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Our extensive ongoing research into hundreds of industries concludes that the vast majority of companies score poorly when handling first time prospects via their website or call centre. Website enquiries fall through the cracks and are either not followed up or followed up badly or late. Staff don't know their product, fail to qualify the prospects needs and very rarely is any attempt made to collect valuable prospect data from the initial call.
The vast majority of staff directly managing the prospect experience lacked a scientific methodology to audit the performance of their staff, systems and processes - prior to employing the services of switched-on group 96% of companies we surveyed relied only on anecdotal evidence to judge the performance of their prospect interface.
Our research also demonstrates that companies who invest in understanding and improving the prospect experience significantly increase enquiry numbers, prospect suitability and ultimately sales.
How do you ensure the results are objective?
Our team are never aware who our actual clients are when researching an industry. The results generated by the research team are audited themselves on a weekly basis to determine accuracy in their finding. This is achieved via parallel sample auditing by our senior management.
Can I compare my score against other industries or specific companies?
Yes, we can tailor the service to include benchmarks from other industry findings or you can request any company to be researched. The standard survey includes up to 4 companies and you can research additional companies for $390 per company.
Can I change the questions being used to conduct the audit?
Yes, we offer a custom Scorecard service where you can design every aspect of the research parameters. These projects are quoted on a case-by-case basis.
Who owns the data collected?
If you commission switched-on to conduct an audit, on completion all audit data becomes your property.
How frequently should I conduct prospect experience research?
A quarterly audit should provide enough insight, however you might need to audit more regularly if you are aware of changes to your competitors prospect interface or if you want to measure recent changes in your own prospect interface capabilities, such as new staff members, processes or systems.
How many contact attempts do you make when auditing a company?
We make two attempts under two aliases - one via your website and then directly via your phone. This may take multiple contact attempts depending on call backs. We record and transcribe every contact, where it is applicable.
It seems like I could do this myself, why employ a company to do it?
Yes, you could build a proven scenario questionnaire, invest in non traceable phone numbers, create covert companies and people to conduct the audit, build your own software to record, compare, benchmark and print detailed reports and graphs, then pay staff who have little hardened undercover experience to objectively score your company and eight of your competitors. Alternatively, for $1600, plus gst, we can deliver you the objective findings without distractions to your business.
How do you ensure you are not detected, and the results therefore invalid?
The fact is we have never been detected and use a confidential fail-safe methodology in all surveys.
What improvements can I make as a result of using the Scorecard service? Scorecard research results are designed to correlate obvious inadequacies with obvious solutions based on 34 Key Performance Indicators. For example, if your sales reps don't call back with the response time advertised on your website, the fault points to a blindingly obvious recommendation.
How can switched-on assist in implementing these improvements?
switched-on offers all the outsourced solutions needed to guarantee the optimum experience for your company's prospects. Our capabilities include a 50 seat, 7 day a week inbound/outbound call centre, website design team and online software solutions that manage the entire breadth of the prospect interface, including process management, website content management and sophisticated reporting.
What does the Scorecard software do?
Scorecard is an application developed by the software development team at switched-on to create any type of questionnaire, capture results from multiple surveys and benchmark results against the summary of other surveys. For example, it can compare your company results against all industries or just your industry or the minimum or maximum results of a particular set of companies. The software also features a graphing tool and all results can be printed or converted into PDF's for distribution.
For a confidential view of our service, please call Nicole Godfrey on 03 9861 3000 or click here.