Our Practice Areas

VOC: Benchmarking Customer Loyalty: Identifying Critical Improvements

Customer satisfaction surveys can be needlessly complicated. Our approach is to use a select number of highly effective tools that allow us to measure customer satisfaction and loyalty. Using the Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Value Driver Assessments, we will uncover what makes your customer loyal and then measure your company’s performance along those parameters. We will probe to identify what issues are most important to address from the customer’s perspective, and we will grade your performance.

We know the right kinds of questions to ask in order to gauge customer satisfaction and loyalty. By targeting primary customer concerns that affect sales and customer relations, we're able to benchmark where you stand now, and how you can retain and recruit customers who will actively advocate for you going forward. We also use a number of complementary metrics to draw comparisons to your competition and assess partnership expectations.

VOC: Competitor Benchmarking

Want to know how you stack up against your competitors? We will first seek to understand the key factors that impact your customers’ buying decisions. Then, we’ll grade you against the competition along those factors to benchmark your performance.

We’ve developed a proprietary tool called the “Competitive Performance Index” (CPI) which measures and scores your business on your relative strength in the marketplace.

Why is this important? Some will argue that measuring satisfaction and loyalty is not enough. Just because you’re satisfied with a company’s performance doesn’t mean you’re going to buy from them again. Rather, the CPI says which supplier you prefer to buy from and why — a vital insight that predicts who will gain more business in the future.

VOC: Gauging the Strength of Your Team with Talent Assessment

Talent is directly linked to customer satisfaction and loyalty. The stronger your team is in the field, the more likely you are to have strong customer relations. If your focus is to improve your team’s performance, so too will you observe a rise in business results.

Our research has found a direct correlation between talent and building business with customers. Strategex conducts talent assessments by externally collecting feedback from your customers on your team’s performance. We evaluate the performance of employees that work with customers on a regular basis. These assessments are typically done for account managers, customer service reps, and even senior managers. We conduct in-depth, confidential interviews and then report our findings and results in a 360 degree assessment format. Our work will oftentimes uncover reps in the field that are actually a liability to your success. In other cases, we might uncover ideas which will make your team more effective or better align themselves with your customer.

VOC: Performing Win-Loss Analysis

Winning new business is everything. But, if you’re a business that often goes after new opportunities and you don’t understand why you’re winning, or more importantly, why you’re losing, you’re not likely to improve in the future.

A successful Win-Loss Analysis will not only help improve your close rate, but will also increase your competitive advantage. Do you know how your competitors position themselves? Are you really perceived as forward thinking? Are your prices competitive or are they an obstacle? Does your message really resonate in the marketplace? We will help you to gather key, actionable competitive intelligence, and identify trends in your target markets and how they affect purchasing decisions. We will explore your pricing strategy and measure it’s effectiveness. We will help to strengthen your message in the marketplace. A successful Win-Loss Analysis will measurably improve your close rate and increase your share in the market. But, if you don’t ask…

VOC: Evaluating Brand Perception and Awareness

How does the market perceive your brand? How aware are they of your brand? A good marketing plan starts with answering these questions. Strategex conducts research to assess the strength of your brand vs. others out in the marketplace. We seek to understand how well you’re known and what you’re known for. We want to know just how your image is perceived by the market. Is yours a positive image or a negative one? What about it draws people in or pushes them away? And how can we use this knowledge to better your business?

Oftentimes, Strategex will conduct branding studies at the start of a marketing initiative to benchmark how well you’re known and what you’re known for. Our research typically details the areas that need immediate attention to strengthen your brand’s perception.

VOC: Examining Conflicts and Opportunities with New Channels

A frequent area of future growth is often expanding into new channels. Great idea in theory, but conflicts often arise in reality. For example, your company sells through distribution and your considering selling over the internet. If you pursue this route, will people actually buy over the internet? And how will your distributors respond?

Or what if you’ve always sold direct to end-users and now want to add distributors to reach the smaller customers within a certain market? Which distributors should you select in the market you want to serve?

Strategex has done a number of channel studies seeking to understand strengths of various channels, areas of potential conflict, and opportunities that may surface in the future.

VOC: Knowing Your Market As You Consider New Products and Services

Should you introduce a new line of products? How about expanding into related services? Is there demand for your ideas or are they just pipedreams concocted on white board?

Strategex will interview prospective customers in your marketplace to gauge their reaction to your ideas. Not only will we confirm the market’s interest, but we are often able to estimate the size of your market. Moreover, we can further probe on the ideas to better understand needs, wants, and requirements of the product or service you are proposing. We can work “big picture” at the concept stage or more detailed working to refine your offering. We can even probe on pricing to understand what customers are willing to pay for the idea under consideration.

VOS: Do Your Suppliers Feel Great About Working with You?

Successful companies realize they can’t do it alone. They need a good network of suppliers to partner with to succeed at their initiatives. The question, however, is how committed are your suppliers to helping you succeed? On a more basic level, how easy are you to work with? Are you fair with them? Do you encourage them and motivate them to want to work with you?

Strategex conducts supplier surveys answering these very questions. We conduct these interviews with the highest degree of confidentiality, encouraging them to freely speak their minds. Our probing goes beyond asking about your performance. We seek insights into who does it better. We ask what we can learn from others. We explore how to better your business.

VOE: Do Your Employees Feel Valued, Respected, and Invested?

Employee satisfaction has a direct link to customer satisfaction. If one is suffering, chances are, the other is suffering as well.

Strategex conducts comprehensive employee surveys, interviewing your employees to assess their opinions of your company as a place to work. These surveys are conducted confidentially, either in person, over the phone, or via the internet. Different methods work best depending on the situation.

The surveying is customized, but often seeks to assess morale and understand deficiency areas; we also uncover perceptions of the leadership team, as well as the immediate manager or supervisor; we gather feedback on the working environment, work/life balance, compensation and benefits, etc.; we will identify what’s working and what’s not, and we will define concrete actions to help your employees feel supported and valued, thereby increasing employee loyalty and retention.