If you're new to CIOPulse, this article will give you a basic understanding of the key concepts, features and terminology.
For administrators, there is also a set of self-paced in-app tutorials that will provide you with all the training you need to get started. We strongly recommend you take these tutorials before implementing CIOPulse.
Additional training is available for administrators as contextual pop-up boxes that appear when you're using the Portal, and in regular email tips. This customer manual is a comprehensive source of information too.
Most of our customers start with transactional (ticket) surveys. The implementation steps for transactional surveys are described here.
We're available to help you every step of the way. Email us at [email protected] or use the chat icon in the Portal.
What is CIOPulse?
The quality of support provided by internal service providers is very important.
It directly affects business productivity, has a significant impact on the reputation of the service provider and, when it's good, costs less than poor quality support. Less repeat calls to enquire on call statuses, less complaints, less escalations, more calls resolved at the first level, and more self service. All these things lower support costs.
And this is where CIOPulse comes in. CIOPulse is award-winning software that helps internal service providers monitor the customer support experience, improve the quality of support, and increase internal customer satisfaction.
CIOPulse captures customer feedback via three listening posts:
- Transactional surveys - collects continual feedback about incidents and requests.
- Relationship surveys - collects periodic feedback (e.g. annually) about any or all of the services you provide. Can also be used to collect project-based feedback.
- Compliments, Complaints and Suggestions - collects ad-hoc feedback anytime, anywhere.
CIOPulse provides displays, reports and dashboards for sharing and analysing this feedback, and for gaining insights into where you're strong and where you need to improve.
CIOPulse runs in the cloud, requires no hardware or software installation and integration with customer support software is straightforward.
KEY TAKEAWAY - CIOPulse is used to gather internal customer feedback as you resolve their support calls. It also helps you run relationship surveys and collect compliments, complaints and suggestions. CIOPulse doesn't just collect feedback, it helps you turn that feedback into action.
What is Net Promoter?
CIOPulse is based on the Net Promoter System, a proven, open source methodology for measuring and increasing customer loyalty with a product, service or brand. Many of the Fortune 500 use it, including Apple, Amazon, GE and General Motors, as well as many thousands of smaller companies.
CIOPulse uses Net Promoter-based surveys to help you gain insights into how service may be improved.
A Net Promoter Score is calculated by subtracting the percentage of Detractors (those customers who have had a poor experience) from Promoters (those customers who have had a positive experience). This results in a score of between -100, where all your customers are Detractors, to +100, where all your customers are Promoters.
CIOPulse is able to calculate and track Net Promoter Scores for:
- Your Support Teams.
- Your Departments (collections of Support Teams).
- Your Organisation (collection of Departments).
- Your Customer Segments (e.g. State, Territory, Business Function).
- Your Support Agents.
- Your Projects.
Tracking a Net Promoter Score is a great way to measure the quality of service provided. And verbatim customer feedback is invaluable for coaching and identifying specific service improvement actions.
Net Promoter, NPS, and the NPS-related emoticons are registered service marks, and Net Promoter Score and Net Promoter System are service marks, of Bain & Company, Inc., Satmetrix Systems, Inc. and Fred Reichheld.
CIOPulse has interactive dashboards that let you choose the period of time over which transactional (ticket-based) Net Promoter Scores are calculated.
Other places where your Net Promoter Scores are shown (e.g. your NPS Gauge, Support Group League Tables, Monthly Customer Satisfaction Report) show either your 30-Day NPS for the current month, or Calendar NPS for historical months.
For example, the Net Promoter Score shown on your NPS Gauge on 15 August will be based on the surveys received between 16 July and 15 August (30-Day NPS). If viewing the Gauge for July, the NPS will be based on surveys from 1 July to 31 July (Calendar NPS).
KEY TAKEAWAY - CIOPulse is based on the Net Promoter System and can calculate Net Promoter Scores for Agents, Teams, Departments, Customer Segments, Projects and your overall Business Unit.
How does CIOPulse work?
CIOPulse consists of six main components:
- The Portal.
- Transactional Surveys.
- Relationship Surveys.
- Compliments, Complaints & Suggestions (CCS).
- Alerts, Displays, Reports & Dashboards.
- The API (requires Corporate or Enterprise Plan).
These components are described below.
1. The Portal
The Portal is only used by your nominated CIOPulse administrator(s) and is used to configure the system, usually as a one-off exercise when you first implement it.
The main information that needs to be set up in the Portal is a list of the Support Groups (Teams and Departments) that you wish to gather customer feedback for, the Customer Segments you wish to track the satisfaction of, and the contact details of your Support Leads.
KEY TAKEAWAY - The Portal is used by the CIOPulse administrator to maintain the list of Support Groups, Customer Segments and contact details for Support Leads. No-one else needs access to the Portal.
2. Transactional Surveys
Transactional surveys collect feedback from customers on their experience with support interactions.
Your customer support software needs to be configured to issue survey invitation emails, usually as support tickets are closed. You control who you survey and when, what the email says and how it looks. And because the survey invitation comes from your domain name, your customers can trust the source.
Each survey invitation email will include a hyperlink to the CIOPulse transactional survey. The URL for this survey contains parameters that enable the system to capture details about the ticket, e.g. the ticket number and the support group that resolved it.
When your customer completes a survey, CIOPulse stores their feedback and makes that information available to you via various displays, reports and dashboards.
The design of the transactional survey (including the look, feel and wording of the questions) is customisable if you are on our Corporate or Enterprise Plans. Adding/removing questions is not possible.
KEY TAKEAWAY - Transactional survey invitations are issued from your customer support software. Having a custom survey to match your organisation's brand requires our Corporate or Enterprise Plan.
3. Relationship Surveys
While transactional surveys collect customer feedback about their support experiences, relationship surveys can be run to get feedback on specific projects or initiatives. They can also be run periodically to collect customer feedback on you as a service provider, e.g. for an annual IT survey.
To run a CIOPulse relationship survey, you send a survey invitation email to your customers that includes a hyperlink to the CIOPulse relationship survey. You can send out this email yourself or you can upload a list of invitees (we call them "stakeholders") and get CIOPulse to send the invitations for you.
When you get CIOPulse to send out the survey invitations for you, you can tell CIOPulse when you want it to do that - on a specific date, or dates, or even on a recurring schedule.
CIOPulse makes the results of relationship surveys available via reports and dashboards.
The design of the relationship survey (including the look, feel and wording of the questions) is customisable if you are on our Corporate or Enterprise Plans. Adding/removing questions is not possible.
KEY TAKEAWAY - Relationship survey invitations can be sent by CIOPulse or from your own email system.. Having a custom survey to match your organisation's brand requires our Corporate or Enterprise Plan.
3. Compliments, Complaints & Suggestions (CCS)
CIOPulse's CCS form enables customers to provide feedback on any topic and at any time. It can even be used to collect feedback on specific projects and initiatives.
The form enables customers to indicate whether or not they wish to be contacted in relation to their feedback.
To start collecting feedback, simply publish the link to your CCS form wherever customers can see it, e.g. in your email footers or your intranet.
CIOPulse makes CCS feedback available via reports and dashboards.
As with the transactional and relationship surveys, the design of the CCS form (including the look, feel and wording of the questions) is customisable if you are on our Corporate or Enterprise Plan.
KEY TAKEAWAY - A Compliments, Complaints & Suggestions form enables you to collect ad hoc feedback. A hyperlink to the CCS form can be published on your intranet or email footer, or emailed to your customers. Having a custom form to match your organisation's brand requires our Corporate or Enterprise Plan.
4. Alerts, Displays, Reports & Dashboards
CIOPulse provides Support Leads and management with alerts, reports and dashboards. It also provides displays for sharing information with all staff via big screen displays.
Some of this information is automatically pushed to Support Leads (e.g. SMS messages that alert them to unhappy customers) but most is accessible simply by clicking on a browser bookmark or typing in a URL.
Unless you configure CIOPulse otherwise (e.g. to use Single Sign-On, or IP address security), no login credentials are required to access CIOPulse information. Instead, each URL includes a code that is unique to your organisation, making it difficult for anyone outside of your organisation to access it.
One of the key responsibilities of the CIOPulse administrator is to provide Support Leads and management with the relevant bookmarks, or show them how to construct the URLs themselves.
You can read an overview of the information available here.
KEY TAKEAWAY - Most CIOPulse information is accessible by anyone who has the right URLs/bookmarks. There are options available to add more security.
5. The API
The CIOPulse API enables your own systems, such as your customer support software or Business Intelligence suite, to push or pull data from CIOPulse.
For example, your customer support software could be configured to automatically update Support Group information in the Portal, removing the need for your CIOPulse administrator to do this manually in the Portal. Similarly, the API could be used to extract survey responses into your own reporting database.
Access to the API is available to those on our Corporate and Enterprise Plans.
There is an API if you need to integrate CIOPulse with your systems. Access to our API is available to those on our Corporate and Enterprise Plans.
Who can access CIOPulse?
There are three sorts of users of CIOPulse:
- Customers, who complete surveys.
- Administrators, who maintain the configuration of CIOPulse.
- Managers and Support Leads, who access CIOPulse reports, displays and dashboards.
Customer: Anyone who is sent a link to one of the three listening post will be able to complete the survey. They do not need to be setup in the system.
Administrators: All CIOPulse configuration is done via the Portal by an Administrator. Administrators have to register themselves using the Registration function.
Managers and Support Leads: Who can access CIOPulse information depends on the security settings configured in the Portal. Access security ranges from weak (anyone with the right URL can access CIOPulse information), to strong (Single Sign-On managed by your own Identity Management System). Access security is described in detail here.