Enterprise Feedback Programs

Overview of Enterprise Feedback Programs

Most senior executives want customer focus to be a top priority, recognizing that improving the customer experience is a significant factor in the future success of their companies. It is their responsibility to ensure success across the entire business. They therefore must make significant investments in capturing the voice of the customer. The challenge is to turn that information, which resides in individual silos of information spread across the enterprise, into decisions that will drive improved performance. Key insights derived from mountains of data have to be shared across the business, giving business users access to information that is relevant to their role and level. 

Characteristics of successful enterprise feedback programs include:

Timely Action Delivering coordinated information that answers questions about what is currently happening and why it is happening Transforming analysis into action if the goal is not achieved Prioritizing action based on expected returns are measured from both a financial and customer-centric view Taking timely action based on whether it is a tactical or strategic action and the magnitude of the proposed changes

Company-Wide Visibility Visibility into operational, financial and customer information for every interested stakeholder in the enterprise Dashboard technology to quickly identify problem areas, drill down for answers to the “when” and “why” Recognition that performance management is everyone’s job, from high-level executives to front-line staff, empowering all to monitor health of their part of the business

Enterprise-Wide View Centered on customer satisfaction and loyalty, specifically, those metrics that correlate with all the key components of revenue growth and profitability Customers’ perceptions of all interactions and their overall assessment of the relationship with you Aggregation of all customer inputs in order to analyze across all businesses and down to the account level Corporate strategic objectives, with the departmental and cross-functional initiatives that support them, form basis for all analysis and action

Data Sources and Delivery Operational, financial, customer and employee metrics are tracked in order to guide operations and improve performance in all key areas Data integrated from a variety of sources Data delivered in a variety of mediums that reach the user in the most efficient way, e.g., desktop, intranet, mobile device Dashboards for each function take into account the influences and impacts across functional areas

Range of Customer Feedback Programs

CustomerConnect™ is CustomerImpact’s unique solution that builds on the premise that a positive customer experience drives customer loyalty, which results in greater customer retention, higher revenue, and profitability for the enterprise. A well-balanced and integrated program captures customers’ and other stakeholders’ overall perceptions of the company and of their interactions across multiple transactions, products, regions, and channels throughout the customer lifecycle. Programs include:

• Customer Loyalty and Engagement
• Customer Support Satisfaction
• Project Services Satisfaction
• Customer Churn Reduction
• Assessing Partner Programs Success
• Assessing Supplier Programs Success
• Win/Loss 
• Text Analysis

 

 

 

 

Customer Loyalty Program

The CustomerImpact “voice of the customer” approach has one goal in mind—incorporating customer intelligence into dashboards that are delivered to users across the enterprise. That “voice” must be captured at all points of contact and throughout the lifecycle of each customer. This requires proactively seeking customer input about their experiences and perceptions, impressing upon them that their opinions are valued.

Surveys

This is accomplished through a combination of survey and new media approaches that:

• Periodically solicit their overall impressions of all their experiences throughout the year (Relationship surveys)

• Asking them for feedback immediately after a transaction has occurred (Transaction surveys).

• Periodically sending short questionnaires to selected customers (from Panels) about products/services in order to shape the corporate product roadmap (Pulse surveys)
• Listening, asking, and responding to online feedback communities

Relationship Surveys cover all aspects of the relationship. Customers may be asked their opinions about:

Product quality Service quality Implementation services Online purchase experience

Ease of doing business Price/value Account management Experience with distribution channels

Brand perceptions, competitive comparisons, and assessment of performance compared to the previous year are also collected.
Transaction Surveys are deployed immediately after the event or transaction has occurred. For example, after a case is closed in Technical Support, an on-site project is implemented, or a training course is completed, the customer is asked to take the survey while the experience is still fresh in his/her mind. The focus is deliberately narrow, eliciting feedback on that transaction alone.
Pulse Surveys are sent to Panel members who have agreed to provide input on a range of topics, such as product enhancements, new products, and service delivery modes.
Social Media “Surveys” include listening to online forums (qualitative input) and creating targeted surveys based on those discussions (quantitative input), which can be sent to same forum or via emai invitations to customer samples

Analysis and Reporting

Customers who take the time to provide feedback, whether it is positive or negative, are providing valuable information to the enterprise that allows it to take corrective action before customers defect. Critical feedback includes the following:

Which metrics are most important to them How the company is performing on those metrics What causes the most unhappiness What improvements they would like to see How they prioritize new features, products, and services

Overall satisfaction Likelihood to continue doing business Likelihood to do more business Likelihood to recommend

Information Delivers Insights
By applying CustomerImpact’s analytic tools to the responses, including the open-ended comments (see CustomerImpact’s Customer Text Analysis program), clients will be able to walk away with a clear understanding of the challenges and opportunities they face at the corporate level, as well as at the regional, business unit, business function, branch/office, and account levels. And for employees in customer-facing positions, customer intelligence identifies where recognition or further training is needed.

Insights Drive Actions
In order to improve performance at all those levels, the insights that will drive appropriate actions must be available and understandable to all staff in a timely manner. Dashboards present information in a clear and compelling way, quickly providing an overview of what’s going on across at all levels of the company and a drill-down for more granular data and root cause analysis.
Previously, analysts had to sift through endless spreadsheets and cross-tabs for slicing and dicing. Executives/managers who wanted access to the data had to log in to their accounts, receive email communications with static images of the data, and/or plow through multiple databases with operational and financial data. With CustomerImpact’s dashboards, business users are able to track performance against corporate strategic goals and launch strategic initiatives to improve performance.

 

CustomerConnect™ Approach

CustomerImpact’s unique CustomerConnect™ solution is a well-balanced and integrated program that seeks customer input across all touchpoints. Actionable insights, based on key metrics and powered by CustomerTextAnalysis (CTA) for verbatim comments, are generated and disseminated to all employees, so that they can make timely, more accurate decisions that will drive higher levels of performance. Our premise is that customer satisfaction increases as performance improves, leading to greater customer loyalty, fewer customer defections, greater operating efficiencies, and revenue growth.As part of this continuous improvement cycle, we are continually testing and confirming the linkages between performance, satisfaction, loyalty, and business outcomes. Our dashboard design service make immediately visible how those factors correlate by including operational, financial and customer intelligence metrics.

CustomerConnect™ Process

CustomerImpact adds value from day one, working with clients to design, deploy, and manage their customer intelligence program, using skills acquired over many years running hundreds of surveys and surveying thousands of customers. The four steps are:

(1) Discovery Understand corporate business challenges Confirm customer intelligence program objectives Summarize and analyze previous customer intelligence findings Determine Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and supporting metrics Identify all customer touchpoints of the process Review data sources

(2) Design Plan appropriate survey instrumentsDesign questionnaire(s) Design sampling plan for all customer segmentsCompose email communications Design questionnaire logic Establish business rules Identify questions and threshold levels that will trigger Alerts Create Reporting plan for Performance Dashboards

(3) Create/Test/Deploy Input questionnaires, invitations, reminders Test questionnaires Test email communications Create Dashboard user interface Create and group charts and graphs Input trigger data points and threshold levels for Alerts Test integrations of dashboards into corporate network environment Deploy

(4) Monitor and Manage Check that surveys continue to operate without error Provide ongoing support and maintenance Analyze responses to determine when current questions have to be deleted  or modified and when new questions have to be added

Business Justification

• Save at-risk customers and the present and future revenues they representIdentify problems in the early stages, resolving them quickly before costs climb
• Recognize and focus on opportunities with the best return
• Make  processes more efficient
• Provide product-related information to Engineering and Product Management
• Provide competitive input to Marketing and Sales
• Deliver customer feedback on support agents, account managers, and other customer-touching employees to their managers, so that coaching/training needs are identified and compensation/rewards allocated
• Segment and understand customers by demographics, perceptions, wants & needs, and behavior, with intent to cater to those with the greatest strategic value
• Track overall satisfaction, loyalty, willingness to recommend, and satisfaction for all the performance attributes  
   
   
   
   
   
   

   

 

Customer/Technical Support Satisfaction

The support function represents the primary interface a customer has with the enterprise after the sale has been made. Therefore, each interaction has to be a positive customer experience. Gather feedback immediately after the case is closed.

 

Challenges include:

• Meeting high customer expectations

• Controlling costs

• Keeping employee turnover to a minimum

• Establishing processes that make employees efficient

• Using technology to streamline processes and ensure accessibility of comprehensive, up-to-date information for agents and customers

• Providing appropriate training

 

Our Solution delivers:

• Customer feedback: agent expertise, agent courtesy, first call resolution, knowledgebase, escalation process, satisfaction with responsiveness by channel (phone, email, chat), overall satisfaction with Support

• Operational data: number of service calls, number of calls by product, number of outstanding service issues, use of self-service on the web,

• Financial data: product renewal %, Maintenance Contract renewal %, revenue growth

• Reporting: number of open cases by severity level, identification of at-risk customers, comparisons by product, correlation of first call resolution with Overall Satisfaction with Support

• Best Practices in customer intelligence programs and dashboard reporting

 

Business Justification includes:

• Save at-risk customers

• Produce engaged customers by delivering positive customer experiences

• Identify growth opportunities

• Cross-sell and up-sell  based on knowledge of customers’ wants and needs

• Increase maintenance contract renewal rate

• Improve efficiency of processes

• Ensure that strategic customers’ open cases are resolved quickly

• Learn about product problems soon after launch in time to fix them

• Pinpoint the steps in each process where problems  occur most often

• Refine course content for training agents to improve their performance

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

Project Services Satisfaction

The overall goals are to deliver a quality job on time and within budget, achieve high customer satisfaction, ensure availability of qualified resources when needed—all while engaging employees, managing risk, and meeting financial objectives. Feedback is gathered at completion of job or, for longer implementations, after key milestones have been reached.

Challenges include:

• Complete project on time, under budget, within scope

• Achieve expected revenues/margins

• Correctly plan for resources

• Track milestones

• Ensure adequate and qualified staffing

• Stay on top of utilization figures

• Know when consultants are overloaded

• Track project management risk factors at all times and escalate quickly when target levels not achieved

 

Our Solution delivers:

• Customer feedback: ability to meet timelines, consultant technical competence, consultant responsiveness, overall satisfaction with project services

• Operational data: Project duration, budgeted hours, billable hours, spare capacity, number of projects

• Financial data: actual revenue, forecast revenue, actual costs, budgeted costs

• Reporting: revenue by project, costs by project, number of days on time/ahead of schedule/behind schedule

• Best Practices in customer intelligence programs and dashboard reporting

 

Business Justification includes:

• Ensure customer satisfaction

• Ensure project renewal/expansion

• See which projects are slipping  or over budget in order to make corrections

• See where client has personnel issues with consultants in order to make changes as needed

• Immediately identify strategic projects that are exhibiting signs of project failure according to requirements of governance across the enterprise

• Streamline processes

• Track consultant utilization to ensure available staff as needed

• Pinpoint and quickly address implementation problems

• Provide targeted training to consultants

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Customer Churn Reduction

Customer retention is critical. Learn why your customers are leaving, what would make them stay, what would bring them back. Gain valuable information about competitors that can be used successfully in competitive bids.

Challenges include:

• Competitive stakes are high

• Product and Price advantages no longer enough

• Internet makes finding another vendor easy

• Prevent defections before they occur

• Become a customer-centric organization

• Truly understand and cater to different customers’ want and needs 

 

Our Solution delivers:

• Customer feedback: probability of renewing/repurchasing, reasons for defection, what would win them back

• Operational data:  which competitors considered, which competitor chosen and why

• Financial data: revenues lost, potential revenues gained with customer won back

• Reporting: strengths and weaknesses by specific competitor, customer segmentation by satisfaction and dissatisfaction drivers

• Best Practices in customer intelligence programs and dashboard reporting

 

Business Justification includes:

• Identifies at-risk customers and the reasons for their intent to defect

• More profitable sales efforts since costs to retain customers are less than new customer acquisition costs

• Learns at which points in the process problems exist

• Identifies strengths and weaknesses of competitors

• Arms Sales with data by competitor that can be used for winning new customers

• Provides input to marketing and sales efforts to win back customers

• Provides opportunity to retain customers on verge of leaving

• Provides input to plans for prevention of future defections

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 

Assessing Partner Programs Success

Partnerships take many forms today, including strategic alliances, Resellers, VARs, OEMs, Systems Integrators. Successful partnerships are key in today’s world of increasing competition, squeezed resources, and fast-moving markets. Vendors must continually evaluate the success of their partner programs to ensure they are getting value and customers are well-served. To that end, there must be alignment of values, goals, and corporate cultures, with strong management commitment, technology integration, and support provided. Best practices in partner program assessments requires feedback from both parties, as well as end user customers.

Challenges include:
 

• Building a more productive and effective partner relationship

• Understanding the key drivers of health for each partnership

• Ensuring adequate resources and skill sets to successfully grow the business

• Managing multiple partner relationships to achieve corporate goals

• Having metrics in place to track performance of each partnership and ensuring that they are used

• Ensuring increased productivity across all channels to better serve customers

• Preventing partner defections before they occur

• Recognizing and taking advantage of synergies produced by partners working together

 

Our Solution delivers:

• Partner/Customer feedback: how vendor compares with competitors, ease of doing business with vendor, quality of support,  conflict resolution, culture fit, degree of trust, management commitment, overall satisfaction

• Operational data:  support calls per partner, hours of training, number of leads shared with partners, number of joint sales calls

• Financial data: revenues per partner, pipeline data, incremental revenues as result of synergies of partners, marketing costs of vendor and partner, revenues per product per partner

• Reporting: strengths and weaknesses by specific partner, satisfaction by type of project, comparison of vendor and partner rating per attribute, comment analysis, forecast vs. actual revenues

• Best Practices in partner health assessment programs and dashboard reporting

 

Business Justification includes:

• Builds more productive and effective partner channels

• Enables vendors to better serve their partners and end users

• Increases revenues coming through the partner channel

• Advances best practices in alliance management

• Increases share of wallet with valued partners

• Track revenues per region, product, segment, partner type, program type

• Enforces partner accountability

• Pinpoints where and how much to invest in partnership management infrastructure and processes

• Identifies the most valuable partners in order to give them more  business and reward them for their performance

• Identifies where there is a disconnect in the perceptions of partners and vendors about how well the partnership is working

• Highlights at-risk partners, providing the opportunity to address their needs real-time

• Addresses causes of partner dissatisfaction, which can negatively impact the end user experience, leading to higher customer defections

• Prioritizes actions that will strengthen alliances, resulting in reduced costs, incremental sales, and greater value for the customer

• Identifies market trends in time to take appropriate actions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

Assessing Supplier Programs Success

Companies are increasingly outsourcing key operational processes. Therefore, their performance is increasingly dependent on the performance of their suppliers. Rigorous assessment of suppliers’ performance and then acting on the findings will lead to improvements in the key performance metrics of time, quality, cost, and technology. The Supplier and the Customer should participate in the assessment process, since both have a stake in the success of the relationship. Surveys should be conducted on mutually agreed-upon internals, such as reaching specific milestones, or on a regular basis, such as quarterly.

Challenges include:

• Building a more productive and effective supplier relationship

• Understanding that analysis of the relationship is just as important as relying on external performance measures (e.g., defect rates, inventory turns)

• Ensuring that communication is frequent and clear between the parties

• Managing multiple supplier relationships to achieve corporate goals

• Supplier strategy, processes, and business practices must align with those of their customers

• Having metrics in place to track performance of each partnership and ensuring that they are used

• Ensuring increased productivity across all channels to better serve customers

 
Our Solution delivers:

• Supplier/Customer feedback: status of relationship, ease of doing business with each other, responsiveness, working collaboratively, identification of and reasons for problems,  overall satisfaction

• Operational data: purchased parts lead times, inventory turns, parts-per-million defect rates,  delivery times, quality of products shipped, ability to scale operations

• Financial data: costs per supplier, pipeline data, value of business by month

• Reporting: strengths and weaknesses by supplier, comment analysis, value of business by supplier

• Best Practices in supplier assessment programs and dashboard reporting

 
Business Justification includes:

• Increase in competitive advantage by reducing order cycle times and inventory

• Suppliers’ and Customers’ assessment of each other’s performance uncovers any problems in the relationship other

• Ability to scale efficiently while retaining quality output

• Highlights strengths and weaknesses in current processes in order to build on strengths and deal with weaknesses

• Visibility into progress on meeting KPI targets, so that corrective action can be taken in time to meet contractual obligations

• Ability to create better contracts

• Risk mitigation

• Awareness of Supplier capabilities and capacity

• Cost reductions by minimizing rework

• Money saved by reducing inventory carrying costs

• Improved overall quality of end product

• Identification and removal of hidden waste

• Insight on how to best leverage the supply base

• Alignment of business practices between Supplier and Customer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 

Win/Loss Program

The ultimate goal is to improve your win rate. Survey invitations are sent to clients you recently won and to non-clients who chose your competitors. The same questions are asked of each, so that performance comparisons can be made of you and your competitors.

Challenges include:
 

• Knowing who your competitors are and how you stack up against them

• Knowing why you win each deal

• Knowing why you lose each deal

• Understanding your company’s value proposition and communicating it clearly and forcefully

• Being knowledgeable about purchase decisions of current customers, i.e., is share of wallet increasing or decreasing

• Providing sales representatives with detailed information on where you stand against competitors and arming them with the ammunition they will need at the individual competitor level

• Ensuring that feedback is fed back to the appropriate groups, such as Engineering, Marketing, and Support

• Tracking performance of sales representatives

 

Our Solution includes:
 

• Customer/non-customer feedback: who was on short list, strengths and weaknesses of each, deciding factors, sales representative’s performance

• Operational data: number of pre-sales contacts per deal, time spent on selling and non-selling activities

• Financial data: size of each deal, value of deals won, value of deals lost, potential lifetime value of deals won, potential lifetime value of deals lost, monthly sales/maintenance revenue, key accounts revenue trends

• Reporting: Strengths and weaknesses by competitor, your sales record against each competitor, Alerts to identify at-risk customers, Alerts to highlight declining success record against specific competitors

• Best Practices in customer intelligence programs and dashboard reporting

 

Business Benefits include:
 

• Increase current sales

• Refine product/pricing configuration in order to win future sales

• Refine sales messages and techniques in order to win future sales

• Use intelligence gained to identify customers who are at risk

• Use intelligence gained to win back lost customers

• Track sales representatives’ performance to coach and train for greater successes

• Strengthen relationships with current customers

• Ensure that you remain competitive in the marketplace