Introduction

Allegiance Engage7 has several advanced survey campaign analytic capabilities that enable you to treat invitation data as first-class data, similar to response data. We realize that who is invited, how many responses you get, and the response rate are vital to data analysis.

Insight into the response rate is key to invitation management. The response rate of a campaign represents the percentage of invitees who responded to the survey. A high response rate ensures that the survey results are representative of the population contacted. Engage7 Invitation Reports provide several options to determine the accurate response rate for a survey.

How is Response Rate Calculated? 

The basic response rate in Invitation Reports is: 

Be sure to include the count of abandoned or incomplete responses in the response rate report. Configure this at Manage Survey > Manage Responses. When enabled, Response Rate is:

 When bounce reporting is enabled, hard bounces are automatically excluded from the number of invitations. This is configurable in the Options menu. One can optionally configure Soft & Hard bounces to be excluded or included in the Response Rate. When bounces are excluded, the calculation is:

Allegiance Advantage  

Engage7 tools bring you significant advantages to help you draw insights from your invitation data.

• The Invitation Reports provide an easy to use, zero training user interface
• Robust segmentation and filtering tools provide the ability to deep dive into invitation data by demographic or time
• Smart bounce processing capabilities automatically track bad email addresses and provide tools to easily rectify and resend invitations to increase response rates
• The ability to allow anyone within your organization access to these reports, with similar permission levels as our standard analytics product.

Look forward soon to a blog post on how to use the Engage7 product and other industry best practices to increase response rates.

Each month The Conference Board (an independent economic research organization) surveys 5,000 U.S. households. The survey consists of five questions that ask the respondents’ opinions about the following:

1. Current business conditions
2. Business conditions for the next six months
3. Current employment conditions
4. Employment conditions for the next six months
5. Total family income for the next six months

Survey participants are asked to answer each question as “positive, negative or neutral.” The preliminary results from the Consumer Confidence Survey are released on the last Tuesday of each month at 10am EST.

Through a complex system of analysis and weighting of answers, the CCI is calculated, and this helps to formulate major economic policy for the US and for the world. These results affect everything from jobs, production and warehousing of goods, right down to how much a bushel of corn may cost. All this from one simple five question survey.

The CCI can be used as a “leading indicator” or an indicator that influences other fiscal decisions. If the CCI is trending upward, manufacturers make more cars.

The ultimate VOC survey? Maybe. 

Now lets take this down to a more personal level. Could your loyalty, satisfaction and engagement surveys also behave as sort of “leading indicators” that affect performance in other areas of your company?

If customers are more engaged, will they buy more product? Will they recommend you? Will this have any bearing on inventory, staffing or R&D?

Making this data real, and applying it to the bottom line aspects of your company is vital. Using tools such as Quad Charts, Correlation Analysis and trend charts, help you do what the US Government does with the CCI survey.

A 5000-response survey helps to dictate major US economic policy. Think about designing your VOC program with the intent that the data can trickle down to show relevance in your day-to-day operations and business outcomes. Otherwise, its just another survey.

When your customers are surveyed in a disjointed, illogical and inconsistent manner, both your VOC initiative and your customer relationships suffer. Some examples include:

Over-Contact

• With no method of controlling the frequency of contact, customers are overburdened with survey invites, especially highly sought-after research participants.
• Furthermore, lack of a survey contact strategy can lead to over-representation of certain respondents or response segments, skewing results.

 Poor Design

• When non-researchers send surveys, they may unfortunately make rookie mistakes that reflect badly on your company and weaken your brand. These missteps may include:
  • Simple operational mistakes like lack of quality assurance review that lead to dead-end links and spelling errors.
  • Use of a rudimentary survey design tool or lack of access to graphics and branding expertise, resulting in a survey that looks “cheap” and doesn’t positively promote the brand.

 Questionable, Scattered Data

• Lack of survey design experience can result in methodologically weak surveys that yield data of suspicious validity and water down overall VOC data quality.
• Variations in survey design, for instance differences in scale, mean results across the organization are incomparable and sometimes contradictory.
• Data stored throughout multiple databases is difficult to locate, share and leverage.

 It’s frustrating for a VOC expert to know rogue surveys are compromising your VOC initiative and your brand voice. You may feel helpless in countering these negative forces, but you’re not. 

Here are two methods you can employ to bring this matter under control.

Central Command

If unsanctioned surveys are a serious detriment to your VOC initiative in particular and your relationship to the customer overall, it may be time to announce “no more Mr. Nice Guy” and take control with a firm hand. Establish ground rules for surveying customers (who, what, when, where and why) and communicate these rules. Let it be known that your team and your team alone owns the process of gathering feedback from your customers and that all surveys, no matter the size or scope, need to be approved by your team to ensure adherence to your VOC strategy, methodology and sampling plan.

Best Practices Consultation

Perhaps resource constraints or corporate culture make a collaborative, consultative approach more appropriate. Proactively offer your expert services of survey design, survey media/method selection and sampling and contact frequency planning to your coworkers. Communicate to them that you have a VOC strategy in place that you would like them to follow and work with them in a positive, constructive fashion as internal clients to guide them to feedback program design excellence.

A good VOC initiative has set objectives in place and a plan to meet these objectives.  Rogue surveys undermine your strategy by squandering valuable customer feedback opportunities, collecting data that does not map back to VOC objectives and polluting your data. While the approach taken to control wayward feedback initiatives will vary from one organization to the next, there is no better time than the present to bring rogue surveys to heel.

Start by telling the story. How would you tell an executive in 30 seconds or less what a “7.78 average satisfaction rating” means? On the other hand, executives should react if we tell them that only 38% of the company’s customers are Promoters, and that the differential annual value between a Promoter and a Detractor is $162 (as a real-world example of a B2C company we recently worked with). Armed with this knowledge and with understanding of what creates Promoters and Detractors, executives can make good decisions and also gain a leading indicator of progress by watching the % of promoters grow in their segment.

The background research for Net Promoter was based on a series of longitudinal studies that examined actual customer behaviors associated with their feedback (documented in Reichheld’s book, The Ultimate Question, and in dozens of case studies over the years). The beauty of Net Promoter isn’t in the score – its strength lies in its ability to easily communicate action plans based on a proven segmentation strategy. It turns out that customers who rate you as less than 9 (on a 0 to 10 scale) are actually not with you (i.e. they aren’t “Promoters”), and they are prone to go elsewhere with their money. Prior to the research in Fred’s book, conventional wisdom found that a score of 5 on an overall satisfaction or recommend question was “neutral” and therefore “ok” and so an average score of 7.78 was generally perceived as good.

However, we all know that a focus on a score, including NPS, is missing the point. A single metric always focuses the discussion on scores, while a focus on improvement and the resulting financial metrics would better serve the business. Reporting averages makes action even more difficult. Take the first step by simply reporting “top box” scoring (% of customers that score a 9 or 10) and see what dialogs result. What percent of your customers are really with you?

Steve is a founder and Principal Consultant with Waypoint Group.  Contact Steve at steveb@waypointgroup.ORG

Why?

Allegiance has been a thought leader in the use of social media to gather feedback and respond to customers.  The release of  Allegiance Engage7 was a big step into the arena of using social media as a building block in an overall VOC program. With that in mind, Allegiance is also reaching out proactively to provide thought leadership and training on a variety of topics.  With the advent of internet “talk radio,” Allegiance is using the tried and true medium of communication and linking it through social media to provide ongoing idea forums and discussions on many topics such as:

• Survey Design Best Practices
• Use of Incentives
• 5 Steps to Building Great Survey Questions
• Text Analytics
• And the list keeps growing…

How it works

Every week, Allegiance will announce the weekly topic and time along with the URL to connect to the live broadcasts.  These will come as tweets on the Allegiance Twitter account or Allegiance on Facebook. You are invited to “call in” to chat live on the air, or you can listen after the airing of the broadcast via podcast on iTunes or any other audio playback device.  As you listen to each broadcast, you can choose to “mark as favorite” the Allegiance Talk Radio site, and you will be automatically notified of upcoming broadcasts. 

 This healthy blend of Mr. Marconi’s innovation, coupled with an up and coming medium like blogtalkradio, is designed to keep you informed and connected to Allegiance, while benefitting from our ideas and expertise. We hope you will tune in 2011!

The experience that I described above is an example of tactically closing the loop (or not closing it, in this case). The design of any world-class customer feedback program should include a closed loop process that makes customers feel that they have been heard and promotes learning about what to do to improve the business in ways that drive customer satisfaction and loyalty.

There are three primary processes that comprise a comprehensive closed loop program:

 In addition to understanding the different types of closed loop processes, there are other factors to consider, such as:

• What is the goal of the follow-up process? Are you trying to learn from detractors, leverage promoters, or assess root cause problems? Or is your goal some combination of the three? Determining your overall goals and objectives is a necessary step toward designing an effective closed loop program.
• Which customers should be contacted, and who should conduct the follow-up? Your business model and capacity for follow-up will help guide your decisions in this area. Make sure there is clear ownership and that the follow-up involves all relevant functions. Then choose the appropriate contact method/channel (phone, email or corporate communications, for example) and establish and train employees on the process.
• When should the follow-up occur? Typically, front line follow-up will happen within 48 hours. However, a reasonable period of time depends on client perspective and operational limitations. Closing the loop on issues (e.g. detractors or service problems) or specific requests for follow-up should occur quickly. Follow-up for root cause investigation can happen over time.
• What are the key touchpoints in the customer experience, and how can we better manage them cross-functionally? Understanding the key touchpoints from the customer’s perspective and aligning goals cross-functionally will help you better understand the customer experience and make end-to-end improvements that will improve customer satisfaction and loyalty. This involvement at the management level will further optimize investments in ways that will directly impact customers and your bottom line.
• How should our executives be involved? Executives drive business outcomes and define overall company strategy. By establishing a customer-centric company culture and reinforcing that culture through internal and external communications, they can let the customers and employees alike know that customers are the first priority. Executives can communicate to customers that they are listening and acting on their feedback by explaining the actions taking place based on that feedback. Within the company, executives can foster customer-centric behaviors and use customer feedback to drive business strategy through initiatives, target-setting and employee recognition programs.

At Allegiance, we encourage clients to get more out of their data. Listening to your customers and analyzing the results are important steps in understanding your clients. However, effectively closing the loop with your clients is another critical component of a world-class customer feedback program. Listen, respond and act – your customers will thank you!

However, there are a few actions you can take as you create your survey invitations that will help you increase your response rates, legitimize your survey and ensure that you are CAN-SPAM compliant.

1. Accurate Header Information This is the first information that the respondent will see. Be sure that the “From” field has a legitimate company name. Do not use personal names.
2. Clear Reply-To Information Always include a valid email address. It is recommended that the email address include the company name.
3. Direct Subject The subject should be direct and reflect that this is an invitation to an online survey. Including the name of the company in the subject is also a good idea. For instance, “Allegiance survey now available!”
4. Opening Information Create a compelling greeting.
   • Identify the recipient by name
   • Explain the purpose of the survey
   • Express the reason that you are asking them to take the survey (We need your expertise…)
   • Use an appealing layout and include your company branding.
5. Informational Main Body The main body of the survey is where you deliver the key information and logistics with the survey. 
   • Clear links to the survey (rename lengthy url’s)
   • Obvious survey launch link
   • Survey time estimate
   • Incentives for taking the survey
   • Deadline for taking the survey
   • Research goals for the survey
6. Good Closing Information The closing area of the invitation is where you can make or break it as to whether they will complete the survey, make an honest effort, or agree to take other surveys in the future. Your closing information should include: 
   • Genuine appreciation/ Thanks
   • Researcher information/ note from high ranking official
   • Method of contacting a human being
   • Link to privacy policy
   • Street address of headquarters
   • Opt out link

I hope these suggestions will help you to create powerful survey invitations that will increase your response rates.

This is also true for Voice of the Customer champions who try to convey a similar sense to their customers through surveys, analysis and the action thereafter.  By acquiring knowledge to understand the needs of the customer and communicating care, VOC experts strive to deliver improved products and services and create happier customers.

Hence, we undertake this exercise to learn and explore the skills harnessed by top chefs in the kitchen to drive best practice in survey creation.

Have a vision

The master chef plans before execution.

Before the survey creation process, a few things should be accomplished:

• Identify the purpose and business objectives of the project .
• Determine what you are planning to measure. Your questions will differ accordingly.
• Include all internal and external stakeholders and determine that you are not asking customers for duplicate information.
• Plan your touch point rules across the organization to increase response rates and decrease survey fatigue.

Keep it simple

The master chef knows that simplicity is the secret to making ingredients sing.

In the Power of Survey Design Iarossi states, “The survey should use language that is simple in both words and phrases.”

• Use words and expressions that are simple, direct and familiar.
• Avoid buzz words, abbreviations and acronyms. Provide help text if buzz words cannot be avoided.
• Use simple sentences to avoid ambiguity or confusion.

Taste test

The master chef creates the well-balanced dish by tasting at every step of the creation process.

“Taste test” the survey for readability, usability and accurate data collection.

Source: Jakob Nielsen’s AlertBox

According to leading usability specialist Jakob Nielsen, just five users would reveal about 85% of all problems with your website. Only two test users would likely find the majority of usability problems.

Don’t be afraid of doing a little; any testing is better than none!

Serve it hot!

Freshness is key! The master chef always serves the meal up hot.

• Send transactional survey when the incident or event is still fresh in your respondents mind.
• React to survey results when your findings are hot.

The chart on the left indicates that faster response time has a significant impact on the probability that the customer will return and buy again.

Tools for success

The right tool for the job is a key to success for the culinary master.  A selection of knives is a chef’s best friend.

• Wield the advanced, user-friendly filters in Allegiance Engage7 to slice and dice your data.
• As all data is not created equal, it is vital to filter your data based on attributes and customer segments.
• Analyze the data as a whole and in subsets to concentrate on the metrics that matter the most to help prioritize activities that address the hottest issues of your high value customers.

Then, refine your survey based on what you’ve learned from prior deployments. The result will be a survey that your customers will relish.

Allez cuisine!

Every department in your company thirsts for feedback from customers to help  measure brand awareness, design products, improve service offerings, understand satisfaction levels, and more. Unfortunately, more often than not, there is no concerted effort across the organization to ensure that (a) customers are not over-surveyed – which can be defined either as being surveyed too frequently, i.e., no touch rules, or asked the same or similar questions by different departments – or (b) the feedback is collected, analyzed, and used in a cohesive fashion. 

In my last blog, I talked about creating a Customer Touchpoint Map. Think about the many customer touchpoints of your organization, and then think about the various departments in your organization that might be asking customers for feedback at each of those touchpoints. It can be quite overwhelming — for you and for your customers! To make sense of it all, you should compile a Customer Feedback Map to accompany your Customer Touchpoint Map.

Creating a Customer Feedback Map can be a daunting task, especially in very large, disparate, and/or siloed organizations, but the benefits – not the least of which is financial – are endless. For example, if you have nine different departments all working in a vacuum, including licensing nine different survey, EFM, or text analytics platforms, consolidating the data can reduce costs and improve the way the company listens to the voice of the customer. Other benefits include reducing/eliminating respondent fatigue, increasing response rates, and improving the actionability of the data.

The Customer Feedback Map should first identify your touchpoints and the corresponding departments that support each. It should then list:

• All forms/sources of customer feedback at each touchpoint
• Other feedback that’s not directly linked to a touchpoint
• Owner of the feedback
• Audience for each piece of feedback
• End user (internal) of the feedback
• Objective/purpose of the feedback
• all resources used for feedback/analysis (software, tools, etc.)
• other desired sources of feedback (if any are missing)

The next step is to consolidate. Centralizing to one department both the ownership of your VOC efforts and the platform used to collect, analyze, and respond to the feedback eliminates redundancies, creates efficiencies, saves money, and ensures a cohesive approach to your VOC initiative overall and, ultimately, to the customer experience.

Identifying the various sources of customer feedback within your organization is a valuable exercise. You may just discover some very scary information:  how much your customers are being asked to provide feedback – and just how little of that is actually being used in a meaningful way.

However, there are limitations to approaching satisfaction, loyalty and engagement as end points.  Integrating business performance metrics into your feedback initiatives will enable you to leverage them to drive lasting performance improvement and bottom-line results. 

Emphasize the Bottom-Line Value of Your Feedback Initiative

The core objective of your feedback program is not to drive improved survey metrics.  The ultimate objective is increased business performance and improved results. 

Dutifully reporting to a senior executive or business unit owner that “customer engagement scores have increased for the past eight quarters” is nice. Telling that same audience that “in this same time period, quarterly sales increases of 8%, on average, and a steady decline in customer attrition of 24% have been associated with increased customer engagement” is a much more compelling story.

Linking business performance metrics with survey metrics not only provides greater decision support to key decision makers, but also underscores the vital role your feedback initiative plays in the success of the organization.

Performance Metrics Selection

In selecting meaningful metrics for inclusion into your program, the answers to these questions should help you formulate a plan to make this happen:

1. How does my organization measure success?  (What are the key measures of success?)
2. Who owns the metrics data?  (In many cases, multiple parties may own different pieces of the puzzle.)
3. What do I need to do to obtain the metrics I have identified as crucial to my program?

The typical organization has a database full of performance metrics that can be augmented to a survey invitation file.  Below are just a few examples from a small sample of industries:

Integrating Performance Metrics

The next step is to integrate business performance metrics with feedback results from your initiatives.  As covered in my previous blog post Linking Operational Data with Survey Data,  these performance data variables are uploaded to your survey database as part of the invitation process (or such variables may be back-augmented after data collection has taken place). These variables remain hidden to the survey taker and are pre-populated at the record-level (meaning each survey invite record contains unique values for each variable for maximum reporting flexibility). 

Analyzing and Operationalizing Your Data

Finally, put all this data to work! This recent Allegiance blog post Analyzing and Operationalizing Your Feedback has some excellent ideas for analyzing feedback program data and using it to drive lasting, positive change in your organization.