Analyst Perspectives

ResponseTek is a well-established player in the marketing and customer feedback markets. It has four products that cover market research, customer feedback, knowledge management and media monitoring,  that enable companies to capture comments made on public sites, typically social media-based. Its customer feedback products support creation, collection and analysis of feedback through multiple channels, as I have noted, including mobile devices. ResponseTek has now taken its support for mobile one step further with the recent announcement of a mobile app.

Much is being written about mobile access, with a focus on the BYOD debate, which I think detracts from some exciting new developments that can deliver real business benefit to companies and, indeed, consumers. On the consumer front, people are spending more and more time on their mobile devices, largely looking at email or accessing social media. However, as consumers get more familiar with their devices and mobile apps, they are increasingly using them to transact business (pay bills, buy tickets and others) and provide feedback to companies. In fact customer satisfaction scores and information is most important customer metric according to 71 percent of organization in our customer feedback management benchmark research. In addition, they now want to use their devices, or ones provided by their employer, to carry out their daily work tasks, and this is the focus of ResponseTek Mobile. Many companies now have a mobile workforce – for example, sales and field service – and many more employees want to work away from their desktops. Not only does ResponseTek Mobile give those workers remote access to the main applications via a browser, but it also allows users to see information and carry out certain tasks within the app.

The app is available from Apple App Store or Google Play Store. Once the user has been verified using a secure logon page, it uses the same user account details that have been set up in the main application, so the information displayed can be customized for each user. Like many of the apps from business intelligence and analytics software vendors, ResponseTek Mobile provides instant access to a real-time dashboard of key metrics and visualization of trends for defined metrics. However, the ResponseTek reporting capabilities extend beyond metrics and can be set up so users are notified of newly completed surveys in areas they are interested in. They also provide a view into completed surveys and can drill down into specific surveys. These in-depth views can contain customer information, which allows the user to take immediate action if the survey indicates there is reason to do so.

Our benchmark research on business technology innovation shows that while analytics is the highest priority for companies, mobility is of growing importance. Other benchmark research shows this growth in demand for mobile capabilities as well. Accessing dashboards and analytics from smart mobile devices is a high priority today, as we all work in a world that is time-deficient and where more tasks need to be carried out in real time. This is particularly true in the customer experience management space, as consumers now expect answers in real time, and if they don’t get those answers they are not shy about letting their feelings be known – in real time. ResponseTek Mobile gives mobile workers access to some of this feedback, helping companies be more responsive and potentially head off damage to brand or reputation. Used in combination with ResponseTek’s core product capabilities, it is an extension companies should consider carefully to get faster insight to customer interactions and their feedback.

Regards,

Richard J. Snow

VP & Research Director