The Seapine View

The April 2008 issue of Quirk’s Marketing Research Review noted that research company Harris Interactive conducted an online survey to learn if having a tattoo made people feel or act differently.  The article was interesting to me because my father was 18 years old and serving in the USMC during the Korean Conflict when he was tattooed.  The motto permanently inked into his skin boldly reads “Death before Dishonor.”  If you’re an old school Marine you understand the meaning; otherwise you might think he supports the Boston hard core punk band that now uses that motto for their name.  Just kidding, it would be difficult to associate a Marine from the 1950′s with today’s punk band scene. 

The word “tattoo” is a borrowing of the Samoan word tatau, meaning to mark.  Today, people choose to be marked for several reasons, and often to symbolize their belonging to or identification with a particular group.   In some respects your brand is like a tattoo.  More than just a logo, symbol or slogan though; a brand conveys to consumers a strong, positive sense of a product, its promised value, and why it’s different and better than the competition.  As a marketer you’d probably like your brand tattooed over your customers’ heart.  So, when it comes to “quality branding” – which centers on delivering a quality customer experience in order to build a quality brand – are you using permanent ink or temporary tattoos that only last a few days? 

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 600 respondents rated their software quality initiatives as high or one of their top priorities.  Those initiatives are likely to be marked with permanent ink so to speak.

However; it also appears that many companies are still not committed to quality branding.  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.

Quality, like branding must be a core business function, and it needs to be permanently inked into the skin of the entire organization to create a sustainable quality-advantage.

Did you happen to see the front cover of the April 7^th copy of “InformationWeek?”  The picture was related to the article “The end run around IT – and how CIO’s can prevent it” by John Soat.  Of all the executive level positions to choose from, why was “Marketing” pictured as the player making the sweeping end run in the OPPOSITE direction of the CIO?

Well, marketing automation, marketing optimization, marketing resource management, BI / customer profitability projects, SEM, and social networking initiatives (just to name a few) do provide plenty of technology situations in which it might be tempting to bypass my CIO and ask for forgiveness later.  On the other hand, I prefer a play book in which the CMO and CIO are leading the charge together with power sweeps.  Let me explain; at USC, opponents are often fed a healthy diet of the Trojans’ famed “student body left” and “student body right” toss sweeps. Hordes of very large sized linemen lead fleet tailbacks left or right with regularity for healthy gains.  In a like manner, I’ve found my marketing strategy is more likely to produce healthy gains when I keep my IT organization in tight, leading the charge with me.

With that said, how about your development and QA organizations?  Are they in tight leading the power quality sweep for competitive gains that result in customer loyalty and healthy profitability?  Or does it sometimes look like end runs heading in opposite directions?

The Seapine Software Quality-Ready Assessment (www.seapine.com/qualityready) asked the following key question:  How well do your development and QA teams collaborate? To date we’ve had nearly 600 responses to our survey, and the results are very interesting. The answers follow:

1. Regularly scheduled meetings keep the development and QA teams up-to-date.  29%
2. All team members stay informed of each other’s tasks and progress through automatic assignments, email notifications, and RSS feeds.  24%
3. The QA manager is informed when development is completed.  18%
4. The teams do not interact. New builds are “thrown over the wall” when they are completed.  16%
5. Development teams track their status in a spreadsheet, which the QA team can access to check the project status.  13%

At a glance it appears about half of those who have taken the survey are facing 3^rd and long situations.  By that I mean there isn’t tight collaboration between development and QA capable of producing a sustainable competitive quality-drive.  For your marketing and sales counterparts that’s disappointing news because the odds are low that they’ll be able to provide the Hail Mary pass capable of keeping your customer relationship drive alive.  No matter how you try to spin it – poor quality is a tough sell, especially in the red zone.

Does your software development and QA strategy clearly support your customer relationship strategy?  Feel free to take my polling question (to the right) and let’s see how many power sweeps are in play.

The April 2008 copy of QP magazine pays homage to Joseph M. Juran. In 1951, the first edition of Dr. Juran’s “Quality Control Handbook” was published establishing his reputation as an authority on quality.

Dr. Juan’s take on quality control: “For quality in the sense of freedom from deficiencies, the long-range goal is perfection.”

Quality to Dr. Juan also involved the human experience. So, is there such a thing as the perfect customer experience? Well, we’d like to set that standard. In fact, Seapine Software recently joined the ASQ as a sustaining member bringing additional substance behind our commitment.

How about your company? What kind of standard would you like to set? Juran’s take on standards: “Without a standard, there is no logical basis for making a decision or taking action.”

Top flight customer support can create a sustainable competitive advantage for company’s that are able to deliver the right customer care.  Delivering superior customer support may sound easy; however, it’s not.  In fact, according to a survey by Harris Interactive and RightNow Technologies 85% of consumers say they’ve sworn, shouted, cried, smashed things, or experienced chest pains while waiting for help on tech-support call lines.  In other words, many support organizations are not doing it right.       

In my marketing role at Seapine I’m very thankful to have a world-class support organization standing behind our brand.  The Seapine Customer Support organization is staffed by individuals who are truly customer-focused, and their efforts positively impact our customers.  That impact was recently reflected in our March customer satisfaction surveys.  The attached is an amusing and fun message that originally went out only to Seapine employees.  I’m going to take a chance and share it with you:

You’re invited to view a short presentation titled Seapine Software Customer Support:

http://www.brainshark.com/seapine/Great_Customer_Support

OK, OK …my impersonation of Harry Caray isn’t world-class, but now you know why I’m excited about our customer support.  Great support is part of a quality customer experience.

Got HAL? I was reminded this week of an old story that once surfaced about the Heuristically programmed Algorithmic Computer (HAL) in the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

The story suggests that HAL was so-named to indicate that he was one step ahead of IBM. Alphabetically “H” “A” “L” precede “I” “B” “M” by one letter. The author of 2001, Arthur C. Clarke denies this legend in his book “Lost Worlds of 2001.”

All the same; doesn’t it feel good to be one step ahead? Many organizations look for high powered analytics to provide that extra step; but that may not always work because in the customers’ algorithm, quality is often the most important matter.

If your product – or service reflects poor quality, no amount of spin, marketing or branding will fix it. If your goal is to build a high-performance brand through a differentiated customer experience you may need a new way of thinking, and a new discipline for getting things done.

In the book “Execution” by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan the authors point out that a business’ culture defines what gets appreciated, respected, and ultimately rewarded. And the culture of an organization is the sum of its shared values, beliefs, and norms of behavior.

In short, to deliver a differentiated customer experience you may need to start with your organization’s ingrained beliefs concerning the customer experience and how to perfect the execution of your customer strategy through quality improvement initiatives.

Not long ago one of my marketing students asked “Will it play in Peoria?”  I don’t often hear that question anymore, but every now and then it surfaces.  If you have experience in marketing you may remember the real story behind that famous query.  You see, during the heyday of American vaudeville, the answer to that question determined whether a show would be a hit or a flop. The thinking was that if the show wasn’t acceptable to those in the heart of America’s heartland, there was no chance it would make it anywhere else in the country.  If it didn’t receive a strong approval, one of two things usually happened: The show was rewritten, or it was canceled. Later, the question was adopted by marketers as an informal phrase to stress the importance of making sure that your product or service addresses the needs and desires of your targeted market.

Interesting story Alan – but what’s your point?  Well, we recently asked the question; “Will Seapine play in Munich?”  And the answer is YES!  In fact, Seapine has acquired the business from QA Systems GmbH, a German company that has, over the past five years, distributed Seapine products. The German subsidiary will be called Seapine Software Europe GmbH, and the Munich office will be headed by Robert Riccetti, business development manager for Europe.  Building customer loyalty through quality is a long-term commitment and the establishment of Seapine Software Europe GmbH reaffirms our commitment to provide a quality customer experience for our customer base in Germany.

Trade shows and conferences can be effective vehicles for software vendors to both connect with and listen to customers.  In fact, if you attended the 2008 Game Developers Conference or SD West I hope you visited our booth and gave us the opportunity to meet you.  As we look to the future, our goal is to provide even more opportunities and channels to both listen to and connect with you – our valued software user community.  We’d also like to provide an easy way for you to network with more than just the handful of Seapine employees who attend conferences.

So, in the spirit of both connecting and networking, we invite you to join the new Seapine Software User Group on LinkedIn and/or Facebook. This action represents our initial move to both leverage the emerging power of social networks, and the beginning phase of building a formal Seapine Software User Group. Our user group efforts will start with these social networks, and gradually connect to a formal Seapine Software User Group site that we will host. In the longer term we will also organize traditional face-to-face user group meetings – starting off with regional road shows.

You may have a few questions. For example ***

1. Do I have to join LinkedIn and/or Facebook to be part of this new communications network?

2. If I do join will I get spam?

3. How does this impact the Seapine “User Forums” and support processes on Seapine.com?

The short answers ***

1. Yes. You do need a LinkedIn profile and/or Facebook profile to join a group that is associated with a social networking site.

2. No, spam has not been an issue.

3. No changes concerning customer service and support.  The purpose of these groups is not to work around the Seapine customer service processes or procedures. If you need technical support you should continue the established process which is to email your issue to support@seapine.com or call the support phone number for your region.

Like many of you we’re still learning a few things about social networks – like how to use them for the best possible customer experience.  With that in mind let me share our social networking group charter:

A LinkedIn / Facebook group for the Seapine Software User Group community. The purpose of the Seapine Software User Group is to open and expand conversation among Seapine’s associates and our colleagues using Seapine’s application lifecycle management (ALM) solutions. Opportunities to learn about and share resources related to Seapine applications as well as ALM in general will provide additional professional development benefits.

Following are the links to join LinkedIn and Facebook:

LinkedIn:

http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/57703/093D49724592

Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=8301473755

These groups are by invitation only.  So, if you decide to join simply click the link and provide your name, company, and the Seapine applications you are using so that we can verify your Seapine customer status.

I hope to see you in the groups.  If you have questions feel free to send me an email (seea@seapine.com).

In Search of Failure.  That’s the title of chapter seven in Frederick Reichheld’s book “The Loyalty Effect” (©1996).  In that chapter Reichheld points out that an investor who built a stock portfolio out of the companies profiled in the book “In Search of Excellence” (Peters and Waterman ©1982) would have seen their returns trounced by the mediocre performance of the S&P index during the ten year period following the books 1982 publication.  In fact, by time Reichheld’s book came out in 1996 only one-fifth of the original companies profiled as “excellent” had remained excellent.

If success breeds success, how in the “quest for benchmarking best practices” did those companies lose their lofty status?  In Reichheld’s opinion what really helps us to achieve excellence is actually the study of failure.  It’s not exactly in our nature to seek out failure though; in fact, your career is probably linked to success, which means that getting too close to failure may feel threatening.  However, most people will admit that mistakes are often better teachers than success.  In fact, QA experts will attest that when one component fails, it can cast a spotlight on the workings of an entire program.

The analysis of failure is not that easy; but when the analysis leads to sustained quality the pay-off is big.  In the Profit Impact of Marketing Strategy (PIMS) project the researchers (Buzzell and Gale, 1987) reported that the profitability of a business is affected by 37 basic factors. Based on analysis of information available in the PIMS database, Buzzell and Gale hypothesized that in the long run, the most important single factor affecting a business unit’s performance is the quality of its products and services relative to those of competitors.

The trick is to set up a process and system to track, test, analyze, and address potential issues, defects or problems before they negatively impact profitability.  In many ways quality and value are interlocked.  Customer value proposition models are based on the idea that customers with different needs require different experiences and different value propositions if the relationship between the customer and company is to be mutually beneficial.  And no value proposition will succeed in delivering profit to a company unless the customer perceives the product (or service) as meeting their needs best.

Recently we released the early results from our Seapine Software Quality-Ready Assessment, a survey that evaluates key indicators of quality within software development organizations. After collecting data from over 300 respondents, the results indicate that the top two factors driving development organizations to focus on ALM solutions are:

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

Software quality and reliability are lifelines to customer loyalty, and profitability.  Yet development organizations still struggle to achieve quality and deliver their products on time and within budget.  Survey results indicate that more than one third of companies completed their application development on time and within budget less than 75 percent of the time.  The survey also indicates that 70 percent of the companies are undertaking one of following actions to improve the quality of their software development:

• Clearly defining quality metrics
• Undertaking pilot projects or proof-of-concepts pertaining to software development quality
• Seeking executive sponsorship for software development quality improvements

The respondents represent companies of every size. Sixty-nine percent are small companies (less than $250M in revenue), 22 percent are mid-size ($250M – $2.5B), and nine percent are large. The leading industries represented include high tech (32%), financial services (16%), consumer products/retail (9%), and telecommunications (8%).

Software development and QA organizations can complete the assessment on-line (www.seapine.com/qualityready).  Once the initial benchmarking data has been tabulated I’ll let you know how various organizations (by revenue and industry) compare.

In the early 80’s I was a marketing director for a small oil field service company located in Abilene, Texas.  It was electrifying to be on location when a wildcatter hit oil.  If investors happened to be on-site during the discovery they would literally break out the champagne bottles.  If the driller hit water and the well started pumping mud the show was over.  The only thing that can be done at that point is to plug the well, tear down the drilling rig, and move to the next location.  It seems fitting that during that early 80’s oil boom the developers at Texas Instruments would borrow oil field jargon to describe one of their error messages:

“SHUT ’ER DOWN, CLANCY, SHE’S PUMPING MUD”

Of course when a phrase of that nature is associated with code instead of oil the reaction – and results, can be devastating.  High-risk is a given when it comes to oil exploration.  In fact, only about 40% of wells recently drilled find commercial hydrocarbons.  When it comes to software though, customers expect the applications they buy to work 100 percent of the time.  Software defects can cause serious business consequences that have the power to ruin a company’s reputation, and possibly “shut ’er down” forever.

Zero defects sounds unachievable, particularly during a time when products are so complex.  After all, aren’t software bugs just part of the feature set?  In truth, research shows that given the choice of higher cost, longer delivery time or poorer quality, customers will choose to protect quality.  That means development and QA organizations need to think like customers, and put aggressive quality programs in place to remain true to their customer-focused objectives.  A sustainable competitive advantage emerges when quality-centric business practices are put into place.  A focused discipline on service, quality, and reliability has proven to be a timeless strategy that both engages the customer, and builds loyalty.