PHONE BASED SURVEY DATA COLLECTION OPTIMIZED PROCESS CONTROL FOR IVR & LIVE PHONE INTERVIEWING

Transcription

1 PHONE BASED SURVEY DATA COLLECTION OPTIMIZED PROCESS CONTROL FOR IVR & LIVE PHONE INTERVIEWING Copyright 2015

2 CONTENTS IDEA IN ACTION 2 Survent Platform Multi Mode Survey Management 3 Sample Management Features 4 Phone based Data Collection 5 Sample Control 5 Call Center Management 6 Predictive/Power Survox Dialer Optional 6 Integrated IVR Workflow increases call center productivity 7 Scalable, Stable, Secure Hosted Solution 8 Application Management & Hosting Services 8 24x7 Service Center 9 Onboarding Services 9 Training 9 Transition Services 10 Exhibits & Appendices 11 Sample Management Use Cases 12 Mixed Vendor Survox Multi Mode Solution 15 CFMC.COM Copyright 2015 All rights reserved Page 1 of 16

3 PHONE BASED DATA COLLECTION RESEARCH METHODOLOGY WHEN QUOTA MATTERS IDEA IN ACTION Unlike other data collection strategies, phone based research can reach all demographic segments, enabling responses to be collected from representative samples. Survox world class process automation makes call centers more productive, keeping phone based methods cost competitive. Field operations can enable data collection processes that span organizations, technologies, vendors, and geographies. OVERVIEW CFMC is the leading provider of phone survey automation solutions. The Survent platform provides a unified experience for sample management, survey execution, operational reporting, and client data preparation across a mix of data collection modes and heterogeneous vendor solutions. The Survox solution suite focuses on the unique needs of phone based data collection using live interviewers, Interactive Voice Response (IVR), or a combination of the two. Our Survox solutions provide precise quota and operational control that enables users to optimize their complex or time sensitive data collection processes in real time and perform on the fly changes during a live survey without disrupting operations. When the Survox Console is combined with the Survox Dialer, the capabilities enable more advanced workflow automation to streamline processes and optimize call center sample and resource management. Survox solutions are licensed for on premise deployment or delivered as a hosted service. Our Customer Success team provides training, implementation and transition services as well as best practice consulting. Advanced Sample Management: Full process control over how sample is used to meet quota. IVR: Automated phone surveys to reach customers who prefer to provide feedback by phone without needing to have a call center and live interviewers. Call Center Automation: Expert insight and process enablement enable supervisors to optimize interviewers, studies, and sample to meet budget, time, and quota requirements for each project. Predictive Dialer: Advanced analytics drive the right phone numbers to be dialed to meet quota. CFMC.COM Copyright 2015 All rights reserved Page 2 of 16

4 SURVENT PLATFORM MULTI MODE SURVEY MANAGEMENT The Survent Platform can perform the most complex of surveying activities and has been developed to serve the needs of the most advanced research professionals conducting studies on a global basis. Here are examples of how our customers leverage the Survent Platform. Insurance screener study with 170,000 completes in a month, very complex quotas Large multi brand QSR with high availability, POS receipt recruit with encrypted passwords, sweepstakes incentives Large cellular retailer with transaction based recruits, 250,000 completes per month Large multinational car rental agency with over 13,000 locations with independent quotas by location Large international study conducted in over 27 European countries in 40 languages over a fouryear period Multinational hotel with 30+ languages and 1M+ completes per year. High brand and regional customizations SCALABLE ARCHITECTURE Here are examples of Survent deployed to scale across regions while maintaining centralized control if desired. Full service researcher with 1000 CATI stations across two continents, multiple call centers (owned & partners) and home based workers enabled by virtualized servers, centrally managed. Multinational 800 CATI station operation doing in region calling, with most surveys programmed and managed centrally. CFMC.COM Copyright 2015 All rights reserved Page 3 of 16

5 SAMPLE MANAGEMENT FEATURES CFMC offers one of the most advanced sample management systems available to data collection companies today. Appendix A offers examples of sample management use cases that illustrate the precision and control enabled by the Survent platform. Here are some of the most commonly used sample management capabilities. Utilize replicates to create a daily snapshot of results that represent the same quota makeup as the final product. Utilize markets for quota attainment and time zone specific dialing activities. Provide support for 24 time zones including half time zones. Utilize up to 960 markets for special functions and call routing rules. For instance, a given market may be assigned to Special Interviewers who speak Cantonese. Leverage market weights to control the relative amount of calling to a particular market during the study. This can be achieved in various ways: from the outset in the sample file; while supervising; or programmatically in the survey instrument. Manage behavior by weighting up specific sample records. If there is a shortage of sample records in a particular market's target sample, it is possible to pick up more records without completely shutting down other markets or setting their target quotas down. Make dynamic adjustments to sample and calling instructions based on quota, markets, etc. without taking down the study. Prioritize based on sample elements. Add new sample to a live study. Utilize external data to identify mobile phones and treat them differently in your sample management process. Land line and cell phone records can be managed in separate files or within the same file, and the instructions to the dialer will be specific to the record type. Use DNC list management to upload, create and update DNC files. You can also select which DNC files to use for any given project. CFMC.COM Copyright 2015 All rights reserved Page 4 of 16

6 PHONE BASED DATA COLLECTION Telephone researchers rely on CFMC to centralize interviewing operations across the world and across town to maximum efficiency. CATI solutions, powered by Survent, come equipped with the ability to add or decrease stations as needed. Adding the Survox Dialer and CFMC solutions can significantly decrease the investment and time required to adapt to new opportunities. These solutions are available on a subscription license basis or as a hosted service. The Survox Dialer can help phone survey operations be better prepared for the growth in returned calls from cell phone respondents with interactive voice response (IVR) and inbound/outbound call blending. Capturing and correctly routing inbound calls immediately can significantly improve the respondent experience and fill quotas faster. CATI technology enables the most creative survey research in the industry and gives you maximum control throughout your project from building sample, through fielding, and all the way to analysis and reporting. Integrated dialer: CATI reaches new heights of efficiency when paired with the Survox Dialer Predictive dialer support for a variety of vendors Up to 10 million sample records Up to 1 million questions per survey Browser and terminal modes available Manage interviewers working remotely as if they were in your call center SAMPLE CONTROL PROJECT SET UP 24 time zones Up to 960 markets (grouped calling areas) Replicate grouping and treating segments differently based on Pre determined rules Elaborate dialing algorithms can be used Do not call list include and control for numbers on a DNC in real time Duplicate records can be allowed or disallowed for up to three control fields, e.g., phone #, business name, last name Easily pass data to and from sample sets WHILE STUDIES ARE LIVE While a study is live supervisors may: Add numbers Change quotas Move numbers from any calling stack and into another stack Assign numbers to a special interviewer type Retire numbers Remake numbers as if calling them for the first time Prioritize pick any set of numbers to call right now While a study is live, the study server will automatically retire sample records when a quota group is full. CFMC.COM Copyright 2015 All rights reserved Page 5 of 16

7 CALL CENTER MANAGEMENT OPERATIONAL REPORTING Automated production reports Robust sample reports Quota and disposition reports On demand reporting Verbatim reports Report on hits, starts, failed access types SUPERVISORS Interviewers can be assigned special abilities for refusal conversion or foreign language surveys Control operations with visibility into real time quota attainment, sample consumption & availability plus interviewer productivity metrics: start time, time on call, total time on calls. Manage sample assignments by the hour to improve hit rates in each time zone. INTERVIEWERS CALL BACK MANAGEMENT Interviews may be suspended and scheduled for return calls at a time specified by the respondent. There are over 20 ways to handle call back appointments, such as maximum # of attempts, time of day, minimum number of no answer statuses, time zones. An interview record may be owned by a single interviewer for a consistent respondent experience. DISTRIBUTED OPERATIONS Interviewers may be anywhere with Internet and phone access in house, home based, outsourced Permission based access enables subcontracting and restricted access. All interviewers can be monitored for quality assurance from a central location PREDICTIVE/POWER SURVOX DIALER OPTIONAL Up to 400 channels per dialer for either live interviewing or IVR surveys Multiple CFMC study servers IVR: Create/record, broadcast and unattended Audio & visual monitoring: Simultaneous audio and visual monitoring of an interviewer by on site personnel or remote clients Dialing reports: Interviewer productivity, phone, and sample reports Dialer dashboard: Monitor interviewers and connection rates through the Survox Console across all loaded studies, projects or campaigns Sound playback: Play a pre recorded snippet in interviews Audio recording: Two simultaneous recording modes: Whole interview and/or responses to specific questions, combined questions and answers, or separated recordings to simplify transcription & text analysis. Answering machine detection CFMC.COM Copyright 2015 All rights reserved Page 6 of 16

8 INTEGRATED IVR WORKFLOW INCREASES CALL CENTER PRODUCTIVITY INBOUND & OUTBOUND CALL BLENDING Operational innovations can enable call centers to increase productivity, obtain quota completes faster, and improve caller retention. These capabilities are particularly critical due to the rapid growth of cell phones. Callback rates from cell phone users are about 10 times higher than with land lines. This growth accelerates the need to immediately answer and route those calls to the appropriate interviewers. The Survox Dialer, combined with the Survent Platform, can automate blending of inbound and outbound calls, using interactive voice response (IVR) to address the challenge of managing callbacks quickly and efficiently. The inbound and outbound call blending capability enables callbacks from respondents to be answered immediately. Automation blends inbound calls into outbound queues, removing the need for dedicated staff to field inbound calls. Workflow handles respondent identification, routes call transfers, and manages wait time to trigger actions that maximize caller retention. Interviewing capacity increases by using IVR to screen, schedule, or conduct an interview. IVR provides many of the benefits of phone based data collection without the labor costs associated with live interviewers. IVR improves call center flexibility, enabling call centers to grow business and scale beyond the number of interviewers available. Many companies are using IVR to capture post transaction feedback. Respondents can click to call into a survey quickly, easily, and cost effectively. In addition IVR removes any concern about interviewer bias. CFMC.COM Copyright 2015 All rights reserved Page 7 of 16

9 MULTI MODE SURVEY DESIGN AIDS RESEARCH INNOVATION & IMPROVES USER EXPERIENCE Surveys can be designed that allow respondents to choose the mode for responding to the survey by selecting online, IVR, or phone. A survey can also be designed to span more than one mode, which gives respondents a choice in the mode they want to use to provide feedback. For example, a retailer can provide a URL on a receipt and an 800 number to call for feedback. Screening questions can be conducted by IVR before transferring to an interviewer. Respondents can transfer from the interviewer to IVR to record sensitive information or to quickly gather post survey feedback. Survox solutions give research operations the flexibility to tailor the data collection strategy to each study s needs. SCALABLE, STABLE, SECURE HOSTED SOLUTION CFMC s hosted Application Service Provider (ASP) solutions enable you to focus on the operational and data collection aspects of running a multi national data collection operation without the need to invest in and manage the infrastructure and staffing required to maintain this mission critical system. With a central CFMC hosted installation, all of your interviewers may connect, via web browser, to a central hosted installation of Survent. The Survox Console and Survox Phone for CATI and IVR will manage the interviewer interface for you. A limited number of programmers may also be provided access via a VPN tunnel for conducting advanced Survent activities at the command line. APPLICATION MANAGEMENT & HOSTING SERVICES Our ASP services require a one year minimum contract and provide a secure and stable environment, maintained and supported by experts in CFMC software. Standard with all CFMC Application Service Provider solutions are: Secure hosting facilities. CFMC ASP services are hosted in our Sacramento, California, co location facility which is SSAE, No. 16 certified, and equipped with redundant power and Internet. CFMC also monitors all crucial processes, protects against electronic intrusion and regularly runs penetration tests. Combined, we promise and deliver 99.9% uptime. Full backups weekly. Incremental backups nightly. Proactive maintenance and updates of CFMC software, O/S and supporting software packages. Ability to archive to customer locations. VPN connectivity. Command line access and access via Survox Console Options include: Hosted dialing and IVR N+1 redundancy Offsite backup CFMC.COM Copyright 2015 All rights reserved Page 8 of 16

10 24X7 SERVICE CENTER The CFMC Service Center, is our customer service site for support, product, billing and service related issues, as well as new requests. This easy to use help desk enables you to track the progress of your tickets. The center also has a knowledgebase of popular self help articles available, so you may find an answer to your question quickly without even needing to submit a ticket. Clients are asked to identify the individuals in their company who will be the CFMC Administrators. The CFMC Administrators are authorized to request support and will be given a login to the Service Center. All issues should be routed through your CFMC Administrators to speed troubleshooting and resolution. We have highly experienced practitioners, with an average of 15 years of CFMC experience. They work closely with R&D, understand the technology, and are expert troubleshooters. They are all working for you. These dedicated individuals are the reason why customers tell us that CFMC is the home of Nonstop Support. 24x7 Service Center and Knowledgebase located online at CFMC.force.com. Live Support: If you need additional assistance, contact us at: Support staff members are available from 05:00 PT to 18:00 PT (08:00 ET to 21:00 ET). Support Hotline: For urgent support needs after standard business hours, call our hotline at If your call is not immediately answered, please leave a detailed message for the next available technician. ONBOARDING SERVICES Once your installation is in place and tested by CFMC Support and Operations personnel, our professional services team will assist you in getting up to speed and becoming operational. TRAINING We recommend a Train the Trainer approach. CFMC will provide your in house leads (the Trainers) with a tailored training designed to provide them with basic proficiency in Survox solutions and the Survent multi mode survey management platform. A key part of the recommended training program is use of the Survox Console for management of interviewers, sample and projects. These sessions, conducted remotely, are recommended especially for supervisors, project managers and programmers. Advanced best practice training is also available. CFMC.COM Copyright 2015 All rights reserved Page 9 of 16

11 TRANSITION SERVICES CFMC s Client Services employs only experienced CFMC programmers and project managers. Call Center operations that are new to Survent and Survox often rely on the Services team to ensure their first projects are set up and tested properly prior to going to field. CFMC s Client Services team may be engaged to provide these services. Review and make necessary updates to custom solutions including reporting and Quality Assurance tools. Migrate existing studies to Survox. Work with your internal development team to create customized workflows. Review code, processes, and procedures with your internal development and operations teams as part of overall transition and training initiative. Provide dedicated support during roll out period from development to the full go live period A discovery meeting(s) will be required to understand the overall scope and nature of the migration requirements. The findings will facilitate the development of a task outline and generate the SOWs. CFMC s Client Services team will work with your team during the transition. This will provide some on the job training and an opportunity to review current code and processes for any desired changes. After development and testing, on the day of migration to production, CFMC personnel can be onsite or remote to assist in a transition and testing day and to help assure that your study can go live. If any issues are identified you have a dedicated resource to address them. Utilizing these services is especially beneficial in that they start your operation with optimized, best practice surveys so that you can both start interviewing right away AND use the optimized scripts for future projects. SURVOX from CFMC WHEN QUOTA MATTERS Survox phone based data collection solutions and services empower market research and opinion polling organizations to field studies with precise quota requirements, incorporate complex survey designs, and meet timesensitive data collection processes. The Survent platform enables sample management, survey call center optimization, operational reporting and client data preparation across a mix of data collection modes phone, web, Interactive Voice Response (IVR), mobile and heterogeneous vendor solutions. The Survox predictive dialer and IVR capabilities empower users to build highly flexible operations that cater to respondent preferences while ensuring project completion in the shortest time and optimal cost. Survent and Survox are Registered Trademarks of CFMC CFMC.COM Copyright 2015 All rights reserved Page 10 of 16

12 EXHIBITS & APPENDICES APPENDIX A Sample Management Use Cases APPENDIX B Mixed Vendor Survox Multi Mode Solution CFMC.COM Copyright 2015 All rights reserved Page 11 of 16

13 APPENDIX A SAMPLE MANAGEMENT USE CASES Challenge: An OEM or retail franchise needs insight about customers serviced by a dealer or franchisee There are a variety of franchise or N Tier distribution models where the original equipment manufacturer (e.g., a car manufacturer) does not own the customer relationship. The stores/dealers own the customer relationship. The OEM needs to survey customers to get feedback on products and check the quality of the dealer service. Based on the results of the survey, the OEM can understand preferences and build a compelling ROI case to convince the dealer to stock more of a particular product, promote a certain service, and so on. In the case of the store retailer, the franchise owner wants customer information about an existing store that has joined the franchise. Methodology: On the fly quota extensions The OEM may have information related to existing dealerships, but what happens when a new store or dealership is added? With Survent, the OEM or franchise company can create on the fly quota extensions to address new stores/locations that are added without requiring a new set up. This provides dynamic quotas so there is no need to pre declare cells that are related to stores/locations that are added. The stores are identified by a quota cell. This identification enables stores, dealerships, or other entities to become part of the quota structure without requiring manual intervention. Methodology: Tiered quotas This involves setting study level quotas and then sublevel quotas that also have to be met (i.e. two or more levels of quota setting). For example, assume that you need 100 completes and you re surveying four stores in different regions. At the macro level of this tier, you might have a target of 100 completes. However, at the micro level any store can get up to 30 completes before you stop surveying the store in that region. So, in this design approach, your subquotas (or tiered quotas) add up to more than the total, but act as stoppers to prevent disproportionate sampling. CFMC.COM Copyright 2015 All rights reserved Page 12 of 16

14 Challenge: Public opinion research that requires information from targeted groups in very specific geographic areas Demographics matter and this is particularly important with political polling to ensure that a study delivers a representative sample of respondents with very specific criteria related to age, gender, address, etc. The need is to capture address based sampling to deliver insights from specific geographic areas and ensure that quotas are met based on the other requirements. Methodology: Precise quota management of demographics This might involve starting a survey online to reduce costs and then moving to onphone with Interactive Voice Response (IVR) to ensure you get the appropriate level of completes. For example, you can pre process the rules to get feedback from a targeted group in a specific precinct. When the target group is filled, the dialer will stop dialing people in that precinct because it will automatically know that the quota is full. Challenge: A consumer beverage company wants analysis on usage and preferences of several beverages. The company needs balanced insights into how different groups of people respond to certain beverages based on their gender and age. This company needs to collect representative data sets to identify product usage and preferences for four beverages and must have an equal number of survey completes per product within a tight timeframe. The challenge is that the various beverages have significantly disproportionate market penetration, so it is important to avoid losing low incidence respondents and to maintain a balanced number of completes. Methodologies Leveraged: Least filled Bucket and Greatest Need There are two approaches to consider for this scenario: addressing the least filled bucket and fulfilling the greatest need. If the survey results indicate that one of the areas is not getting sufficient completes, then the least filled bucket rules apply. This involves setting quota rules for the balance of respondents and how their quota is complete relative to one another. For example, each quota has to be kept in balance with the others so that they all maintain consistent completion states. The system can be set up so that the leastfilled bucket is identified and the sample is managed to focus on filling that bucket. Looking at the same scenario, assume that it s more important to address the greatest need. You should be able to calculate which quota has the greatest unmet need and focus on reducing that need by adding more respondents there instead of into other quota cells. CFMC.COM Copyright 2015 All rights reserved Page 13 of 16

15 Challenge: A political strategist needs early insight into public opinion before finalizing a candidate s position. Every night the political strategist meets with the candidate to go over her positions and prioritize campaign activity. The campaign is conducting a poll about several regional issues. The poll is set to run for one more week but decisions are being made hourly. The strategist and candidate need timely information from a representative sample to craft or refine policies and make effective decisions. The challenge is that demographics really matter. The pollster must manage the data collection process in a way that collects responses from a representative sample each day. Methodology Leveraged: Replicates Use a real time sample management approach that combines data collection with quota management. ACTIVELY MANAGE SAMPLE Pre process before the sample hits the dialer. Use markets and quotas for complex schemes. MONITOR QUOTA ATTAINMENT Direct the data collection operations to focus on under quota areas. Implement rules for dialing. Use Integrated Voice Response (IVR) for initial screening to optimize use of labor. Provide predictive and targeted dialing. TAKE CORRECTIVE ACTION Make dynamic adjustments on the fly. Add new sample to the live study as needed to hit daily targets. DELIVER DAILY INSIGHT Collect data each day from respondents who are uniformly distributed in the same way the completed study respondents are distributed. Early insights align with final analysis to give decision makers more information and time to take action. Results: The campaign gained early insight from the results that started to come in daily. Since each batch was representative of the voter profiles, the campaign was confident of the quality of the analysis and trends that were emerging. CFMC.COM Copyright 2015 All rights reserved Page 14 of 16

16 APPENDIX B MIXED VENDOR SURVOX MULTI MODE SOLUTION Research organizations can now build data collection processes that span technologies without incurring the high costs of system incompatibility and data aggregation. Survey designers can now use one tool for survey authoring, a mix of technologies for data collection, and a choice of data analysis and visualization solutions. Today s integration approaches free up each operation to choose the right tool for each function. The Survox Phone solution can be integrated with online survey platforms from third party vendors. Here the online survey becomes the phone interview script where it can be designed to present different introductions, additional instructions, or even different questions all depending on mode. One survey can be used for web, IVR, and phone interviewing. While the online survey system powers the response data collection, the Survox system is managing the flow of sample through the process to accelerate quota completion. The Sample Manager controls which phone numbers go to the dialer, taking into account time zones, markets, and quota completion rates. The call center supervisors use the Interviewer Manager to maximize interviewer productivity. Operational reporting at the shift, study and site level are all available to call center managers. CFMC.COM Copyright 2015 All rights reserved Page 15 of 16