CONCORD, Mass., September 24, 2007 — A new national study, Gauging Customer Satisfaction, conducted by the Gantry Group LLC reveals that 85% of providers of technology solutions and technology-based services have active or planned initiatives in place to benchmark customer satisfaction. In addition to ad hoc input from sales & professional services teams, companies ascertain customer satisfaction primarily through formal customer satisfaction studies (73%).

Increasingly, these customer satisfaction studies are being conducted via online surveys. Companies plan to move away from 1-on-1 phone/in-person interviews in favor of more time-efficient online surveys as the preferred method for collecting customer satisfaction feedback. In the near future, 67% of customer feedback data will be captured thru online surveys. Companies wish to develop processes that assure more frequent, formal assessment of their customer bases. Although 40% of study respondents would ideally like to benchmark customer satisfaction on a quarterly basis, only 18% actually do so today.Representing technology solution companies across 9 industries, the study reached 100 executives that held leadership roles that directly influence customer satisfaction.
The study revealed the following additional findings: - Executives keep score on customer satisfaction by monitoring the rate that customers renew contracts (69%) and customers’ willingness to be a reference for the solution. (59%).
- The primary driver for staying in touch with customers is to validate that the solution meets customers’ needs (68%).
- The greatest business risk inflicted by poor customer satisfaction is reduced contract renewals (49%).
- Reciprocally, excellent customer satisfaction brings the rewards of higher contract renewal rates (59%), increased customer referrals (49%) & higher annual revenue per customer (44%).
- The CEO (22%) & Customer Support Services Executive (13%) are the 2 individuals most responsible within the organization for driving customer satisfaction.
- Customer satisfaction data collection & analysis is primarily the responsibility of designated persons within Customer Service/Support (48%) & Marketing (32%).
- The majority of senior management (58%) routinely reviews customer feedback & analyzes (53%) it through customer satisfaction performance metrics.

About Gantry Group    
Gantry Group is a strategic marketing firm that specializes in guiding healthcare solution vendors to build offerings around payers’ and providers’ urgent needs and challenges. For the past decade, Gantry Group’s customized market research and strategy advisory services have armed the world’s leading healthcare solution providers with targeted market intelligence to support their strategic business decisions and guide their solution roadmaps.

Gantry Group applies its customized market research services to strategically advise companies to build and sell successful offerings matched to what their target markets truly value. Gantry Group delivers to corporate marketers the firsthand market insights and predictive measurement capabilities that allow them to make informed decisions as they plan for current market needs and anticipate emerging market trends.

Through Gantry Group’s market intelligence, market research, and ROI/TCO benchmarking service suites, more than 450 client companies have identified, positioned and quantified their value within the marketplace. Additional information about Gantry Group can be found at www.gantrygroup.com.

For study results, please call Gantry Group at 978-371-7557 ext 18, or click here to download directly.

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