CustomerGauge Launches to Give Businesses Better Ears to Hear “Voice of Customer”

PRESS RELEASE

CustomerGauge is a new web-based software tool to help organizations understand customer sentiment.

Amsterdam, 25 October 2007. Directness BV announces the launch of CustomerGauge, a new web-based software tool that uniquely helps organizations measure customer loyalty, understand customer sentiment, and respond to customer comments.

CustomerGauge provides a straightforward way to automatically survey customers and measure loyalty. To ensure best practice the results are compatible with the Net Promoter® Score* (NPS), acknowledged as the industry standard for loyalty measurement. This allows companies to benchmark themselves against others in similar industries.

To help understand sentiment, CustomerGauge uniquely brings the “Vox Clientis” (Voice of the Customer) into the organization, by providing a method to quantify and classify comments. For the first time, organizations can easily convert free text comments into statistical data, and distribute feedback around the business. CustomerGauge offers various options including a real-time Comment Ticker (which shows customer sentiment on large “Flight Information” type displays).

CustomerGauge has a comprehensive response function to help organizations close the loop with customers and keep their promises. The designers found that in many companies today valuable customer comments are never acknowledged or answered, which can create further negative sentiment. To address this issue, CustomerGauge increases the productivity of marketers by providing an assisted answering template, allowing individual answers to be crafted in just a few mouse few clicks.

“As marketers, we all know how important customer loyalty is. But there are few tools available to businesses that give insight into both customer loyalty and sentiment, and as far as we know, none that make the results actionable” says Adam Dorrell, Managing Director of Directness BV, and creator of CustomerGauge. “In previous roles we had worked with spreadsheets and responded ad hoc to customer comments, but still noticed a significant improvement in loyalty. Now businesses can use CustomerGauge to replace manual reporting and respond quickly to issues – to better quantify, understand and improve customer sentiment.”

CustomerGauge is a hosted solution, and can be rapidly deployed anywhere in an organization, without investment in capital equipment or IT assistance. Designed by marketers with backgrounds in the direct sales divisions of major customer-focused companies the system has been tested in real life industry situations and is now available generally. A flash-based tour and self-guided demonstration is available on www.customergauge.com.

*Net Promoter is a registered trademark of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company and Fred Reichheld.

About Directness:

Directness BV is a software and consulting company based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Formed in 2006 by former directors of Sony and Dell, Directness assists major brands to listen, market and sell directly to consumers. For news, product and company information visit www.directness.net or call +31 629 436360.

Note for non-English editors: “Gauge” (pronounced like en-gage) is an instrument for measuring or indicating quantity.
- END -

Contact:
Directness BV
Tel +31 6 52570162
info@directness.net
www.directness.net

How to jump the queue at boarding time

I liked this snippet this morning from Brand Love Hate: “On a trip to San Francisco last week, I was sitting in SFO waiting for my JetBlue flight when I heard the boarding announcement for a nearby Virgin America flight. Everything seemed normal until the gate agent said that passengers wearing red – Virgin’s brand color – could board first. For some new customers, this appeared to be a surprise, but others who clearly had flown the airline before were ready to be rewarded for their fandom.”

Another reason to fly Virgin, another good way of rewarding your customers.

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CustomerGauge.com Live Today

I am delighted to report that after a year of hard work, many nights and long days, CustomerGauge.com is live.

The application is working well, and has proved itself in enterprise enviroments. Now we are poised to measure, understand and respond where no man has gone before.

Many thanks to Mila, Roy, Mariangela and Enzo for so many hours along the way.

Adam

Get closer to your customers CustomerGauge helps organisations to measure customer loyalty, understand customer sentiment, and respond to customer comments. Compatible with the Net Promoter® Score*, CustomerGauge allows organisations improve customer relationships and encourage loyalty, most immediately in e-commerce functions. more

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Radiohead's Price Strategy Signals Changes for Direct Sales?

Heavy coverage today on BBC and other sources of Radiohead’s decision to let fans pick a price for their latest album, available online.

It’s a good example of direct sales. The band are not signed to a record label. They have creative freedom, and an army of loyal fans (and some lapsed fans, like me). So they can market directly to their customer base.

This strategy exhibits many of the classic points of the “9P” model of direct sales. They have Permission – no record company to upset, no channel to undercut (although predictably the established industry and channel is quick to criticise). Promotion is taken care of through emails to the fanbase (plus lots of bonus PR). The Proposition is right: It’s a pre-release strategy. You can buy before it’s in available in the shops, but not after. And the Price is based on what their fans would pay – probably between $5 – $10, as that is less than a shop of itunes bought album, but enough to feel that you are funding the band’s craft. It’s the ultimate test of value.

It will be interesting to see if it’s judged a success – I’m sure it will, but partly because it’s the first. It may eventually erode price of music to a sensible level (hurrah!).

Of course, Radiohead have some limit to their risk. Marginal costs are low as downloads cost little to process. But can the consumer electronics industry learn anything here?

Suggested learnings:

• Pre-release strategy to minimise damage to channel relationships: Product available online first, then closed at certain date – this helps predict eventual channel sales.
• Special product not available anywhere else – there is something special in the purchase. or real fans, they will see this as an extra bonus. They will buy the shop item anyway,
• Available to fans only (keeps the brand special) – shows value of CRM strategy
• Price set by fans – will work if in a limited edition run of a product. A premium price may even be established. Radiohead also offer a full-fat $40 version with CDs and artwork (probably the biggest source of profit here).

Apply these lessons to your business with boldness like Radiohead, or contact us at Directness for some more help on your direct sales strategy.

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Check-ups make you feel better

This morning I had a full medical checkup for insurance purposes. I was prodded, poked, tickled then drained of blood and other liquids. Although I was confident of my fitness level, these tests are always slightly scary – I’m sure everyone treats them with trepidation. I had eaten sensibly for a week before the test, laid off drinking, went for a run – that sort of thing (as if it would make a difference…). The final test had me hooked up by 12 tentacles to a hi-tech ECG machine, with a display like the one above.

It led me to think that the very act of testing humans always has other effects. It’s analogous to the Schrödinger’s Cat thought experiment (in a nutshell: finding out or measuring the state cannot be done without the observer interfering with the experiment — the measurement system or observer is entangled with the experiment. More here, fact fans). In this case, by testing me, I considered the state of my health and made some (admittedly feeble) attempts to impress the examiner by doing some workouts beforehand – so it may not have been a totally accurate assessement of my steady state health.

My speciality is the gauging of customer sentiment. So what is the Schrödinger Cat issue with surveying customers?

I believe that by the act of asking a customer a simple question post-purchase has a strong effect. Firstly, the act of following up a transaction is a basic human politeness – as we were taught when young to write a thank-you letter to Auntie Ethel. Secondly, asking for their opinion on the transaction forces the customer to recall the experience and make a judgement call. In the case of good buying experience, the customer should find the act of recall enjoyable, making the connection with the brand in the mind a positive one. So you get a free marketing hit.

In the case of a poor buying experience, the question may trigger “buyers remorse”, a form of cognitive dissonance. Or customers may take the opportunity to vent their anger. He or she may regret the purchase, but at least if you act on the “Vox Clientis” (Voice of of Customer), it gives you a second chance to correct it. Disatisfied customers may go on to badmouth you, but if you ask, you are able to gauge the percentage that might do.

So as I sat there, pedalling my way to 300W and my stress limit, I mused on how similar our CustomerGauge application is similar to the ECG machine. Both have multiple monitors, automatically checking “heartbeat” and stress levels, provide insight and help to ultimately improve. In our case, it’s taking the pulse of the customer, and giving them an instant check-up. For the customer, it’s a chance to think about their own “purchase health”.

Oh, and after spending 20 minutes on the stress test machine, I am pleased to say I passed it with flying colours. At 42, I’m delighted to report that they found me fitter than as a butchers dog, apparently.

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CustomerGauge is about to launch…

Here at Directness, we are working flat out on the launch of our new service CustomerGauge - due to go live in the next few days with a shiny new website and demo.

CustomerGauge is our automatic system to measure customer loyalty and organise the “Vox Clientis” (Voice of the Customer). It was designed to help improve customer relationships and increase profits, especially for manufacturers e-commerce functions. The system, from Directness BV is web based, with no software to implement, and can be rapidly deployed globally.

Watch this space for more news about Customer Gauge.

And as some people have asked: What is a Gauge?

Gauge /'gAj/ (rhymes with engage)

: MEASURE 1 gauge of public sentiment>
2 : an instrument for or a means of measuring or testing: as a : an instrument for measuring a dimension or for testing mechanical accuracy b : an instrument with a graduated scale or dial for measuring or indicating quantity (Merriam Webster Online Dictionary)

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