Sharpening Your Re-Compete Edge

The administration”s call for greater accountability is driving many government agencies to raise the bar even higher for contractors” services. In turn, contractors need to expect and prepare for more stringent contract performance reviews and re-competes. We often find companies are taken aback by the unexpected loss of significant contracts. Even when they were consistently…Read More

Holding on to Customers in a Bad Economy

It’s safe to assume that, as the economy declines, customer loyalty is also declining.  The pressures of a severe economic downturn may force some customers to place more importance on price than brand status or long-term relationships.  These concerns can also trigger big shifts in customers’ needs, priorities, decision-making processes, and buying behaviors.   As a result, it’s…Read More

Don’t Forget your Internal Customers

There are benefits to conducting various types of satisfaction studies, including those that survey customers, association members, vendors, and partners.  We’ve often offered advice on implementing employee satisfaction research, as management often wants to know their staff’s attitudes and opinions on corporate policies, benefits, advancement opportunities, training and development options, supervisors, and the like.  Certainly,…Read More

Employee Surveys Provide Valuable Input

Many companies smartly rely on customer satisfaction studies as an important measure of business performance. However, surprisingly, many of those same companies often fail to gather and act upon the rich insights that their most important audience, employees, are eager to share. Unquestionably, tapping into employee intelligence can help both protect and bolster the long-range…Read More

How to Deal with Customer Complaints

I just read about the grandmother who lived out the fantasies of many of us when dealing with poor customer service. In case you missed it the Hammerin’ Granny really took it out on Comcast. What a way to find out about an unhappy customer! Would Comcast have benefited from a customer satisfaction survey? Maybe.…Read More

Tips for Resolving Customer Dissatisfaction

Let’s face it,?? all companies experience an unhappy customer from time to time. Often such issues are revealed in formal customer satisfaction surveys. Other times, customers express their dissatisfaction directly (or subtly) to the company. Regardless, it’s likely the situation calls for a conversation between the customer and the account manager or a more senior…Read More

Employee Surveys: A Valuable Retention Tool

As anticipated improvement in the nation’s economy drives job growth in the year ahead, many organizations are once again concerned about protecting their most valuable asset — their star performers. In addition, those same companies are hoping to recruit only the best people to fill their open positions. If approached correctly, employee surveys can be…Read More