As published in the October 2003 edition of Quirk's Marketing Research Review.

Doing What They Do Best
Online Reporting Lets Researchers Focus on Analysis Rather Than Distribution

By Lucy Klausner, Vice President
Polaris Marketing Research Inc.

Vendors are offering it and researchers are using it, but do you need it? "It" is online reporting of research data, which can potentially provide a new look at customer satisfaction tracking data and a better way distribute it throughout your organization.

Like anything, the application needs to fit properly with your needs. Why change from something tried and true? What are the risks associated and what are the benefits? We have talked with three very diverse organizations to find out their views on the matter.

All three companies, within the last year, have converted their customer satisfaction research tracking programs to online reporting. Some concerns mentioned and addressed include security of data, internal online and computer access, and training. Do the benefits out way the concerns? The researchers interviewed think so.

Turning stale into fresh

Online reporting has helped breath fresh life into a more than 12-year satisfaction program at Shaw Industries, a national carpet manufacturer in Dalton, Georgia.

For years, Shaw Industries tracked satisfaction levels for their carpet dealers. Shaw’s quality control department printed a couple hundred copies of a written quarterly reports analyzing their survey data, and used internal mail to distribute them to regional sales managers, relying on them to relay the information to the 1,200 sales associates. When the associates finally got the reports, the data was often months old and, of course, did not reflect the latest price change or manufacturing advancement.

Shaw converted to online reporting as part of an overall revamping of its customer satisfaction tracking program, based on feedback from employee and customer brainstorming sessions. The new survey was designed with online reporting in mind.

With extensive access to data, both historical and current, all employees can easily view their individual results almost immediately after data collection. As expected, written reporting has changed. “The written reports we now get are more like studies than data reports. We’ll ask for a special evaluation of the survey data, such as the effect of a price change or looking at satisfaction drivers for our contract business,” said Chester Chaffin, Director of Quality Control for Shaw Industries.

At this point, all of Shaw’s sales crew (and most of the rest of Shaw’s employees) have personal computers or laptops and regularly log into Shaw’s intranet system, where the company’s research data is now housed. “We sent out emails to the previous recipients (of the hard copy report) with a direct link to the site. It’s pretty intuitive. We’ve had meetings with the primary users and walked them through the system. But once you’ve seen it, it’s not hard to follow,” Chaffin said.

Shaw addressed the concern about the security of their data by housing the data in the corporate quality engineering website, accessible only to Shaw employees using their password-protected login information. “Everybody in the company can get to this information but you can’t get to this information unless you’re in the company,” Chaffin said.

Weighing the possibility of competitors getting a peek at their customer measurement program against the benefits of rallying everyone around improving performance, Shaw decided they were better off distributing the information widely via the current system. “In today’s world, I would probably be kidding myself to think I could keep the information from getting out to the competition in some way. Our circumstances are different from some other industries in that the entire industry is within 100 miles of Dalton,” Chaffin said.

Shaw now reaps additional benefits from their redesigned customer program. Floor Focus, the trade magazine for the carpet industry, has ranked Shaw No. 1 for service and quality every year for the past seven years, and they’ve only been doing it for seven years. “The big news this year is that our lead over other companies has widened,” says Chaffin.

Letting researchers get back to research

The research department for Earthlink’s Internet Service Provider division expended huge amounts of time and energy copying and distributing customer satisfaction and retention data from their telephone survey research. Researchers spent many hours running custom reports for the various department leaders who were hoping new and creative cross tabs would help them figure out the impact of various factors on customers’ decisions to sign on or leave the ISP. The special requests left little time for the researchers to conduct the advanced statistical analysis needed to make sense of their data on a more global basis.

That has changed, due to online reporting. “To a certain extent, now our internal users can play with the data, in that they can cross tab it,” said Jennifer Blessman, market research manager, who oversees Earthlink’s research of new customers. "They can take one metric and try to see why it’s holding at that level. Or maybe they’ll want to see if people who use a particular software product are more satisfied overall."

“It’s very helpful for the research department because we don’t have to get involved every time there’s a question. So if the stakeholders want to go on a data digging expedition, they can do it themselves, while we work on the bigger picture.”

Current online reporting was designed to anticipate these special requests. “The online reporting is easy because people can log in at their convenience. Then they can trend the data. Oftentimes, you don’t know there’s a problem unless you can see a blip in the data, either up or down,” Blessman said. “Results are posted weekly. People need to look at their respective metrics often. So it’s easier for them to go online than for me to send them reports.”

Insights and correlations

Earlier this year, Atlanta Gas Light Co.’s research department faced a budget crisis. Internal customers were no longer willing to pay them to collect, compile, collate, copy and distribute customer satisfaction survey data. Instead, the department’s internal clients wanted them to concentrate more on synthesizing and analyzing the data, and on producing the kinds of insights and correlations that would improve operations and, by extension, improve customer satisfaction.

For example, last year Marketing Manager Nick Popielski conducted a complex analysis of historical survey results for AGL’s customer service centers. He determined the ratings for overall satisfaction were incredibly sensitive to the length of time customers spent on the telephone with AGL. Specifically, three minutes was the cutoff point most closely tied to the mid-point in the rating scale. When calls stretched longer, customers were inclined to drop their evaluation of AGL’s overall service from good to fair or poor, while shorter calls led to more very good and excellent ratings. Service center managers were delighted because they could readily apply the three-minute standard to their operation and see direct improvement in the company’s customer satisfaction numbers.

Popielski realized that this was the kind of research analysis his department should be doing more of, rather than spending untold hours compiling and disseminating research findings every quarter. "Where we add value is by taking the data we get and interpreting it--making it come alive. Online reporting permits us to do this a lot more. Our field folks will appreciate that much more in the long run than getting a spreadsheet every month. It puts the numbers at their fingers instantly without them having to wait on a report. We save them time and we save them money.”

“The key thing we have time to do is take the data and use it to make business recommendations. We can help our customer satisfaction efforts by correlating this information with some of our internal data,” Popielski says.

Training required

For now, the major disadvantages to online reporting appear to be:

• It requires training managers to use results appropriately.
• Managers must also be trained to use a new Web interface, which can sometimes be difficult no matter how user-friendly the interface is.
• Data security issues must be dealt with.

The need for training is an issue that should be addressed between the researcher and software supplier. Even in these tech-obsessed times, there are varying comfort levels with new technology. So be sure to choose an easy-to-use system if you plan on giving access to multiple users. It is worthwhile to conduct a trial test with managers and end-users of the reporting system to determine if the change is one that will streamline the process or make it more cumbersome. Also, consider how much training costs. Can it be conducted on the Web or do you have to incur travel costs as well?

“In order for people to benefit from online reporting, they have to be comfortable going and getting the information. As intuitive as it is, we have to take time to train. It detracts from other activities but, in the long run, it’s a good investment. It’s just a short-term cost,” Popielski says.

Most online reporting systems are available via the Internet and supply secured user ID and password access to results. Most should provide access to various levels of secured data based upon the user ID and password. As an added level of security, access can also be limited by a user’s Internet protocol, as Shaw Industries did, which then can provide access only from within the company.

Defining their value

Overall, the effort of moving your reporting to an online reporting system may very well be worth it. The researchers we interviewed felt strongly that is was, and that has been the general sentiment with several other clients that have made similar transitions.

Each of the corporate departments represented in this article are reaping benefits and further defining their value by having the time to interpret research information in a way that matters to their businesses. In today’s corporate world of decreasing headcount and increasing workload, optimizing reporting by moving it online is definitely a welcome change.