I am writing again to alert people of a different solicitation that we have been made aware of to conduct a “Secret Shopping” job.  Please be aware that Direct Opinions does not conduct mystery shops nor are we an “employment firm” hiring secret shoppers.   The most recent solicitation (please see a copy of the actual letter below) that has been brought to our attention identifies offices in New York, Niagara Falls, Ontario and London, England.  Although the scammers use our company logo, this is not actually Direct Opinions and we do not have an office outside of Ohio.  This is a scam being perpetrated by a group outside the United States and the letters are being sent from Canada.  We are in no way connected with this solicitation. After doing some research online, I have identified that this specific scam letter has been circulating since 2010.  Although it states a different company name, the details are basically the same.  Please go to this site for more details: http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?t=130843

These scammers take the names of legitimate companies such as our or other survey or mystery shopping sites, and send out checks in hopes that the receiver will deposit the check and wire money typically through a Western Union or MoneyGram organization to the specified recipient.  These checks are fakes and you will be liable to the bank for the money when the check bounces so please do not cash these checks.

Please remember that a legitimate business would never require you to send or wire funds as part of a “work from home” position.  Make sure that key information such as office locations, phone numbers, and products/services match up before you provide information that may be used in a scam. 

If you receive a letter like this, contact your local police department and they will be able to assist you.  Because this crime is being committed through US mail, you should also contact the US Postal Service Inspector to file a complaint.  Please use the following link to file a complaint with the US Postal Service Inspector:   https://postalinspectors.uspis.gov/forms/MailFraudComplaint.aspx

Below are examples of scam documents being sent out:

Click to Enlarge

Click to Enlarge

The concept of Net Promoter Score has gained quite a following since its introduction and as a result, Satmetrix conducts an annual NPS conference.  This conference not only provides an opportunity for users to meet and learn from each other but to also learn from NPS industry leaders who share ideas on trends and development as well as obstacles and challenges to avoid during implementation.

This year’s Net Promoter® conference is being held February 2^nd and 3^rd in San Francisco. The conference will be focused on two specific areas this year, “Driving Results and Getting Social.”  First focus, “Driving Results,” will help attendees understand how to take this metric to the next level and adopt a system to deliver improved loyalty results.   Second focus, “Getting Social” will provide a greater understanding of how organizations are managing and reacting to the immediacy of word-of-mouth social media feedback. 

There will be over 30 speakers from companies such as USAA, Zappos.com, Safelite AutoGlass, Alcoa, Philips Healthcare, Symantec, Experian, MetLife, Logitech, to name a few.  In addition to these prestigious organizations, I am proud to say that Gail Willis, VP of Strategic Survey Solutions for Direct Opinions will be the conference chair for the “Delivering Service Excellence” track of seminars.  Participating in this track are Brenda Worrell, Executive Vice President, Idaho Central Credit Union who will be presenting, “Creating a Service Focused Culture” and Barry Marsh of Logitech with Colleen Ritchie from Teletech who will be presenting, “When The Sum Is Greater Than Its Parts – Marketing, Quality And Care.”

Also presenting during this track is Joshua Cooper, Manager, Customer Insights for Guitar Center, the world’s largest seller of musical instruments.  Direct Opinions conducts transactional based NPS® surveys for Guitar Center, the information of which is used to improve their customer experience and drive brand loyalty.  Guitar Center will be presenting, “Playing to a Tough Crowd.” 

Direct Opinions became a member of the Net Promoter® Loyalty Partner Program in April of 2009, one of only a handful of companies that hold this distinction today.  The philosophy behind the partner program is to ensure that companies using Net Promoter in their services are well qualified to deliver a solution that can drive customer loyalty and profitable business growth while staying true to the methodology.  To achieve this, Direct Opinions team members have completed the Net Promoter Customer Loyalty Certification Course which provides a common base of knowledge and skills for selected loyalty partners.

We are excited to participate in the conference this year and look forward to providing insight and highlights upon our return from the conference.

“Net Promoter, Net Promoter Score, and NPS are trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.”

Jack Gray-Director of Research

Jack Gray is the Director of Research at Direct Opinions.  He has over twenty years of experience in marketing research, serving clients across a wide variety of industries including financial services, automotive, not-for-profit, telecommunications, political, health care, and technology.  He is equally adept at quantitative and qualitative analysis, having not only moderated numerous focus group sessions, but also skillfully utilizing a variety of multivariate statistics techniques to help clients address difficult business issues.   His areas of expertise include customer experience research, brand equity research, image assessment,  product concept testing, and advertising effectiveness research.

 Jack brings fifteen years of client side research management experience, first at KeyCorp, then at National City (now PNC), and finally at Sky Bank (now Huntington Bank) to his role at Direct Opinions.  While at National City, he guided the development of the first customer segmentation system for the retail bank, the adoption of which helped cement the Bank’s status as a market share leader across its geographic footprint.  He was also instrumental in developing the first omnibus customer satisfaction studies at both National City and Sky, initiatives that resulted in higher levels of customer satisfaction, and increased customer retention for both organizations.

 Jack’s supplier side experience includes stints at Peter D. Hart Research Associates and MORPACE International.  Jack served as a Senior Analyst at Peter D. Hart Research Associates, a national public opinion company in Washington, DC.   While there, he provided research guidance for senior executives at companies such as Microsoft, AT&T, Daimler-Chrysler, and Federal Express.  His work at MORPACE focused on the financial services industry, providing insight for clients such as Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Ford Credit, and H&R Block.

Additionally, Jack has done doctoral work in marketing at Kent State University, and has taught international marketing, marketing research, and principles of marketing at both Kent State and John Carroll Universities.   He holds the Professional Researcher Certification from the Marketing Research Association, and is a member of the American Association for Public Opinion Research.

Education

M.B.A., Finance, Wayne State University (1989)

B.S., Economics, The Ohio State University (1982)

What are some simple things that a smaller company can do to get started with a customer follow-up program?

There are many things that smaller companies can do to implement a customer service follow-up program.  All too often, small and medium sized companies assume that customer service follow-up programs are too expensive, or the exclusive domain of larger, nationally recognized Fortune 500 companies.  This simply isn’t the case. 

Starting a customer service follow-up program begins with engaging your customers and clients.  Contact all new customers to make sure that the relationship is getting started on the right foot.  Assign this responsibility to someone who will ensure that this is done timely and consistently.  Have a list of some standard questions to ask so that you can easily analyze/review the results.  If there is a problem, put an action plan in place to make sure it is addressed quickly and to the customers’ satisfaction.  If done right, they have the potential to become a long-term, loyal customer.

We can learn about satisfaction levels by following-up with lost or inactive customers too.  Understand why customers are leaving and what it will take to win them back.  Make sure this is an unbiased person within the organization, so typically we do not recommend leaving this type of follow-up to the sales person or sales manager who worked closely with the customer or client.  As is the case with new customer follow-up, create a set of standard questions to ask and track responses so that you can determine what it will take to win back an individual customer.  Successful customer follow-up requires analyzing the data to determine if there are any large operational issues to address.

What are some common pitfalls or things that people do wrong when putting together a customer satisfaction program?

We see some common themes when companies develop their own customer satisfaction programs.  To gather meaningful and actionable information, sometimes less is actually more.  Avoid the “kitchen sink” survey syndrome– keep customer satisfaction surveys concise and focused on the customer experience and relationship.  Fight the temptation to ask too many questions as customers will get turned off if the survey is too long.  Remember that you can always conduct additional surveys at other times to ask sales and marketing related questions.

Begin with the end in mind.  Understand what decisions this information will drive and make sure you are asking questions to obtain that information. Have a process in place to follow-up on customer feedback.  It is a waste of time and money to collect data if your organization does not act on the findings of your customer satisfaction survey.  Make sure you have current customer information in a database such as ACT or Salesforce.  This is critical to the success of not only customer satisfaction programs, but also marketing and sales initiatives as well. Following up with customers is difficult without good data. 

How often should transactional based businesses survey customers?

Frequency of follow-up surveys for transactional based businesses varies based on the number of transactions that a typical customer conducts on a regular basis.  The key take-away here is don’t “over survey” your customers.  Typically, the recommendation would be to complete a survey with your customers no more than once per quarter or every six months.

If your business is not transactional based, then the recommendation is to conduct an annual relationship survey.  This type of survey will allow you to not only evaluate a customer’s satisfaction with your products or services, but it will also allow you to dig deeper into their overall satisfaction with the relationship.   It is an opportunity to truly understand what is really important to them–what they value.  So, if a customer says that they are very satisfied with your delivery process but not at all satisfied with product quality and product quality is extremely important to them, this is what you need to be focusing on– fix this gap and it will have a great impact on this customer.

We are getting ready to conduct a customer satisfaction survey again and we haven’t done one for a few years.  What suggestions do you have to help increase our response rate from our customers?

My first suggestion would be to send out a letter to your customers letting them know that you will be conducting a survey and that you would appreciate their response in providing feedback for areas of improvement.  In this letter, let them know how you plan to use the information that you gather during this process.  Thank them in advance for their time and effort.

Once the survey collection is complete, make sure that you follow-up with any customers that have issues or concerns and resolve those issues to their satisfaction in a timely manner.  Send a follow-up letter thanking the respondents and let them know what you learned from the feedback you received.  It may be beneficial to highlight a few changes that you are going to make based upon the information that you received.  This will demonstrate that you are taking their feedback seriously and should increase response rates in the future as well.

How can a company keep their customer satisfaction program fresh with their internal team once it’s been in place for a while?

A company can refresh their focus on the program basics by establishing a quarterly theme each month which reviews either a specific step in the process, or a goal, pillar, or objective.  Games, contests and fun activities can be established to get employees or departments involved renewing the attention and importance of this program.

In order to implement a successful customer satisfaction program, it is important to first understand your goals and objectives for this initiative.  Determining what decisions this information will drive within your business will be critical to your success.  Understanding this will help you determine what to ask on your survey.  Getting ideas and feedback from the management team as well as other various departments within an organization will help you achieve two things:  1) you will gain a perspective on what might be important to measure from other areas of the company and 2) you will get buy in from others in the organization that may play an important role in the successful execution of the initiative.

Do your best to avoid what we call the “kitchen sink” survey syndrome.  This typically happens when too many people and/or departments get involved in the process and add their “two cents” to the survey.  What you may end up with is a survey containing “everything but the kitchen sink” meaning lots and lots of questions.  This could result in the survey growing to an unmanageable length and require a significant amount of time from your customer to complete.  Remember, this should be a good experience for your customer, not a daunting one.

Also keep in mind that additional surveys can be conducted at various points within the customer lifecycle to capture other information that may be critical for measurement and evaluation.  Perhaps you would like to conduct a quick survey to gauge satisfaction with shipping and delivery or to ensure that a major installation process was completed to your customers’ expectations.  In addition, a survey may be conducted with all new customers to evaluate their initial experience with your organization.  The purpose is to ensure that their first experience was a great one and confirm that they will return.  You also want to ensure positive word-of-mouth marketing.  If there were problems, it provides you an opportunity to fix the issues and encourage their return.  It will also allow you to improve your operation so other customers don’t have the same problems.

Remember to stay focused on the information objectives of the survey and remember what decisions the information will drive when considering the purpose of the survey and the questions to ask.  Understanding what you want your company to achieve will help you understand what your company needs to measure.

However, the idea of implementing a customer satisfaction and follow-up initiative may seem like a daunting task to many.  In order to implement a successful customer satisfaction program, it is first important to understand your goals and objectives for this initiative. 

Begin by asking yourself the following questions.  Although the concept of the question format used below may be a simple approach, your responses will begin to provide you a direction and will shape your customer satisfaction initiative goals and objectives.

What:
First and foremost, understand what decisions this information will drive within your business.  Understanding this will help you determine “what to ask” on your survey.  Will you use this information to track operational issues for improvement?  Do you want to know what your customers think you do well and use this for marketing purposes?  Do you want to know the satisfaction or loyalty of your customers?  Are you going to measure performance of your employees and use this information as a means to bonus them?  Understanding what you want your company to achieve will help you understand what your company needs to measure.

Who:
Consider who you may want to survey.  For example, do you want to gather feedback from all of your new customers to determine their satisfaction levels with their initial experience?  Or do you want to survey your existing customers and gauge their satisfaction by product or service type?  Perhaps you would like to reach out to inactive customers to determine reasons for inactivity.  You can create a program that surveys “all of the above” as well, but understanding who you want to hear from– this is an important step that shapes the whole program. 

Where:
Do you want to measure results based upon where your business is located or where your customers are located?  For example, tracking results based upon department or branch will provide insight as to how locations are performing in comparison to each other.  This will allow you to focus improvement efforts on underperforming locations.

When:
When should you survey your customers?  Based upon the information you are looking to gain and the frequency of your business transactions, it may make sense to conduct a “transactional survey.”   This type of survey will evaluate specific key attributes of the customer experience that can be monitored to determine their impact on satisfaction and loyalty, as well as the impact of operational changes you may implement over time.  Conducting a “relationship survey” is typically done on an annual basis and allows you to dig deeper into the relationship as well as to evaluate value and expectations in comparison to overall performance.  Determining your customers’ expectations vs. your performance will identify “gaps” which can be addressed having immediate impact with the retention and loyalty of your customer. 

Why: 
Understand why, as an organization, you want to implement this program.  This is a very important key element to a successful customer satisfaction and follow-up initiative.  Once a determination has been made to implement this initiative, it has to be communicated and supported from the top of the management team down to all employees on a consistent basis.  If the management team does not visibly support this initiative or “walk the talk”, your employees won’t either.  This should become a part of your corporate culture.

How:

Determine how are you going to respond or follow-up with your customers.  If you plan to implement a customer satisfaction initiative, then it is critical to establish your response or follow-up system as well.  Based  upon the volume of surveys you conduct, you may opt for an automated system which can track issues, identify trends and document steps taken to “fix” the situation and “close the loop” with your customer.  A more manual tracking and follow-up process can be utilized; however, the key here is consistency!  Identify the internal champion that will be responsible for sustaining this system and make them a part of the process which will ensure their buy-in and your success.  There is nothing worse than capturing customer issues or concerns and not doing anything with that information. 

Other considerations:  start small and grow with it.  As tempting as it may be to want to gather feedback from every customer, do not feel as if you have to conquer everything at one time.  Pick a segment to survey, implement your process, evaluate your results and work out any snags you may have with your process and systems first.  Then you can add on from there.  The most effective customer satisfaction programs measure results on a continuous basis and helps organizations do a better job of building better, more customer-centric companies.

Make plans to attend The Secret Service Summit in Cleveland, Ohio, November 3-4, 2011. A once in a lifetime event, the Secret Service Summit will feature best selling authors, customer service consultants, and global brand executives who will share the secrets to providing unparalleled levels of customer service. Participants will learn how household companies such as Nestle and Starbucks provide exceptional customer service while continuing to thrive in today’s economy. Panel experts in e-commerce, b2b, and customer satisfaction measurement will share valuable insights that will help attendees formulate an action plan to take their own company’s approach to customer service to new levels. To learn more about this world renowned event, visit www.secretservicesummit.com. 

Conference Location:
Hilton Garden Inn | 700 Beta Conference and Banquet Center
700 Beta Drive, Cleveland, Ohio, USA 44143
Phone: 1-440-646-1777
Hotel Website: www.mayfieldvillage.hgi.com

Net Promoter is a customer loyalty metric jointly developed by Fred Reichfield of Bain & Company and Satmetrix.  NPS is based on the premise that customers are divided into three categories: Promoters, Passives, and Detractors. The methodology is driven by the answer to a seemingly simple question:

“How likely are you to recommend our company to a friend or colleague?”

Customers respond to the query using a 0-to-10 point rating scale and are then categorized into three distinct groups:

• Promoters (score 9-10) are loyal enthusiasts who will continue to buy and refer others, promoting company growth.
• Passives (score 7-8) are satisfied but unenthusiastic customers who may consider a competitor’s offering.
• Detractors (score 0-6) are unhappy customers who detract from your brand and can negatively impact growth through negative, word-of-mouth comments.

The Net Promoter Score is calculated by taking the percentage of customers who are Promoters and subtracting the percentage who are Detractors.

The simplicity of this methodology appealed to our prospective customer, but not all members of the management team were convinced that their organization would truly benefit from a Net Promoter Score initiative.  They decided to approach Direct Opinions to learn more about how companies utilize NPS within their organizations.  Direct Opinions explained that NPS is a great method for companies to align their key performance indicators and corporate goals based on their customers’ expectations.  The NPS initiative is not just a score; it is a culture changing process that incorporates all levels of employees within an organization.  Several key members of this corporation decided to investigate further, and after careful consideration, they decided to approach Direct Opinions to discuss NPS.

Direct Opinions explained that one critical component to successful NPS initiative is to survey a statistically relevant sampling of customers.  We often see this as an issue, regardless of whether the survey used is based on Net Promoter Score methodology or not.  Capturing feedback from only a few customers and potentially making major business decisions or changes based on that feedback could be problematic.  It is critical to gain feedback from a relevant portion of your customer base before jumping into major changes.  You should also ensure that the feedback received represents your different customer demographics so that your entire customer base is well represented.  For example, if half of your customers are in the technology industry and the other half is broken up into business services and telecom, make sure that you get a proportionate number of surveys from every category so that you can understand the needs of each specific group which may differ by industry.  Equally important to survey sampling is a closed-loop follow-up system to ensure that customer concerns are addressed in a timely manner.

Understanding why clients promote your organization can be the building blocks of your corporate foundation.  These are the things that you want to strengthen and promote in your company.  Passives are basically customers “on the fence.”  A bad experience could turn them into a Detractor, however, continued/improved great service can turn them into a Promoter.  The detractors will let you know where the service or experience is breaking down from their perspective.  This information is golden because it can bring to light areas within your organization that you may not be aware are a problem.  Turning a Detractor into a Promoter can be quite an accomplishment.  These customers typically become very loyal to your brand because their issues have been addressed and you have demonstrated your commitment to their satisfaction.  The key here is to follow-up with all customers-their thoughts and ideas will provide great insight into your business and ultimately drive increased customer loyalty.

Working together, we developed a strategy to use the NPS data collected from a statistically relevant sample and helped to devise a plan to address concerns voiced by Passives and Detractors and to promote strengths expressed by promoters.

Net Promoter Score is a powerful tool that can be used to gauge the customer loyalty, but without a proper understanding of the methodology, companies cannot leverage the information to the fullest extent.  If your company is considering Net Promoter Score as a means to assess customer loyalty, consider the benefits of working with a Net Promoter Score Loyalty Partner like Direct Opinions.  For more detailed reading on NPS, visit: http://www.netpromoter.com .

After review of the survey information collected, it was determined that the number one reason why this customer lost opportunities was because their pricing was too high.  This is now an opportunity to look internally and determine what can be done to improve pricing so that the company can secure more business.  In addition, several of their customers commented that they never received a proposal.  Here is a situation where further communication or follow-up can be done to ensure receipt of proposals.  Another interesting point that surfaced was the fact that several of these opportunities were still “live”– the business hadn’t been awarded yet and was still an open opportunity.  Further communication and follow-up could result in a win.  It was also determined that there were people who needed a price for budgetary and planning purposes and did not need a full-blown proposal.  Internal procedures can be improved to provide the client the information that they need without having to go through a full-blown proposal process if only a “quick price” was needed.  This can definitely save on time and resources internally.

The new corporate headquarters is centrally located for our team and more importantly, for the vast majority of our client base.  We are also much closer to the airport for customers, vendors, partners, and team members flying in and out of Cleveland for meetings.

According to Campagna, “We have gone from a “traditionally” styled space to one that is very bright, colorful, fun and contemporary, specifically designed with our team culture in mind.  Our new facilities feature several work areas that provide for a relaxed, team meeting environment where we can meet to discuss projects, process, and survey methodology.”

A specially designed training room allows us to provide one-on-one hands-on training for new interviewers.  This space can also be utilized to “test” a survey before it is rolled out to a larger group.  Often, we conduct a handful of test surveys which allow us to ensure that the flow of the survey questionnaire works well, that the contact understands the questions asked, and that we are obtaining appropriate responses to our survey questions.

Clients often participate in training our interviewers for new surveys, so our new office location also helps facilitate a collaborative, team oriented approach.  These in-person training sessions allow our customers to meet our survey interviewers, put faces to names and enable both sides to gain a thorough understanding of expectations and ensure project goals are being met.

Although a better location and newly designed work spaces are important, our new office will also allow us to take full advantage of new and improved technology.   Customer service is the backbone of our business, and to this end, we have installed a new phone system that allows clients to direct dial team members.  We can now direct phone calls and messages to team member cell phones when we are out of the office.

We look forward to serving the survey needs of our clients from this new space for years to come.  Interested in seeing our new offices, or discussing a telephone survey for your company or organization?  Contact Direct Opinions and tell us, “What would you like to know today?”