Digital Asset Management SaaSisfaction Gauntlet

Ramblings of a Mad Marketer – Digital Asset Management SaaSisfaction Gauntlet.

Throwdown with Bobby Flay, SmackDown from WWE, and now the SaaSisfaction Gauntlet from Widen.

SaaSisfaction: The satisfaction levels of customers in a software world. My theory is that customers using software-as-a-service (SaaS) are happier with their overall experience than customers using installed software. I am throwing down the gauntlet and sharing our survey results from a recent set of questions that we asked our customers. This challenge is focused in the digital asset management industry.

For those not familiar with digital asset management technology, systems, and services: marketers need help managing and distributing images and video files – in a nutshell, that’s what a digital asset management system does. Of course there is much more but we’re keeping it simple here.

In the digital asset management market there are big enterprise players, small desktop providers and everything in between. The buying cycle involves analyst reports, vendor conversations, product demos, feature-by-feature comparisons, reference checks, credit checks, vaporware, future truths, pointless RFP’s, overcommitments – but the ultimate question that remains unanswered in the buying cycle is what is my service experience going to be after I sign up? How can we allow a customer to experience what it’s going to be like before commitment? You can capture some of this from the analysts, demos, and references but sharing customer satisfaction survey results allows customers to understand what their satisfaction level might be throughout the relationship.

Hence the SaaSisfaction Gauntlet. We invite all the competitors in the digital asset management space to actively participate. Some of these competitors are listed on the recent analyst report by Theresa Regli at The Real Story Group available on theEnterprise Information Watch DAM Stream. Other competitors are listed on the bottom right of one of the best blogs in the digital asset management community atDigitalAssetManagement.org.uk. By all the competitors, I mean big and small – from the Open Text and Autonomy acquisitions to North Plains, MediaBeacon, Celum, Wave, Xinet, and Canto. There are lots, these are only a few. Come one, come all to the SaaSisfaction Gauntlet for the digital asset management market.

Full Disclosure

In the interest of full disclosure, here are the details of how we ran our survey:

• There were 7 questions and 18 clicks with a $25 Amazon gift card incentive for completion
• We focused on the main contacts at each customer, amounting to 321 total invitations delivered
• The invitations were sent via email in two stages, the first email was sent to all main contacts on 05/12/10 and the next email was sent on 05/27/10 to all those that did not reply to the first invite
• We received 121 responses equating to a 37.7% response rate from 73 unique companies

The Survey Questions

A copy of the survey that you should use is located here:Download Survey Structure

We used SurveyMonkey.com with a Widen logo in the upper left. Substitute Widen for your organization’s name and that’s all the changes you need to make. The questions and structure are available at the aforementioned link in addition to the questions below:

1) Please rate your experience with <DAM Company> in the following areas: (4 options given: Excellent, Good, Adequate, Poor)

• Responsiveness of our service teams
• Communicating clearly and effectively
• Keeping you informed of our progress
• Collaborating with you and your team
• Performance of systems/applications
• Product functionality meets your expectations
• Providing value for the money
• Meeting overall project objectives

2) Overall, how do you rate the quality of <DAM Company> products and services? (4 options given: Excellent, Good, Adequate, Poor)

3) Would you recommend <DAM Company> to other organizations? (2 options given: yes or no)

4) What is your perception of the advancements in <DAM Company> technology (6 options given: Ahead of the Curve, Just About Right, Getting Better, Not Fast Enough, Stagnant, Behind the Times)

5) How likely is it that you will continue to use <DAM Company> in the future (5 options given: Certain, Very Likely, Somewhat Likely, Unlikely, Very Unlikely)

6) If you have any comments or suggestions regarding how <DAM Company> could improve the services or performance, please enter them in the box below. (1 option given: enter free form text)

7) To receive your $25 gift card from Amazon, please provide your information below and the gift certification will be emailed to you. (4 fields displayed: Name, Company, Email, Phone)

A Few Guidelines

Set up the survey using the same questions and incentive:

• Share the results on your web site or blog post (I’m sure the digital asset management blogs will pick it up and post it for us as results come in)
• Share the quantity of open ended responses for question #6 understanding that ideas from customers possess product advancement ideas that may be used for differentiation
• Disclose your invitation methods, list quantities, response rate and unique companies responding
• I’d like to say there is a minimum number of participants, let’s say at least 50 unique companies represented but even if you have less than that, it’s ok, the information will be revealed in your disclosure

Widen Results

We have already setup the questions, disclosed our methods, shared our response rate and participation, so now I invite you to see theresults of the Widen customer satisfaction survey for free at widen.com. There is a form requesting your information so please provide complete contact info. I already understand competitors are interested in this information so there is no need to register as ABC company with a fake email address. With our web analytics we already know how many times you visit our pages and which pages you visit. So just use your real information.

Sign-up to receive theWiden SaaSisfaction Gauntlet Customer Survey Results

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