The Seapine View

An article in the August 12^th edition of the WSJ (“Ford Vows to Build Higher-Quality Small Cars”) noted that “The Dearborn, Mich., company promised… that its new compact and subcompact vehicles – due out in 2010 – will beat the industry average when it comes to quality.” The company’s goal is to “keep the number of quality problems – known in the industry as “things gone wrong” – at 800 per 1,000 vehicles.” I’ll have to admit that my family, including my three children, own five Toyota’s and that Ford would have an uphill battle to capture our attention at this point. How about you? Is it too late for Ford? 

Has your company recently taken a vow to higher-quality? From the very beginning of understanding your customer’s needs, wants and desires through the development of customer loyalty you’ll find that quality can create a competitive advantage. Attracting new customers, expanding current relationships through cross selling and finally, retention, these are the drivers that represent revenue growth and research shows that quality impacts all three of those drivers.

The technology industry is no exception. Poor software quality (things gone wrong) – better known as “bugs” in the software industry, impact the top line, bottom line, and everything in-between; including the customer experience. In February Seapine Software introduced 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, automation, and change. Nearly 1,000 individuals have now 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 are:

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

The take away here is that you should not be placing your quality vows on hold because there is a high probability that your competition is moving full steam ahead.

If you would like to learn more about our research results just click on the following:

Seapine QRA Explained

This presentation takes about 13 minutes. As the VP of Marketing, and under full disclosure, I’ll tell you upfront that about 90% of the deck covers our QRA research results – and 10% highlights Seapine Software. So, feel free to filter through the shameless self-promotion elements!

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.

“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.”

This expression means that it is better to try to avoid problems in the first place, rather than trying to fix them once they arise.  If that is so, and I do believe this homily is accurate, then “an ounce of prevention against poor software quality is worth a pound of customer loyalty, and a ton of corporate profits!”

How so?  Well, Seapine Software has now surveyed nearly one thousand software development and QA individuals through our Seapine Software Quality-Ready Assessment and found that 20% of organizations have limited ability to trace software development artifacts and that 19% of organizations do not track project data electronically.  The survey also uncovered that if software organizations release once per year that 34% of those organizations are only on-time and within budget once every four years.  Ouch!  What actions should they be taking to guard against poor software quality?  To find out take a look at our most recent QRA Fast Facts white paper: http://downloads.seapine.com/pub/papers/QRAFastFactsTrack.pdf

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.