Found In Translation: Net Promoter Customer Comments Automatically Translated

To have another language is to possess a second soul
- Charlemagne

For some fun last week in CustomerGauge HQ, we counted up the number of languages that we can speak. The result: 13. Maybe more – I think I forgot to count Norwegian. That certainly helps us roll-out complex multi-language solutions for our clients.

And from this week,  we can now assist our clients with a low-cost, instantaneous translation system for Voice-of-the-Customer comments from Net Promoter® Score survey.

Our new CustomerGauge Automatic Translation System uses the Google Translate™ Translation Service API to translate over 60 languages. Translated comments are stored in CustomerGauge, and can be searched and reported on. No need for cut-and-paste, no buttons to press. If you have used Google Translate before, you’ll be familiar with the idea.

Technically it’s a “Gisting” service – you can get the “gist” of a comment – but it’s not a perfect translation. We always recommend that comments be routed to local language speakers to deal with; however, the service has already proved useful for client needs. Some interesting points have already be “found in translation”.

The cost of this service is EUR 0.10 per translated comment. (equiv: US $0.13, A$ 0.13, GBP 0.09). It is available from 2 December 2011 on CustomerGauge b2c sites.

Our Client Operations team are ready to set up translations on CustomerGauge sites now. Or if you are considering a Net Promoter project, let us advise you on acquiring the gift of translation for your Net Promoter project.

Download the presentation here.

CustomerGauge first with full API support for Net Promoter

CustomerGauge is now available with a full range of API (Application Programming Interface) methods to connect to enterprise systems, so now it’s simple to connect to ERP, CRM, BI and e-commerce systems and measure Net Promoter® Score. It is the first fully automated Net Promoter Score platform with an enterprise level API.

Using the API, CustomerGauge clients have already been able to integrate service-request systems, IVRs and other enterprise systems to contact customers and measure NPS in real-time, feeding results directly back into corporate systems.

One client uses the API to send customer details to CustomerGauge as soon as an agent hangs up the phone, and within two minutes the same customer receives an email survey to gather a score and a comment. The results of this activity have pushed response above 50%.

Another client is using the API to push customer issues directly into Salesforce.com in order to “Close the loop” with the wider organisation.

And another client is using multiple platforms to survey, including graphically based iPad systems, all based on communicating results to CustomerGauge with our secure API.

These CustomerGauge platform integrations are simple and quick to implement, and mean that NPS can be easily rolled out across organisations by connecting with diverse IT platforms.

Developers can start directly with our documentation. To understand more about how CustomerGauge can be integrated with other systems, contact us.

CustomerGauge Security Enhancements: November 2011 Release

Security is one of the least exciting features to talk about in an application, but it is the essential foundation of a SaaS system like CustomerGauge. Safely storing the customer details and Net Promoter Scores of our corporate clients keep us awake at night. We quietly spent some of the summer months on a rolling program of security enhancements, mostly invisible to our users, all oriented to improving data protection.

Today we roll out some platform enhancements which include two security features:

• Multiple Failed Login Attempt Prevention. There may be useful acronym for this tongue-twister; suffice it to say that this helps block a nasty penetration attempt called a “brute force attack” – if someone tries to repeatedly login without success they will be blocked from the system.
• IP Whitelist: This came as a request from clients who wish to restrict CustomerGauge access to selected IP addresses, and so enhance security on the system.

Details are in a short presentation, questions can be directed to Client Operations team.

The Ins and Outs of CustomerGauge: Using our API to build out your loyalty platform (webinar)

Introduction to CustomerGauge API

Free webinar: Learn how CustomerGauge can integrate the Net Promoter® Score into your company’s systems

11 October 2011

Tuesday 11 October 2011 – 17:00 Amsterdam / 16:00 London / 10:00 New York (EST) – Register Now

In this short webinar, you will learn how CustomerGauge can be integrated with enterprise systems: CRM, e-commerce, websites, ticketing systems, and social social media using our simple to use Application Programming Interface (API).

We will show you how to get data IN to CustomerGauge using examples from e-commerce and CRM systems to trigger Net Promoter Score surveys, and then show how to get scores, comments and other information automatically OUT.

Using examples of Salesforce.com, Twitter etc we can show you how to build an automated solution using the CustomerGauge platform – we even build a sample application that you can install on your systems afterwards.

The webinar will have enough detail for developers but also technically-minded marketers should find the concepts easy to follow.

Limited places – confirm your place now

CustomerGauge to Salesforce.com Integration: Add Net Promoter Score to your contacts

CustomerGauge announces integration with Salesforce.com – now you can effectively survey contacts from Salesforce and add survey results and firefighting activities right in your database.

(view our 4 minute video on CustomerGauge to Salesforce.com® integration)

As Salesforce.com users ourselves, we have long wanted to find a way to get Net Promoter® scores and comments from our own CustomerGauge surveys into the Salesforce.com system. Two years ago it seemed a little daunting with their APEX language but with the recent addition of REST to Salesforce we now have an excellent and reliable way of doing this, using their web services interface (SOAP / REST API ).

Functionality:

• Attach a Net Promoter Score and comment from a completed CustomerGauge survey to the right record in Salesforce.com (it adds an Activity – you can see this in the video)
• Create a “Case” containing the relevant customer comment and other information in Salesforce.com so that existing CRM workflow in your system can be used (you can also see this in the video)
• Export from Salesforce.com – Using our survey “Fire-Fighting” functionality we are able to trigger Salesforce.com to export selected records to CustomerGauge automatically (more on that in a future post)

We have added some custom fields in Salesforce to show NPS.

 

 

You can see how it works on the attached video, and we also have a presentation CustomerGauge to Salesforce.com API (99).

We would be delighted to show you how it works, and help you to try it yourself by using development accounts on Salesforce.com and CustomerGauge.

CustomerGauge Internet-Connected “AnalogGauge” shows Net Promoter® Score in Real Time

CustomerGauge announce a breakthrough in real-time display of Net Promoter® Score with the stand-alone “AnalogGauge”, an internet-connected device with a moving needles showing the score for various times and segments. Building on the success of our real-time digital signage systems which utilise a plasma or large screen, the new device is designed to sit on the CEOs desk (or the desk of any member of the company’s Net Promoter team). The production model will show customer responses in real-time from CustomerGauge and Recommendi and display the overall score for a periods or segments that can be easily set on the controlling website.

Why wait for a score?

We’d like to think this shows our commitment to showing instantaneous results from our measurement systems so our clients can make adjustments in real time. Not only can clients drill into up-to-the minute comments and scores on the CustomerGauge dashboard, but can get the results displayed, tweeted or pushed into CRM systems via our APIs. We believe there is not a comparable system on the market that show feedback in this way, or offer such flexible integration options.

We are working hard to bring the product on sale in the second half of the year – it will be available to all CustomerGauge clients as a simple plug-in, and later as a display option for other measurement providers.  More details on the AnalogGauge on request.

Fire Prevention Beats Firefighting in “Hotness” Stakes, Surveys Say.

“I’m gonna keep eating smoke, and bringing out bodies… ” quips Steve McQueen, playing the courageous fire chief O’Hallorhan at the very end of The Towering Inferno, closing one of the defining firefighter portrayals in movie history. The “Firefighter as a hero” with all the attendant risks and valour is a popular image both in film and real life, so is it possible that something so humdrum as “Fire Prevention” could be somehow more heroic?

Yes, it can – in the world of customer surveys, and in the number of lives saved.

 

Read more

CustomerGauge Data Import Options

Getting data into CustomerGauge is simple – we cover major data formats including CSV, TXT, Excel/Google Spreadsheet XLS format or XML. Transport mechanisms inlcude email, FTP, API or in-application upload. This means that we can take data from almost every CRM system, including Salesforce.com, SAP CRM, SugarCRM, Siebel and Microsoft Dynamics. Alternatively, we can take transactional data straight from popular e-commerce systems including DigitalRiver, Magento, automating the upload so it happens in the background every day.

If that doesn’t fit, our development team have almost certainly got a plug-in that can be customised to fit your application.

When you are ready to measure Net Promoter Score we are ready to assist.

Download this graphic as a JPG or PDF.

Also, see more on the file details in this post: CustomerGauge In: B2C Data Import Formats

 

 

Format details

Even A Nation of Millions Can’t Hold Us Back.

Bring The Noise! Our growing, multi-national client lists throws out new challenges each day for our technology team, which is constantly coming up with new, bigger, better, faster solutions to deal with enormous quantities of data coming in and sending email invitations out. Last year our bigger clients were getting up to the tens of thousands of emails a day, and while our infrastructure was not exactly creaking, it seemed a good time to go to the next level. And then came a request from a new client that wanted to get into the “Million Emails a Month” club.

So to tackle this challenge, our newest programming asset Anthony was tasked with creating a  sub-system to send vast quantities of email, something that scaled beyond our existing system and could take us into new high volume areas. Anthony, who has a background in cutting edge 3D-graphics (something called “augmented reality”) wasted no time on coming up with a name for the project: The CustomerGauge Mail Monster - specified as a system so monstrous it could get through any volume of email we could throw at it. It was enough to strike fear into the other members of the team…

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For any geeks still with us, our email system is quite complicated. Getting a consistent Net Promoter® Score survey result needs rigour in contacting customers.  Most CustomerGauge clients survey transactions continuously, so we ensure that end-customers receive a survey invitation after every customer service contact or e-commerce transaction. Our system automatically sends emails every day. There are various rules applicable for each client – for example, 1) De-duplicate similar order numbers (in case feed was sent twice), 2) Send email invitation exactly 7 days after transaction, but not if we have contacted customer in the last 45 days (never good to over-contact them). 3) Then send a reminder email after another 7 days if customer has not answered.

Creating the HTML invitation email itself is no simpler – we have 20+ languages for some clients (with western and asian characters), and conditional-merge items (like product images, signatures and order information) to increase completion rates. Delivering emails successfully means avoiding spam filters, so we also remove bad addresses, and carefully “throttle” email sending to same domains.

This has resulted in great success for us and our clients. Survey completion for CustomerGauge clients is among the highest in the industry – we regularly top 25% for B2C and approach 50% average for B2B.

What’s that coming over the hill?

Back in the lab Anthony’s Monster had started to take shape. Building on our existing highly advanced Amazon EC2 structure, he generated special server instances that could scale up as needed. He demonstrated it to an eager technology team. With an impressive combination of programming techniques Anthony had built a system that in his words “…is always looking for food [in the form of data to turn into email], and when it finds some, grows a super-monster to manage the problem, which then clones smaller, zombie-like monsters that work on the queues, turning raw data into finished emails. When there is no more email to process, the mini-monsters simply die, and the super-monster goes back to sleep, ready to awake again…”.

“So a bit like Godzilla in Destroy All Monsters?” suggested Camilla, who surprised us more with her knowledge of daikaijū movies than of the sophisticated system we had just seen. Roy asked: Why? “Well, at the end of the film, Godzilla turns out to be one of the good guys, and kills the evil Fire Dragon, and lives to protect Earth once again”. “Yes” Said Anthony. “Exactly like our new Mail Monster”.

Fight The Power

The Mail Monster has already chomped it’s way through thousands of test emails before being unleashed on the real thing – and has been successfully running for several weeks. It’s now officially out of beta and will be a part of new CustomerGauge installations from this week.

If your organisation has many customers to survey, we humbly invite you to compare your existing emailing animal with the awesome experience of our email-eating Mail Monster. Grrrrrrr.

Automatic Root Cause Analysis for Net Promoter with a Waterfall chart

Reading customer comments is a serious business. Ultimately, it has to be the best way of understanding what your customers think about your organisation – and it is essential that comments get to the right people – the ones that can actually change or improve customer experience.

However, there are some drawbacks to manually classifying the comments:

• It’s not scalable: Some of our clients have hundreds of customer comments a day. It takes only seconds to read and classify each one, but it still takes resources
• Interpretation varies by person: People classify comments in different ways. And what may be urgent to one person is mundane to another.
• Customer comments are variable: It can take some head-scratching to understand what customers are referring to. We regularly see  multiple issues in a single comment. Sometimes positive and negative sentiments are expressed together. Or positive comment, “zero” Net Promoter score.

This unpredictability means that it’s almost impossible with the technology of today to do pattern recognition, and automate the task (although we are working on this in CustomerGauge Labs).

So we have a better method, recently productised in CustomerGauge. We call it by various names: “Customer Self Select” or “Automatic Root Cause Analysis” but like all good solutions it’s simple and customer focused. The trick is to make the survey smarter. We ask the customer to highlight the issues that bother them (or delight them) the most. With a few simple clicks, the customer chooses the issues you should prioritise. We then direct the results into a series of “buckets” containing issues relating to Logistics, Product, Service etc. We call these “Level 1″ as they are the high level matters to focus on.

Below each Level 1 issue are more detailed reasons that provide more detail. For example, Delivery issues might be related to lateness, damaged goods or returns – and it’s important to separate out what drives the customer score. These are the Level 2 issues. Customer comments provide context and detail.

Depending on the initial customer rating the reasons can change, and are easily edited in the CustomerGauge administration tools.

The real magic comes in reporting. We now have a quantitative number of issues, selected by customers themselves. We then organise into Level 1 and Level 2 reports, and add Net Promoter Scores together with other customer data – for example order value or segment information.

We build up the data and allocate to individuals, so the Logistics manager automatically receives a report on issues relating to his/her department. These can later be assigned to projects (more in a later post).

The newest report is our Waterfall Analysis. This shows a bridge between Promoters and Detractors to break down the Net Promoter Score by Level 1 issues. It works by aggregating Net Promoter Scores in each issue, and weighting them on by the number of issues selected. It’s a simple way of visualising the impact of key elements in your business on your Net Promoter Score.

In the presentation we explain how this is all put together. Download it in a PDF here (WaterfallReportJan2011CustomerGaugeRootCause.pdf. 3.2Mb)

And then try the survey to see how our Self Select system works.

We are happy to explain how it is all put together, and demonstrate how our clients are already making great progress with this tool. Revolution is a strong word, but we see this making significant improvements in some sites due to its simplicity of implementation and interpretation. Contact us to arrange a webex and see more.

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