Metrics that Wow! How Coremetrics Became the Customer Service Model of Success

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“Metrics that Wow! How Coremetrics Became the Customer Service Model of Success”Gary McNeil, Vice President of Marketing, ParaturePaige Newcombe, Senior Director, Global Client Services, CoremetricsJohn Ragsdale, Vice President of Technology Research, TSIA

Parature
Parature is a global leader in on-demand software (SaaS) for customer service and support
Parature enables organizations to:
Reduce the cost of supporting their customers
Have a 360 view of customer issues
Retain their customers
Improve customer loyalty
Generate more revenue from their base
Deliver “great” customer service

The Customer Has Never Been More Important!
In light of sales teams selling less - organizations are focused on:
Customer retention
Customer upsell and cross sell opportunities
Lifetime value of a customer
Overall revenue from the customer base

The Implications of Getting it Wrong Costing you money now…and later
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Service Has Become A Major Differentiator
Improving the customer experience
Multi-channel support
Providing support in the manner by which the customer wants it
Reducing customer effort
Delivering on the promise of first contact resolution
The result is reduced frustration
Increasing customer loyalty
By reducing customer effort you increase customer loyalty
Increased loyalty is a game changer

Parature: An Integrated Support Suite
CUSTOMER TOUCH POINTS
SERVICE DESK
Delivering Multi-Channel Support
For your CSR’s to Manage All Customer Interactions
Metrics &Reports
Deploy Surveys
Feedback
Chat
Ticket
?
Forums
Your CSR
Downloads
Mobile
Your Customer
E-Mail
Knowledge-base and FAQ’s
360º Customer History
Intelligent Workflow
Phone
Service Desk
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800 Customers Across All Industries
Gaming and Digital Media
Business Services
Technology
Healthcare
Associations
Education
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John Ragsdale
Vice President, Technology Research

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Since 1989
Since 1975
Since 2005
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TSIA Member Profiles
320+ Corporate members across all areas of enterprise and consumer technology

Benchmarking: The MYTH of “Best Practices”
Just because everyone’s doing it doesn’t mean it is a ‘best practice’
Identify which practices lead to positive business results
Prioritize changes based on business impact
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When Practices Meet Results
Common Practice
Represents what a clear majority of companies are doing regarding a specific business practice.
Reasonable Practice
A practice that multiple companies have implemented successfully and it has created business benefits.
Pacesetter Practice:
A practice that consistently presents itself in the highest financial performing services organizations.
Required Practice:
Practices that a majority of the industry pursues AND is implemented by a majority of the highest-performing services organizations.
Recommended Practice
Reasonable practices found in a majority of the highest-performing services organizations.
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Recommended Practice
Required Practice

Operational Metrics: Small Changes Can Make Big Impacts
COST
QUALITY
TIME

Creating a Services Dashboard
An intuitive graphical display that is easy to understand
A logical structure for theinformation presented
Little or no user trainingrequired to interpret thedashboard
Regular and frequentupdates of information foraccuracy and relevance tocurrent conditions
Consolidated information from multiple sources, departments, or markets that can be viewed simultaneously

Services Dashboard

TSIA STAR Awards
Recognizing excellence in service and support operations
Started in 1990
Member companies submit applications to be judged by TSIA Executive Advisory Board
Finalists recognized at TSW Spring and Fall Conferences
Spring categories
Best Online Community
Best Customer Commitment
Best Knowledge Management Practices
Best Online Support
Best Service Delivery Optimization
Best Support Staff Practices
Best Practices in Value-Added SupportTM
Best Embedded Product Support
Best Emerging Company Support
Best Use of Metrics and Business Intelligence
Fall categories
Service Excellence in Outstanding Improvement
Service Excellence in Partner Management
Service Excellence in Mission Critical Support
Service Excellence in Consumer Support
Service Excellence in Innovative Support
Service Excellence in Continual Improvement
Service Excellence in Complex Application Support
Service Excellence in Integrated Services
Service Excellence in Emerging Business Support

TSIA STAR Awards
Applications must include:
Metrics documenting customer and business impact
A minimum of 6 quarters of trended CSAT scores
Project plans, lessons learned, future plans
Applications average 50-60 slides in length
Congratulations to our 2009 Finalist for
Service Excellence in Outstanding Improvement:

Agent Performance Satisfaction Metrics

Overall Satisfaction and Loyalty Metrics

The SSPA Recommends
Document all the relevant cost and operational metrics and understand inter-dependencies
Create a Services Dashboard to streamline access to information and increase visibility
Benchmark your performance against industry peers to identify metrics to improve
Calculate potentialannual impact of incremental improvements—even small ones
Invest in new or refreshed technology where ROI potential is clear and attainable

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About Coremetrics
Decade of expertise: Analytics, Marketing Optimization
Complete marketing optimization portfolio built on unified analytics foundation
Named “Leader” in The Forrester Wave™: Web Analytics Q3 2009 Report (July 2009)
Highest score for “Strategy”
Highest score for “Reference Client Strength”
Perfect score for Integration (5.0 out of 5.0)
Over 2,100 online brands transacting $20B+
50%+ growth in online brands in 2009
Industry recognitions and awards:

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2,100 leading brands worldwide
Travel & Hospitality
B2B
Content
Financial Services
Retail

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Recognizing a need for change
Since 2003, Coremetrics has been a service leader in the web analytics industry, differentiating ourselves by providing unlimited support for unlimited users as part of our standard services offering
Forrester Wave ™, Web Analytics, (Q3,2003); (Q2, 2004); (Q1, 2006); (Q3, 2007)
‘Coremetrics combines premier tools with superb customer service of its own…’ (2004)
‘Forrester confirms Coremetrics as a market leader for solid technology….and superb customer service’ (2006)
‘Coremetrics receives strong ranking for…strong customer service. …ability to provide support, acting like a partner, not a vendor.’ (2007)

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Recognizing the need for change
In 2007, web analytics was becoming a hot technology
Our company was experiencing rapid growth. The current model was not scalable, we could not keep up. We realized that we needed to put a plan in place that met the following criteria:
Enabling us to scale the business(support more clients per representative)
Providing faster response rates(trends in support channel preferences were changing)
Ensuring our support knowledge outpaced the clients’ knowledge(incorporate industry expertise)
Providing the clients with educational information at their fingertips(product

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Paradigm Shift Plan: A multi-prong methodology
Create a technology services industry-leading support organization, that continues to provide relentless support for our clients’ relentless marketing needs,
Without bankrupting the company (finds ways to continue to provide service excellence that did not involve hiring a new support representative with every X customers)
Without jeopardizing our commitment to service excellence
Challenge: How do you scale a business without negatively impacting the service provided to clients? How can limited resources provide MORE support?

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1. Web Self-Service, Knowledgebase: unlimited
Welaunched our site with a robust knowledge base, investing in features
Auto-generated detailed reports: provide detailed feedback on each knowledge base article usage.
Topics with little to no traffic are reviewed for proper categorization and ‘key’ word linkage for better search results and considered for removal
Article feedback feature allows clients to provide feedback on relevancy or helpfulness from each
Article subscription feature allows clients to subscribe to article(s) to receive notice when the article is updated
Related topics list provides answers and articles related to searched topics

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1. Web Self-Service, Knowledgebase
We drink our own Champagne:
Results
Results: 24x7 Support enables clients to get quick responses and deflects live agent interactions
71.11% of inquiries are deflected through self-service
165% increase in volume deflected since the implementation of web-self service (continued success)
> 2100 documents and on-demand training videos downloaded per month
~ 2000 questions deflected per month
7300 unique end users from 420 clients log into the Support Center quarterly
12% of business support is being deflected by the newly implemented Live Chat (supported by a team of experts)

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2. Subject Matter Expertise: unlimited
Invest in highly skilled resources who have hands-on experience working with our product
‘Right’ resources for more prescriptive support and faster resolution
>50% of our customer support staff are former client side web analysts
This drives more strategic support where web-self service answers tactical questions

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3. Quality Improvement ProgramsNew reports created for improved insight and cross team communication

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3. Quality improvement for increased responsiveness
Contractually commit to our ETRs (estimated time to respond and resolve) by publishing them in our service agreement in each client’s contract. The published commitments, includes our escalation path from support management to the COO.
Commit, publish, monitor, track
All tickets are assigned a severity level based on the nature of the issue. The descriptions of the severity levels along with the committed response and resolution time frames are committed in the contract’s services agreement.
Aggressive resolution time frames range from 4 hours (severity 0) to 2 days (severity 1) to 4 days (severity 2).
* In addition to the detail and commitments provided in the contracts, the top 15 examples of common inquires that fall to each severity type are posted on the home page of the online support center for easy reference.
As contractually committed: tickets past the resolution commitment are routed accordingly:
1 day past the resolution time: Support Manager
2 days past the resolution time: Client Services Director
5 days past the resolution time: Chief Operating Officer
We have set up a custom report that generates a daily ‘past due’ report. This is used for the escalation process.

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3. Quality Improvement for increased responsiveness, cntd
Additional proactive measures
Auto-generated after-ticket survey (Report: Feedback-Yesterday), generates daily to capture client satisfaction within 3 areas of service received from the specific issue: responsiveness, professionalism, ability to resolve. Clients provide a reply for each on a 1-5 scale (5 being the highest). Replies with a 3 or below receive an immediate call from Support Management. Escalated concerns are added to the DSD meeting.
Results:
1st responder resolution rate: 98.13%
The % of tickets resolved within triage/level 1
Customer satisfaction: 4.5 (out of 5.0)
for responsiveness and resolution
based on after-ticket survey feedback averages for 2009. Below is a snapshot of an auto-generated daily report
Ticket resolution commitment attainment: 99.7%
Establishing effective processes is the key to speed.
Visibility, communication and promise are key to achieving success

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4. R&D Handshake
Our R&D and Customer Support work as a unified team
Meets regularly with R&D to discuss advanced initiatives
Drives R&D to engineer supportability features into the products
Create support tools for proactive messaging and monitoring
Create tools to empower and provide more information to clients.
Empower Support with tools to quickly address clients’ requests for configuration changes in their application.
Handshake on release activities: Test Fest, Beta, Release weekend testing
Results
Each release has shown a downward trend in the number of release related bugs
Note: our last major release resulted in 0 additional support issues!!

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5. Proactive Service Offerings
The top 10% of our clients make up 50% of our revenue
To keep our finger on the pulse, we developed a plan to proactively monitor the support activity and provide targeted service for our top 10% client base and additional ‘high profile’ clients. This is a plan that we execute internally (unknown to our clients) as a best practice to monitor and escalate customer issues, or lack thereof (clients going silent). We call this plan “Shadow Force”
We assign a 2 person team to each account. The team consists of a Technical Support Analyst and an Implementation Engineer
All customer support issues for these clients are routed directly to one of the assigned team members
We created reports that capture the client’s overall support ‘health’ ticket volume, ticket type, status, and shows the month-to-month trend. Information is provided in aggregate and per client user basis
Information is also gathered on product usage to look for clients whose usage has deteriorated
Reports are auto-generated and emailed to the 2 person teams weekly
The team meets bi-weekly to review the health of their assigned clients and communicate concerns to management
Clients considered ‘at risk’ are escalated to management and a cross-team save plan is put in place
‘Shadow Force’

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5. Proactive Service Offerings
Results: Decrease in the volume of incident tickets
Results: Increase in application usage
Since the end of 2008, on average 74% of quarterly booking are additional product / service sales to the existing client base.
By EOY 2009, the percent was >80%
These are results in back to back record breaking quarters
This speaks to the level of service received.
Results: Increase in documented client success / case studies
2009: Coremetrics published and / or documented > 220 client success stories
That correlates to 1 documented success story for every 2 clients
Proactive monitoring and messaging has led to a 50% year over year decrease in the volume of ‘trouble’ tickets (break/fix), even though the client base is growing!

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Additional Impacts
Customer Satisfaction Scores Continue to Rise
1%-7% quarter over quarter improvement across the board
CSAT goal attainment is set at 4.6 across the board for 2010
All services employees receive a quarterly bonus for goal attainment
Score increase is directly proportional to our ability to:
provide quick resolution via a robust online support center
provide quick resolution via a team of industry experts, representatives who have once been clients
collaborate with R&D to ensure incidents / trouble tickets are repaired quickly
Significant Reduction in Technical Support Tickets (incidents)
17% quarter over quarter reduction in incidents
even with 9.7% average quarterly growth in the customer base
This is directly related to:
ability to work as a unified team with R&D to
review daily incidents
provide feedback on product usability and enhancements
ensure thorough testing (QA), particularly for releases
maximize the time during release Beta periods to enhance product performance and usability

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Additional Impacts
24x7 Support Enables Clients to get Quick Resolution
This directly impacts client satisfaction as clients are more likely and willing to the web to find instant answers than to call in to a person
71.11% of tickets are deflected by way of self-service (~ 2,000)
Use of Self-Service continue to rise
165% increase in volume deflected since implementation
> 2100 documents /on-demand trainings downloaded monthly
7300 unique end users from 420 clients log into the Support Center quarterly
12% of business support is being deflected by the newly implemented Live Chat (supported by a team of experts)

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Additional Impacts
Technology Implementation allows for resource scalability
20% Q over Q client growth
<1% Q over Q total ticket volume growth
Has allowed for staffing levels to remain at the same level, with 0 increase in headcount
Note the decline of technical support issues
Note the increase in business support issues up to October 2009
Note that since the implementation of Live Chat in October 2009, business support ticket volume has decreased
0 increase in resources over 2 years, helps to reduce our cost of providing service
350% increase in clients served with 0% increase in resources
Directly links to technology, talent, and improved processes
While the client base grows at a rapid rate, we continue to make gains in client satisfaction, responsiveness, agent knowledge scores and customer loyalty

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Business Impacts
Key Metrics Q1 2007 to Q4 2009
Metric Measurement
(% change)
The execution of our Services plan has contributed to our overall bottom line (Q1 2007-Q2 2009)
There has been a considerable (39%) increase in revenue
We have seen a (-12%) reduction in COGS
Resulting in an increase in our gross margin (GM) 72%
** As a privately held company, data is shown in % changes rather than values.

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Result
Healthier business
350% growth in the client base with 0% growth in number of agents
Reduction in the cost of providing service contributed to a 72% gross margin increase
Happier clients
Clients’ satisfaction scores continue to rise, currently at 93% (4.6/5.0)
Customer loyalty scores continue to rise, currently at 93% (% of customers saying they would renew)
Customer Support continues to be a differentiator for Coremetrics
The Forrester Wave ™, Web Analytics, (Q2, 2009): ‘ Coremetrics received the highest ranking in Reference Client Strength. ..Coremetrics clients expressed satisfaction levels higher than any other company evaluated with perfect marks in services, responsiveness, and support, among others.’
By making client support an organizational initiative (creating a customer-centric culture), Coremetrics has continued to be recognized by customers and analysts as a support services leader, while contributing to our bottom line.

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Results- It’s nice to be recognized….
But don’t just take our word…
1. Our customers are happy
‘Your customer service has always been outstanding (I should know- I call or write at least twice a week). We always receive a prompt and thorough response. Your Support team makes working with Coremetrics a pleasure.”
Senior Marketing Manager, Nordstrom’s
2. SSPA recognized
3. The Analysts love us

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Lessons Learned
Have courage to execute on a massive change focused on the long-term
Take action to cultivate long-term relationships
Get everybody involved, and hold everybody accountable
Invest in technology
Hire the right resources to create a ‘customer-centric’ culture
Focus on the long-term relationship
Have the confidence to contractually commit to service
Monitor, measure, and report
Always have a plan for the next steps…..

Questions?
A link to view the recorded webinar will be emailed to all attendees in 3-4 business days.
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Metrics that Wow! How Coremetrics Became the Customer Service Model of Success

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