Why is Service Performance Benchmarking Important? (4 of 4)
by Service 800, Inc.

The four-week series includes the following articles:

• Why is Service Performance Benchmarking Important?
  
• What Makes a Good Benchmark?
  
• What are the Facts and Fallacies of Benchmarking?
  
• Is it Possible to Successfully Benchmark with Non-Competitors?

Is it Possible to Successfully Benchmark Against Non-Competitors?

At first, it may not seem logical to participate in a service performance benchmark with companies that are not your competitors. But, it does make sense and a good benchmark compares similar service providers in like industries, not just companies in the same market space.

Think about it…if you’re a developer of accounting software, you want to compare your service to other software companies, not just manufacturers of financial software. For example, the SSPA Benchmark Study includes several types of software manufacturers, from accounting to expense management to healthcare management. The common denominator—all participants provide software service and support.

Consider this scenario: It’s Saturday morning and you have three kids in the car and two, hopefully quick, errands to run. Your first stop is the local gas station for an oil change. The kids play happily in the “Junior Mechanic” fun room. As always, your wait is less than 20 minutes and the technician reminds you that your 30,000-mile service is due and your tires need rotating.

Your next stop is a nationwide tire retailer. You struggle to keep the kids in sight while you wait 10 minutes behind three other customers for the desk clerk to get off the phone. All the time, you can clearly see three or four other employees having coffee and chatting in the back room.

How would you rank the service of each provider?

In these examples, it doesn’t make sense for the tire retailer to compare its performance only against other nationwide tire companies. The services provided by the gas station and tire retailer are similar, so you can make valid and useful comparisons.

On the other hand, it isn’t in the best interest of the gas station or the tire company to compare their service performance to a chain of pizza stores. The measurement criteria for each market segment in that case is too different.

Next Week - Lawson Software: An SSPA ServiceMetric Benchmark Success Story.

To Contact Us — To discuss this topic, any other Benchmark Benefits article, or to provide topic suggestions, please contact Jan DeMatteo at jan@service800.com.

For More Information — For additional information about the SSPA SoftwareMetric Customer Satisfaction Benchmark, SERVICE 800, or other benchmark programs, visit www.service800.com/benchmarkprograms.asp.

About SERVICE 800
Founded in 1989, SERVICE 800 designs and administrators real-time customer satisfaction measurement programs, helping service organizations follow up with their customers within hours or days of service events. The company utilizes a distinctive follow up telephone interview process along with e-mail, web, and other survey techniques to measure customer satisfaction. With offices in Minneapolis and London, SERVICE 800 has been measuring customer satisfaction for corporations throughout the world for over a decade.