Ask yourself three questions regarding the people of interest to you, be they customers, employees, or any other population...

• Do you know what dissatisfies them most often?
• Do you know what is most important to them?
• Do you know which items, if improved would have the greatest impact on the overall satisfaction level of the entire population?

If you cannot answer yes to all three of these questions then you are a good candidate for our satisfaction monitoring program.

There are three primary tasks required to get started:

• Establish a Service Agreement.
• Design an appropriate Survey.
• Establish your data pipeline.

Before getting started, we will work with you to establish a service agreement that will outline the timeline and deliverables of your satisfaction measurement program. Depending upon your organization this may require one person or it may require the involvement of your legal department.

You will find that you require far less surveys than you might expect. First you need to define your population. The following are a couple of examples of possible populations:

• All your customers calling that called for technical support in the first quarter of the year.
• All the Employees in your Company.
• All your clients that spend more than $5000 a year on service.
• All your patients that spent more than one night in the hospital.
• All your customers that received an instructional pamphlet.

As you can see, there are many ways to define your target population. Your initial sample size will probably be no greater than 400. As an example, the next time you see a poll in the newspaper or on television, note that the sample size is generally around 400 and the margin of error is usually between plus or minus three to five percentage points. Yet this 400 represents the entire country. To determine what sample size is correct for you see our Sample Size Calculator.

Metrix Matrix has found that an appropriately administered telephone survey on a continuous basis provides the greatest value. When taking into account the quality of the answers provided, the ability to respond to problems as they occur and the lasting positive impression on the contact, the return on investment is higher with personal contact. The key is that your contact realizes that you are willing to spend as much time gathering their feedback as they are sharing it.

The ultimate answer to this question depends on a few factors. The key factors to consider when choosing a survey method or combination include:

• Cost
• Quality of Response
• Original contact channel
• Ability to Respond

Cost is almost always the key driver when selecting a method. Metrix Matrix has a number of techniques to help you balance the Cost/Value equation. This includes combining survey methods or a redistribution of your sample-size over time.

Quality of Response is key to any satisfaction measurement program. A well balanced survey should include a combination of quantitative and qualitative questions. While a written survey (Web or Postal) can prompt for open-ended responses and comments, most people do not want to spend the time writing a lot. A more conversational approach (Phone) provides for the opportunity to prompt for additional feedback when appropriate and removes the burden of capturing the information from the respondent, encouraging them to share even more.

You may also consider the Original Contact Channel when deciding on a survey channel. Some people contact you by telephone originally although an Internet option was available because they are more comfortable with that medium. Whereas the Internet savvy individual prefers to keep all contact over the Web.

In addition to all of these there is also your Ability to Respond to consider. Do you intend to respond to those contacts that are greatly dissatisfied? Once you have asked someone their opinion, you raise the stakes. Now that they have told you what displeases them they will be watching for action on your part. Do you have the ability or bandwidth to do something about it? There is also the urgency issue with these matters. A postal survey could take as much as a week to get responses.

To begin a successful satisfaction monitoring program with Metrix Matrix we will work with the individual or individuals responsible for the following three roles within your organization:

• Key Decision Maker / Project Manager
• IT / Database Manager
• Front-line Supervisor

The Key Decision Maker would be the person who is ultimately responsible for the program. This person would approve the service agreement, population definition, sample size, pricing, report access and any other contractual items.

The IT / Database Manager would work with us to establish an optimal data flow from your database to ours. This includes defining the data format, extracting the data from your system and delivering the data to Metrix Matrix. This may be a one-time delivery or as often as a daily delivery depending upon your program.

The Front-line Supervisor would work with us to establish an optimal real-time communication channel between our organizations. This would be the individual we would contact with any Low-Satisfaction Alerts when encountering a contact that requires urgent attention. This would also be the individual we work with regarding any day-to-day operational questions or issues.

Most all satisfaction comes down to a balance between two questions:

• Did we meet your need?
• Were we nice about it?

In fact, if some organizations simply asked these two questions and took the time to read, understand and respond to the results, they would be able to increase satisfaction levels a few percentage points without diving into the myriad of sub-attributes that contribute to those two primary attributes in regard to satisfaction.

Metrix Matrix will help you take these fundamental measures to the next level. Based on your population and your goals we will work with you to design an efficient survey that will provide you with the answers you need. Answers that will give you a clearer understanding of your respondents as well as provide you with a clear course of action.

Most satisfaction studies boil down to the three P's:

• People
• Process
• Product

The People measures would focus on those attributes that are people oriented in nature and can usually be adjusted with training. These attributes include professionalism, knowledge, empathy and politeness to name a few.

The Process measures would focus on the mechanics behind meeting the need. Process attributes include hold time menu options, number of transfers, policy, response time, promptness and channels of communications, among others.

The Product measures focus on the value proposition. Keep in mind that sometimes the 'Product' is service and can overlap some of the attributes in the categories above. Most generally speaking, product attributes include price, performance, usability, documentation, content to name just a few.

Metrix Matrix will help you to define and implement a survey that will address these key areas in a manner that is appropriate for your needs.

Metrix Matrix can begin your satisfaction measurement program in as little as two weeks. The three areas that most often impact the speed with which you can get started are:

• Service Agreement
• Survey Design
• Data Flow

For some, the Service Agreement takes the longest time to accomplish due to corporate or organizational legal review. Metrix Matrix does offer a Standard Service Agreement that has been acceptable to most clients. Should your organization require a different service agreement, it may require time to be reviewed by Metrix Matrix, depending on the breadth and depth of the document.

For others, the Survey Design may take the most time as it may require input and review by a number of individuals within the organization.

Yet others find the Data Flow the most challenging aspect as data needs to be exported from your database and imported into ours.

The final cost for our services depends on a number of factors. It would be difficult to accommodate all of them here. The primary drivers behind the cost of service include:

• Survey Method
• Type of Population
• Sample Size
• Length of Survey
• Length of Contract

Try this: Take into account the cost drivers above and get an idea of what you would consider a reasonable figure. Then give us a call and see if we don't quote you a price at or below that figure.

If we perform continuous satisfaction monitoring for your organization the typical milestones are:

• Service is performed.
• Service transaction data is sent to Metrix Matrix.
• Metrix Matrix contacts service recipient and performs survey.
• Survey results are made available online.

Depending on the length of time between your service transaction and how soon you send Metrix Matrix that transaction data, you can have feedback in as little as 24 to 72 hours.

When encountering a very dissatisfied contact we will capture all scores and comments. Upon completion of the call, we email the entire record to the Advocate on your end. Your Advocate then has the opportunity to review the contact history and take appropriate action immediately. Many clients allow us to offer a callback from someone within the next business day.

When a contact requests to be removed from the survey list their telephone number is added to a permanent do-not-call list that is maintained by Metrix Matrix for the duration of your contract. A copy of the do-not-call list is always available to you via our online reporting system. We always recommend that our clients review the list and try to remove those contacts from their data set as well.

Similar to the permanent do-not-call list mentioned above, we maintain a temporary do-not-call list that will filter out all contacts that have been recently called. This may be as little as 30 days or as much as a full year. The window would be determined by you.

This really depends on the number of records that are provided. If you send us a sufficient number of records we may only try each record once until we have completed the required sample size. If we complete the full data set and find we have not met the required number, we will perform up to two more passes on that set.

We generally recommend sending a number of records equal to five times the number of required surveys. So, if the goal is 400 surveys you should send 2000 records.

The success rate also depends upon the validity of the records we receive.

Invalid records will impact the success of your satisfaction monitoring program. Every incorrect record represents one contact whose voice cannot be heard. It also represents extra effort on our part, requiring us to move onto the next record.

In order to add value to your monitoring program, we will tag every problem record we encounter with a brief description of what the problem is. Using our on-line reporting system you can then receive a report on all invalid records. This allows you to identify and update records accordingly.

There are three types of reports that Metrix Matrix can provide:

• Customizable Online Reporting Engine (CORE) Reports<
• Impact Analysis Reports.
• Presentational Reports.

Our CORE Reports meet the needs of most clients. These reports are available through our secure online reporting engine. These reports are customizable in range and scope. You can run fully detailed reports that include individual customer transcripts and scores. Or you can run summary reports that can roll up scores for entire population segments and date ranges. These reports include:

• Detailed Reports
• Summary Reports
• Benchmark Reports
• Trending Reports

In addition to specifying date ranges and report formats you can also receive results by population segments. The segments are as diverse as the contact data you provide. The following are a few examples of some sub-groupings that may be important to you:

• Service Representative
• Location
• Product
• Priority
• Department
• Length of Employment

Our Impact Analysis Reports Will help you to identify the key drivers behind the satisfaction level of your population and thereby formulate an action plan on how to raise the level. Keep in mind it is not always the item that receives the most complaints that is driving overall satisfaction. You must take into account relative importance as well. Our report will provide you with:

• Which attributes receive the most negative scores
• Which attributes are most important
• Which attributes if improved would have the greatest impact on overall satisfaction

In addition to this quantitative analysis we also provide you with an anlalytical breakdown of qualitative responses as well. We will divide responses into appropriate categories in order to allow you to more readily identify those that pertain to the high impact attributes. This allows for a much quicker response time on your part to address those areas within your organization that influence those attributes.

Our Presentational Reports Provide you with the results of your study in a report format suitable for presentation. The content is based upon the intended audience of the report. The three levels of reports include.

• Color Hardcopy Reports
• Hard Copy Report with Screen Presentation
• All of the above presented on site by Metrix Matrix

The database used to generate your CORE reports is updated every night with all of the day's results. Keep in mind that any critical feedback will be sent to you in real time immediately after the survey is completed.

As many or as few individuals can have access to your results as you please. You control access by maintaining the username and password. There is no limit to concurrent users. In fact this is a strong tool when a group of individuals that are geographically separated wish to look at the same results at the same time.

You also have the option of creating up to 10 sub-accounts that allow for ten user ID's to have access to a portion of the results but not all of them. This is a valuable tool to allow members of your team to manage to their own results. Some example of sub accounts would be:

• Supervisor
• Manager
• Vendor

You can download your results directly from our reporting engine into a file suitable for import back into your own contact managment system. The results you download are specified using the same filter tools as used by the CORE reports.

As long as you are a customer. We realize that it is important to our client to be able to run historical reports and for that reason we host all of their results.

Of course all of your data and results belong to you. We will remove it upon your request at any time as well.