Services

Along with general research, Sterling offers several specific services to serve their clients:


Customer Satisfaction Research

As recently as the early 1990s, the American market research industry conducted relatively little customer satisfaction research. That which was done, was called "A&U" (attitude and usage), or it was part of a customer profile exercise.

Today all that has changed. Customer satisfaction has become the biggest part of the market research portfolio for many companies, Sterling included. Today firms are realizing more than ever, that they earn the right to stay in business by providing products and services that customers want. More importantly, these products and services need to be superior to the competition for the firm to grow. "Superior" can be defined in many ways-better value, better quality, better support; there are a multitude of ways to achieve a superior offer. What does not vary is the realization that the customer defines what superior is-and it is only the customer's judgment that will count in the long run, as the dollars in the cash register are totaled.

A second aspect of customer satisfaction research is that we live in a rapidly changing world. At one time we might have defined the competition for our general store as the other general store down the block. Today competition comes from all sides. Consider the humble mailed-letter. It wasn't terribly long ago, when the letter was the only way to communicate over long distances. Now who competes with the U.S. Postal Service? Everybody! FedEx and UPS are serious competitors for the package business. The telephone is competition, as is e-mail for letters and correspondence. But so are radio and television; and so are banks (we can do direct deposit of payroll by electronic transfer of funds). Retailers with Websites are competition: we can use the Internet to order products and goods, etc. Since competition is changing, and changing more rapidly than ever before, we need to understand how these changes impact our customers, and do so before they aren't our customers anymore.

Hence, the need for on-going customer satisfaction research. Customers can and do respond when you ask their opinion. And an assessment of their satisfaction with your products/services is what matters.

Some companies and some industries have fine-tuned their customer satisfaction research programs. Consider the cruise line industry. One company, in particular, gathers customer (Passenger) satisfaction data from each cruise. It quickly processes and summarizes the information, then makes changes to the ship and the ship's customer offer, before it sails, 24 hours later. It is a Herculean task, but the company has very high industry satisfaction ratings.

And just because customers were satisfied with your product/service yesterday is no indication they will be satisfied today-particularly if some competitor has found a "new and better" alternative, or some paradigm shift has changed the customer's perception of competition all together, and what is "superior" is now something quite different.

As companies competing in an arena for the customers of the world, and with competition coming from all parts of the world, tracking customer satisfaction is a sine qua non component of the successful business strategy for the 21st century. You can sit back and watch and die, or you can track these changes, and pro-actively fine-tune your offer to keep it abreast or ahead of the competition. The choice is yours. Sterling Research is there and ready to assist in the design and implementation of an on-going customer satisfaction tracking program.

Employee Satisfaction Research

Human resources are playing a larger and larger role in the success of today's companies. In many organizations, an unhappy employee can cause as much damage and disruption as a broken machine in an assembly line. Sterling Research Group can help you keep a pulse on your employees' attitudes by administering on-going tracking studies of employee satisfaction. These studies can help you pinpoint areas of the organization with low morale as well as suggest policy and process issues contributing to low employee satisfaction. With Ph.D.'s in organizational behavior from leading research institutions on staff, we have the expertise to help you successfully manage an employee satisfaction measurement program.

Employee satisfaction studies don't have to be expensive. Sterling can administer them on-line, hosted on our web servers so employees can be assured that the data will be handled confidentially. Typically, our clients upload their employees' names and e-mail addresses to Sterling servers and we e-mail them an invitation to complete the survey. The invitation contains a link and a password that allows them to access the survey while keeping any one employee from filling out more than one web questionnaire.

Larger organizations might consider our on-line reporting tool, Report-IT! to help keep track of trends in employee attitudes across departments over time. Report-IT! allows you and your managers to access and manipulate data in real time, while maintaining complete control over the depth and breadth of data available to any one individual.

Market Research

Market Research is a valuable tool that can be used to help the business of a product, service, or market. Sterling uses the following methodologies to collect data:


Consulting

SRG’s Consulting Services center around helping clients make their customer experience measurement program effective. These services touch the entire range of customer tracking programs including:
  • Needs assessment

  • Program design

  • Survey design

  • Report design

  • Data interpretation

  • Training


Understanding your customers’ opinions is more than just collecting data on a survey. Anyone can ask their customers questions. What distinguishes customer service leaders is two-fold: (1) they collect the right data in a way that effectively supports strategic and tactical decision-making and (2) they use the data they collect to communicate desired behaviors to front-line employees. Our Consulting Services helps answer questions such as…
  • How do we design an effective survey to capture key customer opinion data?

  • How can I make sure I get the most for my money when designing my survey program?

  • How can we manage a customer survey program when we have multiple customer touchpoints?

  • How can we effectively use the data we’re collecting in our customer survey?

  • What can we do to help improve our customer service scores?

Sterling’s highly skilled staff members have over 100 years collective experience working with clients on understanding their customer opinions. We can help make your measurement needs a reality by bringing expert advice and practical solutions to the table. Regardless of how you plan to implement your program, SRG Consulting Services can help you avoid classic pitfalls in survey program design and execution.

Tracking studies

One way to sort out all market research is into two categories: one-time studies, and on-going studies. Sterling, like all market research companies, conducts many one-time studies for many clients, in the course of a year. What differentiates Sterling from most market research companies is its ability to handle tracking studies with efficiency.
Most tracking studies tend to have several similar attributes:
  • A well-defined target population with which the client has a long-term relationship

  • A highly competitive environment where market share is won or lost by the quality of the relationship

  • Typically many smaller self-standing "units" of analysis, whether they be branch banks, hotels, retail stores, agencies, etc.

Clients have special needs associated with tracking research programs: First, the design needs to be carefully managed at the outset so that changes are not required early in the program. Tracking studies are effective only if the survey remains constant. Secondly, users of tracking data grow to expect the reports at a certain time. Sterling realizes that the commitment to a tracking program means promising delivery at a set interval then living up to that promise-day after day, and month after month. Sterling has been at the forefront of tracking research for more than 15 years-we know what clients expect, and how to deliver.

Sterling's expertise, acquired over years of effort and focus, is to manage these studies well. The result is that clients can track changes in the relationship with their customers over time and in exquisite detail. One client told Sterling that he can now identify when to begin remodeling his store long before his regional supervisor makes an issue of it, because he sees slow and rather minute downtrend in customer satisfaction scores. He figures that if the customers can sense it, it's time to do something about it.

Sterling has the expertise and the equipment to manage large scale tracking studies over time in a very cost effective manner. We have a mail fulfillment center if a mailed-survey approach is needed. We have massive on-line capability if an e-mail/Web solution makes sense; and a CATI (computer assisted telephone interviewing) center, if a telephone approach is needed.

Managing tracking studies is not for the faint of heart, if economy and stability in the process are required. Sterling has perfected sample-management and reply-management skills to keep the program focused, on-track, and running efficiently. We have developed important procedures and techniques to accomplish this, and we invite you to peruse the White Paper section of the Sterling website for some extended discussion about sample management for tracking studies.

Whether your need is for a few hundred surveys per quarter, or tens of thousands per month, Sterling has the horsepower, the creative spirit, and the experience to manage your tracking programs with skill, in a cost-effective manner. Our motto is: "On-time, On-target, On-budget, and Absolutely Accurate."