Do You Know What Your Customers Really Want?

Situation:

Barra has a series of financial analysis tools used by professional portfolio managers and corporate treasurers to assess risk. To make strategic decisions about their next path moving forward, the company wanted to understand its customers’ needs more deeply as an important component of their business planning.

Solution:

Barra wanted to collect customer data in a way that would get a high response rate, be simple for customers to use, and provide a process that customers would trust for confidentiality and responsiveness.  Barra used us because a third party would provide the credibility they were looking for.  And we had already developed a questionnaire – called LEADER.

LEADER is a self-norming questionnaire that asks customers — what’s Desired and what do you Actually get. The LEADER reports provided Barra with: (1) customers’ priorities and (2) Barra’s level of customer service against these priorities.

Results:

Barra used this information to plan for product enhancements, and to organize and coach the customer service department. Barra has subsequently merged with other financial analysis organizations and maintains its position as a leader in risk analysis.