S

Satmetrix  Satmetrix, known as the Net Promoter Company, is the firm that administers the Net Promoter methodology.

A

ACSIThe ACSI (American Customer Satisfaction Index) is a methodology for measuring customer satisfaction.  It factors in the following variables:  customer expectations, perceived quality, perceived value, customer complaints and customer loyalty.

T

TrackingCustomer satisfaction and loyalty are fluid; therefore, most measurement programs involve tracking scores consistently over time.

I

IndicatorCustomer satisfaction is a leading indicator of business success; that’s why it’s so important to understand it and take action based on it.

S

SCIThe Secure Customer Index is a customer satisfaction measurement methodology developed by D. Randall Brandt.  The SCI combines three elements – overall satisfaction, likelihood to continue using the service, and likelihood to recommend.

F

FutureThe purpose of customer satisfaction research is to assess current attitudes toward a company in order to predict purchase behavior in the future.

A

Answering the Ultimate QuestionAnswering the Ultimate Question is a book by Fred Reichheld which outlines the Net Promoter methodology.

C

Calculating Your Net Promoter ScoreThe Net Promoter score is just what the name implies – the net of customers who are “promoters” minus those who are “detractors.”  The core Net Promoter question asks on a scale of 0 to 10 how likely a customer is to recommend the company to a colleague or friend.  The NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of customers who give a score of 0 through 6 (“Detractors”) from the percentage who give a score of 9 or 10 (“Promoters”).

T

TruthLike all research, customer satisfaction research is a search for truth.  There are different approaches, but the search for truth must continue unabated.

I

IndexMost customer satisfaction methodologies yield an index; a single score which is easy for an organization to understand, and, importantly, can be the basis for positive action.

O

Out of LuckFirms that ignore customer satisfaction altogether will soon find themselves out of luck.

N

Net Promoter Net Promoter is a customer satisfaction measurement methodology, developed by  Satmetrix, Bain & Company, and Fred Reichheld.  The Net Promoter Score is obtained by asking customers about their likelihood to recommend a company to a friend or colleague. You can use this link to get a discount if you’d like to join me at the Net Promoter Conference in San Francisco, February 1-3, 2012. I hope to see you there!

When should I start doing research?

There is no magic moment. But if you’re sitting there trying to make a business decision and you find yourself thinking FOR or ON BEHALF of your customer — that’s a good time to actually ASK them what they think.

If you’re in a meeting and your team starts saying what the customer wants — and they aren’t looking at a data set — that would be a trigger to tell you that you need research.

Market or customer research isn’t so much about knowing what your customer thinks as it is to help you make better decisions.  So every time you’re about to make a decision that is rooted in what your customer might like or not like or what action they might take — that’s the time to do some research.

How to get started

Sit down with your team and just start talking.  Come up with some of the key decisions that you’re trying to make and then dig deeper into what’s holding you back.  Chances are, it’s going to have something to do with a lack of information about what will work for your customers.  And since you aren’t asking them and you’re guessing — your project is delayed.

Generate a list of respondents.   This is not a branding survey.  That means that it won’t be blind.  You will tell your respondents EXACTLY what you are doing — You are trying to figure out what’s important to them — what matters to them so that you can improve your product or service.

Generate a list of customers who you know will give you GOOD feedback.  Good feedback means that they will tell you the good and the bad.  Create 3 segments of customers in your list:

1. Customers you love that love you back
2. Customers with whom you’ve hit a few bumps in the road – they aren’t satisfied
3. Customers who are on the fence – and haven’t decided to work with you yet or haven’t decided to buy more from you even though you know they could.

Have conversations with a few customers and explore what matters to them — a.k.a. In-depth-Interviews

I started this headline with In-depth-interviews and instantly remembered that this phrase usually stopped every customer research project in its tracks.  That’s because it rang (cha-chings) in the budgets of managers.

People are afraid of in-depth-interviews because it sounds overwhelming and expensive.  The truth is they are just conversations with customers about what matters to them.  The only difference is that you are following a pre-written set of questions and asking each customer the same question — it’s more organized than a standard chit chat .

Create an online discussion guide.  QuestionPro and SurveyAnalytics have online survey tools, but you can actually use these same online surveys to document your in-depth-interviews.

Create an online discussion guide that can be taken online as well as during a phone interview.  That means make sure that the questions are conversational and create a good experience for the respondent.

Develop a list of questions that you’d like to ask:

1. Tell me about your relationship with (company name)
2. What triggered you to contact them?
3. What was it about (company name) that made them an obvious choice for you?
4. What alternatives did you consider?

Develop a list of things that might be important to your customer:  This is a fantastic benchmarking opportunity.  Include items in your list that are existing features or services that you offer and also include those items that you might consider offering.  Finally, sneak in a few items that a competitor is offering but that you aren’t to see how they value those things.

This list will drive your action items and projects, so you want to make sure that it’s concrete and easy to understand.  For example you might include “online ordering” as a feature that might be important, but that you currently don’t offer and a competitor does.  If your customers say that this is important to them — you may decide to put an online ordering system in place.

Brainstorm a long list and then choose the top 5-7 most critical items.

Generate a list of other alternatives or competitors. Create a list of other companies that your customers can purchase the same products or services from.

Use the importance/Satisfaction question style.  QuestionPro and SurveyAnalytics have a variety of question styles to choose from but I think that the Importance/Satisfaction style is one of the simplest and yet most powerful.

Insert your 5-7 attributes inside this question type.

When the respondent gets to this question, they will rate HOW IMPORTANT an attribute is to you — and then they will rate how satisfied they are with YOUR performance in that area

Ask them what other companies they purchase from.  After the attribute question, ask them who else they purchase from.  Some will say and other won’t.  You won’t know until you ask.

Repeat those same attributes from the importance/satisfaction question as a matrix.

Use the branching/Looping feature to insert the competitor’s name inside of the attribute matrix.  This will allow the respondent to rate every alternative based on the same attributes.

These ratings will actually create benchmarking data that will allow you to compare your performance against the competition AND against what’s important to your customer.  Your next new product or service can come out of this question — alone!

Give respondents a heads-up.  BEFORE you contact any respondent to do the discussion with you, send them an email or a letter (letters are taken more seriously and don’t get caught in spam) to tell them what you are up to.  Explain that someone will be calling them to schedule an interview.  Ask them to be honest and open and to share freely.  This will greatly increase your response rates and the quality of your responses.

Send an email invitation.  Next, send them an email invitation to the survey.  Inside the invitation, give respondents the opportunity to schedule time with you.  I like to use a link to my Tungle calendar – this way they can pick and choose times that work for them and schedule themselves right into my calendar.

Also offer them the option to complete the discussion online — this also increases your response rates.

Aim for at least 30 telephone completions.  Make sure you TALK TO at least 30 people.  Actually talking to people will give you significantly more insight into what really matters to them.

Then aim for another 30 online completions.

Follow this process and the results will AMAZE you!

With panel recruitment added to SurveyPocket, you’re now given the ability to integrate your existing Survey Analytics panel within your offline surveys. If you use panels, you know how important and essential panel recruitment is.

SurveyPocket 3.6 is coming soon! Stay tuned to hear more of the exciting additions Survey Analytics and SurveyPocket continues to add. Let us know your feedback: what are your visions of perfection when it comes to market research? We’ve already defined the need in Survey Analytics for mobilizing our products.

Another benefit, you can try it all out for free and be your own judge. If you don’t already have a Survey Analytics account, sign up here: surveyanalytics.com Once you’ve done this, try out our iPad app SurveyPocket by finding it in the App Store  and see the efficiency you can add to your market research by using both the web interface and a mobile interface.

The Export to Cloud can be accessed once you log into your account. From the main page, you can subsequently select Surveys Ø Reports Ø Export Data ØExport to Cloud. Here are the steps you will need to follow:

Exporting your survey reports to Google Docs

Step #1:

Once you select Surveys, click on the Reports tag and look through the items listed at the right side of the screen to find Export Data and click on it. Once you’ve clicked it, you’ll see three main tools listed, the “Raw Data Export”, “Charts & Analytics Export” and “Export to Cloud”. Click on the Authenticate with Google Docs button and log into your Google Doc account. If you are already signed into your Google account, this step will automatically be omitted, taking you to the next step.

Step #2:

Once you’ve logged in, you’ll be taken to an authenticating page, where you will need to click on Grant Access button at the lower left side of the screen to authenticate your account.

Step #3:

You will then be redirected back to the Export Data page, where you will then be able to click on the Export to Cloud button to post your Excel Report in your account. If you want to remove or disable the association of your Excel Report with your Google Docs accounts, you can click the Delete Association button to do so.

Exporting Your Survey Reports to DropBox

Exporting your survey reports to DropBox is pretty much the same as exporting your reports to your Google Doc account.

Step #1:

On the main Export Data page, click the Authentiate with DropBox button and log into your DropBox account.

Step #2:

Click on the Allow button from the DropBox authenticating page to authenticate your account.

Step #3:

Once you’ve been redirected to the Export Data page, you can then click on the Export to DropBox button and post your report to your DropBox account. If you want to remove or disable the association of your survey report with your DropBox account, click on the Delete Association button.

Whether you are using a Google Doc account or a DropBox account, there are certain license and Access options available with each of them. These include no long term commitments, unlimited surveys, responses, questions and advanced toolset and features.

Are you going to a trade show or an event where you’d love to get feedback or use surveys as a lead generation tool?  Now is your chance.  The folks over at SurveyPocket are making an offer you won’t want to refuse!

Now all Survey Analytics and QuestionPro users will have access to this wonderful tool.  If you have an iPad, you will be able to use this feature for free and if you DON’T have an iPad — read on.

[Editor's Note:  This post was originally published on the SurveyPocket blog.]

SurveyPocket is such an awesome system for mobile field data collection, that we wish any researcher could use it anytime they’d like.

However, the sad reality is that some projects require more than just a couple of tablet devices.

Not everybody has a stack of iPads laying around, waiting to be used for research.

Except us, that is.

Yup.  We’re so excited to get you rocking on your next mobile data collection project, that we went out and bought 20 iPads specifically so you can use them for your next research project.

All our iPads are pre-loaded with a copy of SurveyPocket.  And of course, we provide you support along the way.

Call us impetuous.

Call us crazy.

But whatever you do, make sure to call us to arrange to use our iPads for your next project.

A Customer-Centric Approach

Having a customer-centric approach is truly your best chance at having a sustainable and competitive advantage. Over the decades, companies keep making promises to customers, without really living up to their expectations in almost all channels. That is a tactic that doesn’t work anymore. Wondering why not? Well, because we are now living in an era where the success of any business imperatively depends on customers, rather than only marketing strategies.

Effects of the Customers’ Era on Businesses

Transforming goods and services into commodities has taken “differentiation” out of the picture.

Traditional boundaries of industries have been dissolved, taking the competitive market to a different dimension.

Customer opinions define the success of a business today. So, if a business gets good responses, it is sure to be a success. On the contrary, if the responses are negative, customers wouldn’t think twice before shunning the brand altogether.

Customer Experience Defines the True Value of a Business

A business executive cannot decide the customer-centricity of his/her company – it is the call of the customers in this case since they are the decisive arbiters. Whether a company is B2B, B2C or a product and service oriented, it can still influence positive customer experiences by:

Bolstering brand equities – by using the best techniques and devices to brand the company.

Acquiring the loyalty of its customers – By building a strong relationship with the customers by ensuring consistent and satisfying services.

Boosting revenues – By adopting the right business methodologies to translate customer loyalty into revenue increments periodically.

Reducing Costs – By driving down its costs to enhance customer support connections.

Customer experience is a discipline with complete tools, practices and methodologies that companies must routinely perform in order to manage customer experience. To have a methodical focus on customers, it is important that customer experience specialists work with C-level executives in order to:

Dedicate employees to customer experience – Customer experience projects don’t usually take off successfully if they are pinned to day jobs.

Allocate budgets to customer experience projects – Doubling down customer experience investments to delight customers is a promising way of ensuring successful initiatives.

Craft customer experience strategies – Having a precise customer experience strategy helps make the organization focus on spreading or distributing the right type of customer interaction strategies.

And finally, focusing on generating a great customer experience builds loyalty and positive word of mouth, which in turn build profitability.  And is there any better reason than that?

The MicroPoll application has just released new and improved APIs that will make white-labeling your polls a breeze.

What’s an API and why is this exciting enough to write an article about it?

API stands for Application Programming Interface — and it’s like a gateway that allows you to interact with and customize inside of an already existing platform.  For example Facebook and Twitter are existing platforms and HootSuite and Facebook Apps use APIs to communicate with the platform.

APIs are specially designed to expose only the  chosen functionality and/or data while safeguarding other parts of the application which provides the interface.

And this is why the MicroPoll API is so exciting.  It frees you up from the basic templates that we’ve provided and gives you access to the back end of the MicroPoll platform that allows you to make changes without losing functionality.

Check out this step-by-step tutorial on how to use the new MicroPoll API.

Who should use this?

Making a business research questionnaire is no big deal, but making one that successfully derives the information that is actually required by the business to improve its practices is something not every person can do. One of the things that help make an online survey more effective is the understanding of the different types of data that is required out of survey respondents and of the different ways to measure the response. Different situations demand the use of different types of data. Remember, different scales have to be designed to derive these different types of data.

The feedback of survey respondents can be categorized into two basic forms of data – non-parametric and parametric.

Non-Parametric Data

The sort of data that does not have any direction and cannot be divided is called non-parametric data. Usually histograms are used to analyze non-parametric data. There are two basic types of non-parametric data.

Nominal Data

Nominal data refers to alphabetical or numeric data that is used to name people or objects for symbolic purposes and has no mathematical value.

For example, a questionnaire may ask the respondents to name the brand of shampoo they use. Numeric data too can also be included in the category of nominal data such as numbers written on the backs of sportsmen.

Ordinal Data

Ordinal data refers to numeric data that indicates only the relative ranking of different items, without representing the intensity of the mathematical value or the distance between the values. For example, respondents to an online survey may be asked to rank different brands of shampoo.  Hence, the ranking of different shampoo brands will inform researchers the relative preference of survey respondents but will not inform them about the intensity of the difference of preference of one shampoo brand from another.

Parametric Data

Numeric data that has direction is called parametric data. It can be used to analyze the difference the different responses and can also be at times divided. There are two different types of parametric data.

Interval Data

The collection of internal data is done on a scale on which all points are equidistant from the ones next to them. Scales measuring interval data do not have zero because of the nature of thing being measured. For example, respondents can be asked to rate their happiness on a scale of 1 through 10. Interval data cannot be divided because of the non-absolute nature of the data.

Ratio Data

Ratio data is the most absolute form of numeric data collected from respondents. It can be divided and altered in different ways to derive more meaning. All absolute mathematical values can be called ratio data such as income, age, sales, market share, etc.

Although ratio data may seem the most usable form of data and researchers may feel tempted to ask their survey respondents to answer all the questions in ratio form, it is either not practically possible to do so or isn’t the best form of data because of the objective of the research being conducted. An effective online survey questionnaire contains questions that derive the sort of data that will come handy in getting better insight into the respondents’ minds.

The QuestionPro and Survey Analytics online survey platforms allow you to collect all of these forms of data.  The trick is knowing which type to choose to get the best information that you can use in order to make a decision.

1.       Establish survey goals:

First off, be very specific on what you are trying to find out. Be sure to write out your goals.

• What do people think about your web page?
• Is your target audience business owners?
• Are they part of small businesses or large companies?
• Where do they hang out most online?

2.       Decide who your sample audience will be:

Ask the following people to go through your survey:

• People that visit your home page
• People that visit your product page
• People that read your newsletters
• Get the word out by putting up your ads in Ezine.

3.       Decide which survey method going to use:

There are various choices of survey methods that range from the least expensive to the most expensive ones.

• Personal Interviews – You can use your online survey tool to conduct phone interviews.  Instead of having the respondent fill out the online survey, you use the online survey as a discussion guide and you write in the answers to the questions.  This is a terrific method to use if you are doing exploratory research or have a longer survey.
• Standard online surveys – This is the most common survey type.  Remember to keep your questions short and sweet.  Don’t let your audience spend more than 3 minutes answering your survey.
• Mail – This method is rarely used.  It’s often expensive and doesn’t offer as much control as other methods.  The most common application is to send respondents a postcard with a link to an online survey or to print the link to your online survey on receipts or invoices or other forms of printed marketing materials.
• Telephone surveys – This method has also become increasingly difficult because of do-not-call lists.  It’s generally expensive but can be effective if you are contacting customers who have opted in to receive information from you or with whom you have a relationship.

4.       Carefully plan out your research:

Once you know the method of survey you’ll be using and who you’re surveying for, you’ll need to:

• Build a timeline for how long it’ll take from the survey design to the data analysis.
• Estimate the cost involved.

5.       Design your survey:

Write your survey based on the survey method you’ve decided to use.

DO NOT try to make your survey all things to all people.  Remember, respondents will not want to spend more than a few minutes at a time answering questions.  Instead of breaking up a long survey into sections, consider breaking your sections into individual surveys.

6.       Pre-test analysis:

Carry out a pre-test analysis of your survey before the actual test. Pretesting helps determine if the survey is easy for the audience to understand, whether they’ll be able to successfully fill it out and whether there are any problems that are likely to occur. Remember, you may even need to rewrite the survey.

You can initially decide to pretest your survey to around 15 to 20 people, who you are fairly sure would respond (these could even be friends or family). At the end of the test, you’ll have a number of results what will tell you how your survey will perform with a larger number of audience, as well as the faults in the survey.

7.       Test:

Carry out the actual test once you’re done with the pretest. Collect and organize the data in an ordered format.

8.       Analyze your survey:

If the information you are using is quantifiable, you will be able to analyze it using statistics. However, you may need to dedicate sometime to learn how to use statistics first. And if you are well experienced in the use of statistics, you’ll want to develop a more qualitative survey based on basic reasoning and inferences.

Overall, your goals will shape out the questions to your survey and the answers to those questions will determine how your marketing plan should be, as well as the strategies you should employ.

As SurveyPocket has evolved, we have almost completely supported every question type for your surveys in your  SurveyAnalytics account, while offline. We’ve had a lot of fun implementing the functionality of SurveyPocket and some of the new features we’ve added are blowing minds!

Check it out:

• SurveyPocket runs on, not only, the iPad, but as well as the iTouch and iPod
• We’ve added multi-lingual support for your surveys
• We’re recording the geo-location associated with where the surveys will be administered
• Our user interface has become smooth like butta’… we also offer the choice of themes
• Record any audio, video, or photo in a survey

I don’t want to go through every great addition. You’ll have to check it out for yourself.

1. Try a free account on SurveyAnalytics.com,
2. create your survey,
3. download SurveyPocket from the App store, and
4. synchronize your surveys from your SurveyAnalytics account to the SurveyPocket application

Play around with the application and see for yourself. If you have a brilliant idea for SurveyPocket’s growth, please comment here or visit http://surveypocket.ideascale.com/