Allegiance Blog

I recently met up with a group of Voice of the Customer (VOC) practitioners for lunch in Atlanta.  The purpose of the luncheon was to enable VOC practitioners to come together and swap ideas, network, and to get fresh ideas. For me, it was a terrific opportunity to meet folks who on a daily basis struggle to identify the best way to collect, analyze and act on VOC data; how to build political support and fund their initiatives. There were as many different industries represented as people at the table.  Companies varied in size from the gargantuan down to small 50-person companies. It was a terrific cross-section of VOC practitioners. Amid the laughter and lively discussion, I noticed a few trends emerging from the conversation.

• Net Promoter Score. Everyone at the luncheon was familiar with Net Promoter and a few used a loose interpretation of it.  However, most everyone acknowledged the limitations that come from only knowing a score without receiving any insights into how to improve that score. The answer seems to come down to the nature of the data collected – are you merely looking to see if they were satisfied with their past experience or do you also have a future focus  by identifying current and anticipated needs. (I felt fortunate to know that enterprise feedback management (EFM) technologies, such as those offered by Allegiance, are available to help VOC leaders address this area of concern.)
• Alignment of the cosmos. Senior executives are starting to focus heavily on current customers and how to increase share of wallet and how to better measure and improve customer loyalty. Some of the luncheon attendees felt it was prompted by the recession while others felt it was the improvement of ROI analysis. All seemed to agree that they had better success gaining political support and funding when tying VOC to business outcomes.
• Balance the good with the bad. Many attendees lamented that VOC professionals focused too much on the negative feedback and to a certain extent, ignored learning how to turn positive customer experiences into phenomenal customer experiences, learning the link between revenues and movement on the customer loyalty scale, soliciting feedback about product innovation, identifying what emotional needs the company/product/service fills and how to strengthen that emotional tie.

Regardless, the VOC luncheon was a great opportunity to hear about some of the issues that are currently top of mind with today’s VOC leaders.

Matthew Bowman, Director of Campaign Marketing, Allegiance

I recently returned from the Gartner Customer Relationship Management (CRM) conference in London. While there, I was encouraged to hear about the growth of the Enterprise Feedback Management (EFM) market. It seems that the EFM market, in conjunction with CRM and Customer Experience Management (CEM) has been growing, despite the economic climate, at a rate of about 20% in 2008 and is projected to hold the same in 2009.

We certainly have the same optimistic view for the industry. The root cause of growth appears to be increased customer retention through real-time voice of the customer (VOC) programs. EFM promises to efficiently bring the voice of the customer from across the enterprise closer to executives who need to make critical decisions. Listening to customers today certainly makes it easier to find a winning balance between products and services created and marketed, and those that customers are willing to buy. And customer retention improves when companies listen and respond to feedback.

There is more talk this year about feedback programs and not just survey programs. The inclusion of both explicit and implicit (solicited and unsolicited) is gaining visibility. Social networking is driving the implicit portion. The fact that this is being talked about so much is evidence that the market has matured significantly in the past 12 months.

According to Gartner, the top 3 reasons that companies are choosing EFM today are:
1. The importance of improving the customer experience has risen to the board level
2. The number of channels through which feedback can be collected has risen (Web, email, IVR, SMS, etc.)
3. The number of users and departments using feedback has grown

Gartner says there are two newer areas of feedback to consider adopting in a comprehensive feedback program: operations and behavioral. Operational means gleaning feedback from already-installed operational systems like IVR, email response and web analytics. These systems already touch the customer thousands of times a day, and can be used to gather feedback or for right-time marketing. Behavioral means the implied feedback customers give by their actions.

I believe the next big step for VOC programs will lie within the analytical side. Collecting data through surveys, comments and other means (through the means that customers decide) is going to be required by any serious solution. But using the data to create insights is critical. What is the current sentiment of customers, and what should be done about it? Are all comments being managed and responded to quickly to create a positive customer experience? How is the EFM data being fused with CRM and CEM data to create a holistic real-time customer view? Once these questions can be answered with positive solutions, solutions elevate to the next level. I know our product teams are working hard on these ideas now. The future is certainly exciting for vendors, companies and the customer.

Chris Cottle, VP of Marketing, Allegiance

I’ve been doing a lot of research lately on Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), and have come to the conclusion – given the current state of the economy which is forcing businesses to do more with less (e.g. collect more feedback and increase customer and employee loyalty; spend less on surveying, infrastructure and staff, and yet get the same or better results) that more businesses will be taking a look at SaaS as well as Enterprise Feedback Management (EFM) solutions in 2009.

Obviously, SaaS is not for every company – many companies still need on-premise installations, so the reality is that we’ll live in a dual world for some time.However, SaaS does offer some strong advantages to traditional software, including:

SaaS subscription models are an easier way to prices and budget for a solution over traditional pay-upfront models

• SaaS makes it easier to mash-up data, which is a great way to see what’s happening and find new ways to grow
• SaaS feedback management solutions can fulfill on the promise of anonymity, whereas on-premise, by nature, cannot offer anonymity. Many people, especially employees, want to provide feedback but are unwilling if they believe the company will discover them, especially if the feedback is negative
• SaaS offers a fast implementation, and an always-updated promise that is very attractive to many companies because the IT group does not need to get involved in any way

Industry analysts have a lot to say about SaaS, too:

Gartner, Forrester and IDC cite SaaS as critical in recessionary times. They say SaaS cuts costs and conserves cash, providing flexibility and new efficiencies. - Gartner Market Trends Report 2007-2012, Forrester, Cloud Computing Report 2008, IDC, IT Cloud Services Report, 2008

Nine out of 10 organizations expect to maintain or grow their SaaS products, citing cost-effectiveness and ease/speed of deployment. Key drivers of high SaaS engagement include:

• Total cost of ownership
• Unmet performance expectations with on-premise solutions
• Changes in sourcing strategy

Gartner 2008 SaaS Adoption Report

“Need more evidence of the traction gained by software-as-a-service (SaaS)? Nearly nine out of 10 organizations expect to maintain or grow their usage of SaaS products. With the economy weak and financing difficult to obtain, companies are looking for ways to reduce upfront costs as well as total cost of ownership for technologies needed to run their businesses.” - DestinationCRM, Dec 5 2008, SaaS Gets Strong Loyalty Marks

As I mentioned before, SaaS is not for everyone. But for more and more companies, SaaS EFM solutions, such as those offered by Allegiance, may just be combination they’re looking for to accomplish their goal of doing more with less in 2009.

Chris Cottle, VP Corporate Marketing, Allegiance

Enterprise feedback management (EFM) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions are equally important to the success of your company.

Keeping tabs on customer information is an important piece of your company’s operations. Can you imagine what would happen if your company had to manually monitor and file all of the customer information that has been gathered over the years? This is why CRM software was developed – to ensure that critical customer information is managed and handled efficiently. CRM simply helps corporations capture, manage and store their customer’s personal information.

Where CRM’s fall short, though, is in their ability to analyze data. This is where EFM software comes to the rescue. EFM – a relatively new industry – helps manage customer and employee feedback company-wide. While CRM helps you capture , manage and store your customers’ personal information, EFM helps you capture, manage and analyze your customer and employee feedback – making your organization more customer and employee-centric.

In the age of advanced information technology, automating the process of gathering each and every type of customer information is vital to a business’s success. This is why CRM and EFM software are both important.

The right CRM software will allow your company to:

• Increase productivity
• Develop effective marketing strategies
• Reduce production and operational costs through proper information management
• Improve the customer’s overall experience with the company

The right EFM software will complement your CRM software by:

• Helping you manage feedback company-wide
• Quickly route and manage your company’s feedback
• Predict where in your company you can focus to improve customer and employee loyalty
• Gauge how satisfied your customers and employees are

Aside from these benefits, the right CRM and EFM software will allow you to identify your company’s most valuable clients and customers. This way, preferred and loyal customers can be given more priority so that their business can be retained. In the same vein, customers who have a good potential of remaining loyal to the company can be given incentives to stay with the company.

On the administrative side, these software packages will make customer interactions flow smoothly and data analysis can be done more efficiently. With all these advantages and more, CRM & EFM software is truly something that major corporations in any industry cannot do without.