to ensure data flows smoothly across your operations.

5. Focus on Cost-Effectiveness without Compromising Features

Switching platforms isn’t just about reducing costs—it’s about getting better value for your investment. MSTA chose Zonka Feedback because it offered enterprise-level functionality at a fraction of the cost, allowing them to expand their feedback collection without stretching their budget.

• Ask: Are you paying for features you don’t need or can’t use?
• Consider: Choosing a solution that offers a flexible pricing model that grows with your needs but doesn’t overwhelm your budget.

Conclusion

Many companies relying on Qualtrics for feedback collection may eventually find themselves frustrated with high costs, limited flexibility, or usability issues. For organizations like MSTA, these challenges become unsustainable, prompting them to seek alternatives.

Zonka Feedback proved to be a cost-effective and flexible solution for MSTA, enabling them to scale their feedback efforts without sacrificing quality. It is packed with helpful features like AI text analysis, workflow automation, real-time AI based insights, advanced reporting and analytics and more.

If you’re facing similar challenges with Qualtrics, it might be time to consider switching to Zonka Feedback. Its flexibility, deep customization options, and enterprise-grade capabilities offer everything you need to adapt and grow while keeping feedback management simple and affordable.

Ready to elevate your feedback process? Sign up for a 14-day free trial or schedule a demo today!