The Seapine View

I review a lot of UI design lately, and this is the thought that most often comes to mind:

“A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
    ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The prefix meta- is used to mean about its own category. For example, under the umbrella of business intelligence you often hear the term “metadata” which means data concerning data. For purposes of this short post, “metaquality” could be described as the process and operations through which quality assurance impacts the quality of the customer experience (quality concerning quality) through all phases of the customer lifecycle. Your customers generally move through a decision making process which opens the gate for multiple functional areas to have potential impact on the customer experience:

• Awareness and need identification
• Explore and qualify alternatives
• Solution discovery and evaluation
• Negotiation and purchase decision
• Implementation and post sales service
• After purchase acclimation and evaluation

At each strategic stage of the process, research & development, marketing, sales, services and finance will have various levels of influence on the quality of the overall customer experience; which means quality assurance during all phases of the customer lifecycle is critical. In the Seapine Software Quality-Ready Assessment we asked respondents: “What level of priority does your company currently assign to building quality into your software development environment?”  Nearly 65% of our over 900 respondents rated their software quality initiatives as high or one of their top priorities. However; it also appears that many companies are still not committed to quality improvement.  In other words, they are only paying lip service about quality, and as a result there is a discrepancy with how their customers view the relationship.  Consider the following statistics from the Cutter Consortium, an IT advisory firm.

• 32% of organizations say they release software with too many defects.
• 38% of organizations believe they lack an adequate software quality assurance program.
• 27% of organizations do not conduct any formal quality reviews.

The current combination of declining customer satisfaction levels and economic concerns is creating the perfect customer experience storm.  In this type of business climate those companies that focus on quality will be the ones that come out on top. That means a relentless and coordinated approach to quality improvement across all functional areas has never been more important.

This is a gentle reminder to all of you Software Test & Performance subscribers that the deadline to vote for TestTrack Pro and TestTrack TCM in the 2008 Testers Choice Awards is rapidly approaching.

Voting closes on July 30. You should have already received your online ballot from ST&P. Only current subscribers are eligible to vote.

The winners will be announced at the Fall 2008 Software Test & Performance Conference, September 24 – 26, 2008, in Boston.

One of the things I do is look at competitive products. I do this both to understand their strengths and weaknesses as well as our own. Looking at someone else’s solution to a similar problem can often give you a fresh perspective.

As I looked at several of these, a few trends showed up. The first is that security in other products seems to be left as an exercise for the customer. I’ve talked about that before. Another area where other products take a very different approach is around triggers and alerts. This is another part of an application that either isn’t shown in a demo, or if shown the trigger is already installed and working. The user sees that emails are being generated or actions are being triggered with an aside of “all this and more can be yours with just a little script writing.”

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“I think we’re in flight-to-quality mode,” said Michael Gross, broker and futures analyst with OptionSellers.com. His quote came from a recent article in the Wall Street Journal where he was referring to the fact that gold futures rose as the market bought the metal as a safe haven against troubled markets. Many software development organizations are also in a “flight-to-quality” mode as they focus on software quality as a safe haven in regards to their customer loyalty strategies.

Seapine Software recently released the quality-ready assessment. The QRA is a high-level evaluation tool that helps develop­ment organizations measure the state of their software quality-readiness in four key ALM competency areas. Those areas include tracking, testing, change, and automation. Nearly 1,000 individuals have already completed the QRA survey, and according to the results 65 percent of the respondents stated that building quality into their software was either a top or high priority. In addition, the survey found that the top two factors driving organizations to focus on application lifecycle management solutions are:

• The need to reduce risk by preventing poor quality from impacting customer satisfaction
• The need to quickly respond to customer requests and requirements

Customer loyalty is hard won, which means software companies cannot risk the release of a buggy product. Yet development organizations still struggle to achieve quality and deliver products on time and within budget as the research also indicates that more than one-third of companies completed their application development on time and within budget less than 75 percent of the time. If these organizations release once a year, that means they are only on time and within budget once every four years.

For more details on this important topic I recommend that you download and read “Identifying the Cost of Poor Quality.”

As a Macintosh user it’s easy to feel left out by cross platform application vendors. Microsoft is too easy a target (though I can’t miss the chance to say I use Entourage every day and it never ceases to make me angry), so I’ll pick on someone my own size. Seapine. Although we have a fully native (that means not Java, you cheaters. You know who you are) client and servers on Linux, Solaris, Mac and Windows we don’t always make them, well, native enough. Make all the command keys match common conventions on that platform. Take advantage of platform specific technology, or the latest UI craze.

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I serve as a member of the Advisory Council for CustomerThink.com.  CustomerThink is a global online community of business leaders who strive to create profitable customer-centric (CRM) business strategies.  The July CustomerThink editorial calendar focuses on the use of technology to power up customer management. In fact, the main focus is on how technology can help accelerate the success of customer-centric strategies. Customer feedback is critical to customer-centric strategies; if the truth be known, often times the feedback is not exactly good news. For example, software companies sometimes receive bug reports and feature requests from their customers. Yes, despite their best effort to ensure quality, a glitch in the software application may occur. And despite best efforts to really listen to their target market, there is always room for improvement, meaning feature requests.

Many times customers have to fill out a report form and either fax, mail, or email it to a technical support department where it is then hand-entered into the master bug database. This low-tech procedure provides no support for file attachments (for example – screen shots) and leaves room for communication error. In addition, the customer is not automatically notified that their issue has been added to future projects.

For ISV’s technology opportunities exist that allow for more effective and efficient beta programs and software releases. This technology allows customers to submit bug reports and feature requests directly into the issue management and defect tracking tool thus eliminating data entry errors and also saving data entry time. Are you likely to find these types of solutions under the normal CRM banner? No; but they are intended to keep your customer-focused strategy on track nevertheless.

Last year was a good year for Navy football fans. Wins over Army, Air Force and Notre Dame resulted in a bowl game, and 8 win 5 loss season.

Over thirty years ago as a Midshipman 4th class (Plebe) I pledged my loyalty to the Navy blue & gold no matter the record. Coaches will change, players will change, but my loyalty to Navy football will remain the same.

Loyalty created through an emotional bond (like the loyalty you feel toward your alma mater) is powerful. How can you build customer loyalty and form emotional bonds?

• Brand Quality: You need to start with a strong brand identity that your customers can identify with. Your brand must not only communicate a message, but also inform, motivate, and deliver as promised. The better your brand is at keeping its promises, the better your brand is at being trusted.
• Learning Relationships: Organizations that implement learning relationships are better able to understand and anticipate a customer’s unique needs. Learning organizations understand that CRM means listening to the customer to learn instead of talking to the customer to sell. Customers in a learning relationship experience a heightened sense of vendor awareness and are more likely to be loyal because their vendor “knows” them.
• Understand and Use technology to connect in positive collaborative ways: Customer connections that engender loyalty deliver a seamless experience across channels and touchpoints while demonstrating integrity and interest.
• Ensure and Empower: Ensure high quality customer interactions that demonstrate a caring attitude by empowering your employees to resolve problems. You can’t build loyalty if you don’t truly care about your customers.

• Great Service: Almost every customer has a technical / service support need at some point. Use support incidents as an opportunity to solidify relationships. By providing excellent service and quick resolution you can gain customer loyalty.
• One view of the company: Despite the desires of corporate managers, the customer ultimately controls the relationship. If the customer is in control, doesn’t he need a 360 degree view of the company? True customer relationship management is a process of making it easier for the customer to do business with you. That’s what builds loyalty and profit. Make it easy for your customer to do business with you.
• Layers: As SHREK might say… “customers have layers.” Relationships are built on trust and dialog. Give it time. Building genuine relationships with your customers takes time. Customer loyalty requires the care and commitment to take the time, invest the money, and have the patience to listen.
• Dynamic / Real-time processes: Building relationships takes time; however, instant gratification has been a feature of our everyday lives for a long time. Give your customers their rewards now, and keep your promises on time.