Boost customer research
Any businessperson will tell you that keeping the client happy ("customer delight" is the preferred phrase in modern sales texts) is the key to retention.
But some integrators have lagged a bit when it comes to quantifying happiness and determining exactly where customers are content and where they are not. Experts recommend that solutions providers administer customer satisfaction surveys more frequently.
"Too many companies have fallen into the problem of just doing customer research once a year," says Munn. "In today's market, [companies] need to gain access to leading indicator information. We are working with some clients and proposing [that] in some ways you really need monthly surveys with customers, prospects, employees, and partners."
Munn points to Electronic Data Systems as a company that frequently takes the pulse of its customer base. To wit, every time a senior manager changes within a customer organisation, EDS tries to gauge the new manager's expectations of EDS.
Automated surveying tools aim to make it easier to conduct frequent customer polls. Change-point, for example, last month launched a Survey Management application as part of its professional services automation suite.
"It's common for companies to do once-a-year customer satisfaction surveys," says Lori Ellsworth, director of product management at Changepoint. "We can accommodate that, but we are talking about the ability to interact with customers on a more frequent basis and collect a more granular level of information."
Changepoint's Survey Management module lets solutions providers conduct surveys at certain trigger points, such as the completion of a project milestone. This approach allows surveys to be "built into the business process," Ellsworth adds.
Callisma, a network consulting services firm, surveys customers and employees after each engagement and is piloting the Survey Management application to automate that process, notes Jeff Johnson, VP of IT at Callisma.
