Ronni Marshak's Research

Planning a Theme Park Vacation around a Birthday

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Planning a vacation and event? See how well the Web sites for DisneyWorld, Six Flags, and Colonial Williamsburg help you achieve your goals. This test drive follows Mike as he attempts to book a vacation and birthday party at a theme park location.

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About Ronni Marshak.

I Want to Retire with Financial Security

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 14 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Customer scenarios fall into patterns. It‘s valuable to know these patterns ahead of time so that you’ll know what kinds of customer and operational metrics to elicit. Then you can focus on how to differentiate the experience, products, and services you offer to help customers reach their goals. This report focuses on the moments of truth and metrics in a typical outcome-based scenario of planning for retirement.

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About Ronni marshak.

Learning a New Skill “My Way”

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

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About Ronni Marshak.

Identifying and Measuring the Key Moments of Truth in Product/Service Upgrade Customer Scenario® Patterns

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Customer scenarios fall into patterns. It's valuable to know these patterns ahead of time so that you’ll know what kinds of customer and operational metrics to elicit. Then you can focus on how to differentiate the experience, products, and services you offer to help customers reach their goals. This report focuses on the moments of truth and metrics in a typical upgrade scenario.

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Tips for Interviewing Customers, Partners, and Stakeholders

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

In over 25 years of interviewing customers, we have some insights to share about what makes an interview valuable. This report provides tips and techniques on identifying who to interview, what questions to ask, how to analyze and communicate the results, and how to engage with customers you are interviewing.

Moving from Cost Cutting to Customer-Contributed Innovation at Mentor Graphics

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

In June 2008, Mentor Graphics began a customer innovation program called Mentor Ideas. The program allows customers to contribute product enhancement ideas and to vote and comment on each other’s suggestions. Built on WebStorm from BrightIdea.com, Mentor Ideas has had a direct impact on the enhancements that are being included in the current release of its PADS product line.

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Identifying and Measuring the Key Moments of Truth in Event Planning Customer Scenario Patterns

Ronni Marshak — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Customer scenarios fall into patterns. It’s valuable to know these patterns ahead of time so that you’ll know what kinds of customer and operational metrics to elicit. Then you can focus on how to differentiate the experience, products, and services you offer to help customers reach their goals. This report focuses on the moments of truth and metrics in a typical event-based event planning scenario.

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Making It as Easy to Return or Exchange a Product as It Is to Purchase One

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Customer scenarios fall into patterns. It's valuable to know these patterns ahead of time so that you'll know what kinds of customer and operational metrics to elicit. Then you can focus on how to differentiate the experience, products, and services you offer to help customers reach their goals. This report focuses on the moments of truth and metrics in a typical return/exchange/cancel scenario.

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Helping Customers Find and Purchase Your Products/Services

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Making It Easy to Buy More of Your Products

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

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When Something Is Wrong, Are You Really Making It Right for Customers?

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 15 May 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Customer scenarios fall into patterns. It's valuable to know these customer scenario patterns ahead of time so that you'll know what kinds of customer and operational metrics to elicit. Then you can focus on how to differentiate the experience, products, and services you offer to help customers reach their goals. This report focuses on the moments of truth and metrics in a typical break/fix scenario.

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Corporate Executive Board Responds to Customers’ Request for Increased Collaboration

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Corporate Executive Board's Compliance and Ethics Leadership Council respond to their members' desired for a collaborative environment for sharing information. Using BizWiki from CustomerVision, service members can contribute and share messages about compliance issues with peers from other member companies. Ronnie Kann, Program Director of the council talks about the collaboration efforts and how they have made it easy for customers to create and share content.

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TimeTrade Provides Automatic On-Demand Appointment Scheduling

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 00:00:00 GMT

TimeTrade puts the power to easily schedule appointments into the hands of customers. The enterprise TESA system allows organizations to publish availability schedules of resources based on complex and hierarchical rules. The newly-announced TimeDriver product line offers much simpler appointment scheduling for individual service providers and professionals.

Virtual Events from Unisfair

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 00:00:00 GMT

The Unisfair virtual event environment allows organizations to put on a multi-venue conference without the hassle and expense of travel for themselves or participants. By mimicking the activities and venues found at traditional professional conferences, trade shows, and job fairs, it is easy for participants to navigate the event, network with other attendees, and download any relevant information.

MedStar Health

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 00:00:00 GMT

MedStar Health uses solutions from healthcare solutions provider Kryptiq to provide seamless secure communications among medical staff and patients as well as to implement a pro-active health program. Our interview with Dr. Peter Basch of MedStar Health looks at how the organization will be using these solutions to improve it’s already award-winning health services.

I Need a New Car—Fast!

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 00:00:00 GMT

In this Test-drive report, we apply the Product Select and Buy Customer Scenario pattern and its “I want to find the product or service that best addresses my requirements” Moment of Truth to the online car buying scenario as our customer persona, Mia Driver, visits Vehix.com to find the right car for her family. Just how quick and easy is it for a car novice to research makes/models and locate just the right car on the site?

New Car Insurance for a Growing Family

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT

In this Test-drive report, we apply the Product Select and Buy Customer Scenario pattern and its “I want to find the product or service that best addresses my requirements” Moment of Truth to the online auto insurance business as our customer persona, Wanda Childs, visits geico.com and progressive.com to get quotes on her family “fleet” of vehicles. Just how quick and easy is it to get an online insurance quote from Geico and Progressive? Let’s see if the two auto insurers live up to their advertising promises.

Selecting a Mobile Phone Family Plan for a Family in Transition

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT

With his 18-year-old twins off to college, one in Canada, M.T. Nestor needs a new family mobile phone plan to keep the family connected. In this Test-drive report, we apply the Product Select and Buy Customer Scenario pattern and its “I want to find the product or service that best addresses my requirements” Moment of Truth for a customer’s research, comparison, and selection activities for a mobile phone family plan.

Using Business Process Management to Streamline Litigation Discovery

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 24 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

In response to clients' demands that they pay for professional services, not administrivia, the law firm of Fredrikson and Byron, P.A. relies on litigation support administrator Chad Papenfuss to streamline the process using the latest technologies. In this interview, he explains the changing culture and how the firm is using applications such as Exterro Fusion to get everyone on the same page and provide clients with up-to-the-minute information.

Research, Compare, and Select a New Retail Bank

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 03 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

In this Test-drive report, we apply the Product Select and Buy Customer Scenario pattern and its “I want to find the product or service that best addresses my requirements” Moment of Truth to financial services for a customer’s research, comparison, and selection activities for a new retail bank. More specifically, our customer persona, Penny Pinscher, visits Bank of America, Citibank, and Wells Fargo to identify a retail bank that meets her requirements for day-to-day financial needs, including a checking account, savings account, online bill pay, and convenient ATMs and branch locations.

Dealing with a Moment of Truth in a “Purchase a Gift” Scenario

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

In every type of scenario, there are three or four moments of truth (those vital moments when, if not successful, we go elsewhere). A failed shopping experience at lindaanderson.com demonstrates the importance of meeting and measuring your customers’ moments of truth. It also shows the importance of empowering support staff to fix a broken relationship.

Kaon Interactive Focuses on Retail Customer Experience

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 00:00:00 GMT

The big-box retail industry—large footprint stores, the manufacturers who provide the products, and the consumers who shop there—have a number of challenges to ensuring a successful customer experience and profitable outcomes for all. Kaon International has focused on addressing the scenarios of this target market with an innovative solution based on its interactive 3D graphics animation technology.

Snowbound

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT

In this classic PSGroup perspective, we realize that more than a decade later, our concerns about technology enabling us to work everywhere all the time, rather than anywhere all the time, prove truer than ever.

Scenario on 34th Street

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT

A holiday classic, “Miracle on 34th Street” surprisingly includes emphatic support of making it easy for customers to achieve their desired outcomes.

Pan American Health Organization

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Collaboration technologies can have a positive effect on the bottom line when used to augment face-to-face meetings. Our interview with Bob Rodrigues of the Pan American Health Organization spotlights how the multinational group uses the Elluminate Live! online conferencing tool to increase the num-ber of people able to attend important meetings.

OnStar

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 00:00:00 GMT

OnStar, a leader in offering a personalized customer experience with its in-car safety and navigation systems, continues to enhance its offerings. Today, more than four million registered users take advantage of a host of safety and convenience services based on who they are, where they are, and what situation they find themselves in.

A Customer Experience Journey

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Citibank changed the rewards on my preferred credit card, offering a bonus for paying household utilities with the credit card. But signing up the various utilities to take advantage of this offer proved to be somewhat of an exercise in f(utility). This report documents my customer experience with Citibank as well as my utility providers: Comcast, KeySpan, NSTAR, and Verizon.

Virtually Being There

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Providing an engaging customer experience is the goal of all savvy businesses. But how do you give a preview of an interactive vacation activity that really captures the essence of the experience? Royal Caribbean Cruise Ltd. has developed an interactive Web site for its Freedom of the Seas ship. In an interview with Maria Polo Gonzalez, manager of e-marketing and distribution for the cruise line, she describes how she and her team brought the onboard experience online.

Help Customers Do Their Jobs

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 00:00:00 GMT

The sixth critical success factor originally introduced in Customers.com is “Help customers do their jobs.” You help your customers succeed in their jobs by making it easy for them to achieve their desired outcomes. Making it easy for customers in their business roles, you ensure that they will remain loyal to your products, services, and organization.

How Visual Comfort Uses GroveSite’s Collaborative Workspaces to Improve

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Visual Comfort, designer of custom residential lighting products, uses GroveSite collaborative workspaces to improve communications with its manufacturer and time-to-market. Byron Wilson, account manager with Visual Comfort, describes how his company chose, uses, and benefits from implementing a collaborative technology solution.

GroveSite Collaborative Workspaces

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 00:00:00 GMT

GroveSite provides a low-cost, easy-to-implement shared team collaborative environment that can also be used to create hosted public Web sites. Although not as feature rich as some competitive offerings from major players (such as IBM, Microsoft, and EMC/Documentum), the product provides good functionality for a large number of collaboration scenarios for working with customers and suppliers.

Cisco Systems

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 00:00:00 GMT

In the eight years since we published our case study on Cisco in Customers.com, the company has continued to innovate on making it easy for customer to do business with the company. Today, Cisco supports its customers with interaction-based customer support and a thriving online community of networking professionals.

nTAG Enhances the In-Person Conference Experience

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 00:00:00 GMT

nTAG Interactive provides a comprehensive Event Data Management solution that enhances the confer-ence attendee’s customer experience as well as cap-tures real-time ROI metrics. Using “wearable technology,” a computerized name badge worn around the neck, participants have access to all con-ference information, such as agendas, and can ex-change contact information with a single click.

Let Customers Help Themselves

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 00:00:00 GMT

The fifth critical success factor originally introduced in Customers.com is “Let Customers Help Themselves.” The best approach is to let customers help themselves on the Web but give them access to a real person when they have questions or want a personal interaction.

Collaborative Workspaces Evaluation Framework

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 18 May 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Collaborative workspaces are workgroup environments designed to help project teams achieve their scenario goals. We’ve developed a framework to help you evaluate and select the collaborative workspace platform that’s best for supporting your collaborative teams. We will use this framework as the basis for our evaluations of the commercial workspace products on the market.

Moving along the Time-(Team) Space Continuum

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Collaboration isn’t about real-time vs. persistence, nor is it about the software tools you use. It is about getting your work done in the context of the overall project.

Raindance Meeting Edition and Seminar Edition

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Raindance enhances its Meeting Edition online collaborative meeting application, adding formal event functions with Raindance Seminar Edition. The product line integrates telephony and video to create the next best thing to face-to-face meetings.

Collaborating with Customers

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Collaborating with customers is now becoming standard practice. The good news is that better tools and technology services are emerging to support cross-organizational collaboration, including collaboration with one or more customers. The bad news is that there are still cultural, policy, and technical barriers to overcome. Key capabilities you’ll want to have are presence awareness, shared workspaces, ad hoc invitations, support for asynchronous contributions, federated directory management and intellectual property licensing models, among others.

Getty Images

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Getty Images supports image-buying professionals in finding and licensing stock imagery and film for commercial use. Currently under construction is a new Web site implementation that will be based on the workflows of target customer segments.

Convoq SellASAP 2.3

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 10 Nov 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Convoq focuses its marketing and development on a new version of its ASAP online meeting product, tightly integrated with SalesForce.com. The new product, SellASAP allows sales personnel to initiate and save meetings from within their familiar context.

IBM Lotus Web Conferencing 7.0

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Lotus Web Conferencing provides a strong set of collaboration features for enterprise online meetings. However, it does have some significant limitations in functionality and integration, thus making it a reasonable choice primarily for companies that have standardized on the IBM/Lotus platform. The new release, 7.0, adds some technical enhancements, including opening up the interface to enable third-party telephony providers to add their own integrated audio conferencing.

The Dangers of Defining a Specific Scenario-Mapping Customer

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 18 Sep 2003 00:00:00 GMT

When defining the customer for a scenario mapping session, create a composite customer who embodies the common traits and needs of a key customer segment. Avoid the temptation to map a “real” customer, with very unique personality traits and demands as this can limit creativity.

Identifying the Right Customers and Context

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 24 Jul 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Before you begin a Customer Scenario® Mapping exercise, you should capture the context of the scenario. This report explains the five key elements to capture: customer, scenario, desired outcome, conditions of satisfaction, and customer context.

It’s a Matter of Trust

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 17 Apr 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Consumers are often resistant to buying from manufacturer’s Web sites. What can you do establish trust and increase your sales? It is important to educate and manage relationships with partners as well as customers.

American Express Comes Through for a Member in Need

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 16 Jan 2003 00:00:00 GMT

When a customer is in crisis, solving the problem on the spot makes the sale! American Express puts itself in the customer’s shoes and saves the day.

Challenges in Supporting Customer Scenarios® Across Multiple Touchpoints

Ronni Marshak — Fri, 13 Dec 2002 00:00:00 GMT

Although FleetBoston is doing a good job educating employees on how to service customers, it hasn’t done a good job of bringing that attention to customer needs to other touchpoints.

Axentis Enterprise: Business Process Software for Managing Compliance

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 07 Nov 2002 00:00:00 GMT

Axentis provides a process design, execution, and monitoring application that improves governance and compliance performance, creating a closed-loop compliance nervous system. The product, Axentis Enterprise, is designed for compliance officers who are charged with making sure that corporate and government-mandated policies are being adhered to.

Good, Old-Fashioned, Customer Service

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 03 Oct 2002 00:00:00 GMT

Even a no-tech example can showcase best practices in providing customer service. Whether it be carpet cleaning or B2B contract negotiation, the same basics apply.

Winning Back Customers

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 12 Sep 2002 00:00:00 GMT

FleetBoston is improving its customer service with its Winning Gold initiative. Now it needs to make customers aware of its improved service and offers.

The Future of Contact Centers

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 18 Jul 2002 00:00:00 GMT

Contact center solutions today provide a key set of functionality which will, in the future, need to be enhanced to meet customer needs. This Report includes a list of current and future required capabilities.

The CRM Paradox

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 20 Jun 2002 00:00:00 GMT

There is an emerging paradox: customers frequently can get more information than can the employees whose jobs are to help them. In order to avoid stovepipes of information, companies must design systems for customers and customer-facing employees from the outside in.

Workflow Is Not Dead; It’s Just Buried

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 09 May 2002 00:00:00 GMT

The workflow tools of the 1990s haven't gone away; they have become embedded in enterprise applications. But that isn't enough. To address today's business process needs, workflow solutions must support end-to-end, adaptive meta-processes.

Techmar's Outsourced Solution for Nurturing Warm Leads into Sales

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 14 Mar 2002 00:00:00 GMT

TECHMAR has found a sweet spot in outsourced CRM services. Rather than providing call-center or campaign-management personnel, the company takes on the responsibility of nurturing warm leads until they are ready to buy.

Closed-Loop Meta-Process Management

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 21 Feb 2002 00:00:00 GMT

In any given customer scenario, a variety of business processes are launched. These need to be linked so that the owner of the overall “meta-process” has visibility into the state of all customer-related activity.

Ronni Marshak on Customer Experience: Multi-Channel Shopping

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 17 Jan 2002 00:00:00 GMT

Different touchpoints and channels have different strengths. Product research is easier online; checking the texture and size of products is easier done in person at the store. Most of us mix and match touchpoints in a blended-channel shopping experience.

Revenio Dialog Manager 3.0

Ronni Marshak — Thu, 10 Jan 2002 00:00:00 GMT

Revenio Dialog Manager manages and automates interaction with customers over time and across all marketing touchpoints and channels. The product allows non-technical marketing professionals to build and manage complex campaigns that span the customer life cycle.