Even though tracking studies are considered by many
organizations to be one of the most important research programs to conduct,
they may be wasting a lot of your research budget that could otherwise be spent
on more fruitful endeavors.
Tracking studies typically represent the largest portion of
an organization’s research budget, but sometimes they fall victim to a
condition of “status quo” in order to preserve historical trends which
represent significant investment by the organization. On the one hand, the
history that existing tracking studies may have represents a view of “from
where we’ve come” and offers the best empirical basis for the potential of
seeing into the future. Yet, on the other hand, revising, upgrading, or
downsizing tracking studies may, in fact, represent the best opportunity to
maintain the viability of an organization’s set of customer satisfaction
programs and initiatives that are designed to improve customers’ perceptions
and strengthen the ties that bind them to its products and services.
It is safe to assume that, over time, the importance of
various aspects of the relationship between an organization and its customers changes.
As such, the exact same set of the organization’s performance measures, i.e.,
key drivers of overall customer satisfaction, that have been tracked in
previous waves of research may no longer be valid. Indeed, the shelf life of
previously identified key drivers of satisfaction may have expired.
For example, take the case in which customer satisfaction
with a bank has been tracked for several years. Perhaps that tracker began with a key driver
study that was designed to identify, among all aspects of the banking relationship,
only those aspects that showed a significant (statistical) correlation with
overall satisfaction. Subsequently, it was only those key drivers that were
included in the tracking study – and that is the proper way to initiate a
tracking study. It may be that the initial key driver identification study did
not find that offering an app to be used to make peer-to-peer payments (e.g.,
Zelle, Venmo) had a strong relationship with overall satisfaction and customer
loyalty. But now, this particular aspect
may have a strong effect on overall customer satisfaction due to the recent
advent and proliferation of such technologies.
Proceeding along with an existing tracker, without tracking
on this particular aspect of a bank’s offerings, may be a major mistake. The
inherent benefit of tracking on key drivers of satisfaction is to initiate
programs, messages, and other organizational efforts to lift satisfaction over
time. Instead, the “same old tracker” may have the organization spending a lot
of money, but otherwise flying blindly.
In essence, it may be time to stop tracking on things that
have been heard in the past, and start fresh by listening to the new paths
pinpointed by key driver research to capture the hearts and minds of customers.
If you can hypothesize that the same old performance items that have been
tracked have changed in importance, it’s appropriate to test that hypothesis
empirically, with a new key driver identification study. If a new set of key
drivers emerge, it’s time to take a long, hard look at your existing tracker
and weigh the merits of this historical, trended data that are otherwise valued
so dearly.
