Winners Announced for the MarketTools Ace Awards for Best Use of Enterprise Feedback Management

SAN FRANCISCO, March 1, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- MarketTools, Inc. today announced the winners of the 2011 MarketTools ACE (Achievement in Customer Excellence) Awards for Best Use of EFM, recognizing the organizations that best use their enterprise feedback management (EFM) to increase customer, employee and/or partner satisfaction, contributing to positive business results. The Best Use of EFM awards were added to this year's MarketTools ACE Awards program, now in its sixth year, to recognize the highest levels of achievement in using EFM to effect positive business results.

All six companies are also winners of 2011 MarketTools ACE Awards; the 2011 MarketTools ACE Award winners were previously announced on February 15, 2011.

"Given our focus on improving service and increasing customer loyalty, it's critical that we have the external view of the customer service experience as well as clear insight on our policy owners' expectations," said Chris Ayers, Vice President, Life Inforce Contact Center, American General Life Companies.  "We use the insights that MarketTools CustomerSat provides to influence literally every part of the operation, including our people, processes, and systems. In short, the detailed feedback we get from our voice of the customer program drives all call center improvement activity and decision-making."

"We rely on MarketTools CustomerSat's valuable analytics to identify key drivers for improving customer satisfaction," said Alan Kneale, VP Technical Support Operations, CareFusion. "With the ability to get quality transactional data at critical customer touch points, we have the actionable insights we need about the business processes that are most important to our customers."

"We're seeing organizations broaden their use of enterprise feedback management as they gain insights that deliver a deep understanding of customers, employees and partners – resulting in outstanding business performance," said Justin Schuster, vice president of enterprise products for MarketTools, Inc. "We're proud to celebrate the achievements of the winners and finalists for the 2011 ACE Awards for Best Use of EFM, and we are delighted to see the innovative ways that companies use EFM solutions to directly impact many different areas within their organizations to drive positive business results."

About the Winners of the 2011 MarketTools ACE Awards for Best Use of EFM

American General Life Companies uses its EFM solution as a performance management tool to identify issues and pinpoint areas for improvement, improving processes to reduce or avoid costs and helping customer service representatives deliver a better customer experience.

Canon U.S.A., Inc.'s use of its EFM solution in its Voice of the Employee program has helped the company maintain a motivated, engaged and satisfied workforce by encouraging and utilizing employee feedback from an annual employee satisfaction survey and other sources.

CareFusion gained a significant improvement in overall customer satisfaction ratings by broadening its customer feedback program to encompass multiple customer touch points, product lines and geographical regions, covering 20 countries and six languages.

Equinix uses its EFM solution globally to drive major company-wide, multi-year initiatives, namely "Committing to Improve the Customer Experience" and "The Equinix Promise," based on key performance indicators that include customer satisfaction and loyalty.  The insight from their enterprise feedback data is also helping them to remove operational inefficiencies and align the company culture to become even more customer focused.

Pitney Bowes' use of its EFM solution for real-time action management to identify, respond to and follow up with at-risk customers has led to a significant improvement in overall business results.

United Stationers uses its EFM solution to take the "partner pulse" and identify areas where they can drive process improvement.  Based on partner survey results, they implemented new sales and marketing programs.  A follow-up assessment validated program effectiveness through significantly improved partner ratings for the company as an innovative leader with "easy to understand and implement marketing programs."

The submissions for the MarketTools ACE Awards for Best Use of EFM for Voice of the Customer and Best Use of EFM in the Contact Center were so strong that MarketTools also announced two finalists in each of these two categories. 21st Century Insurance and Financial Services and Simplex Grinnell were named finalists for the MarketTools ACE Award for Best Use of EFM for Voice of the Customer, and Cobalt, a Division of ADP, and Infor were named finalists for the MarketTools ACE Award for Best Use of EFM in the Contact Center.

About the MarketTools ACE Awards

Established in 2005, the MarketTools ACE Awards program recognizes outstanding achievement in customer, employee and partner satisfaction. To be eligible for a 2011 MarketTools ACE Award, clients must have conducted one or more surveys to assess customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, or partner satisfaction between October 1, 2009 and September 30, 2010, and complete an application form. Qualifying performance is determined by a combination of customer satisfaction mean scores and top-box rating percentages maintained during at least a 6-month period during the eligibility period.  The customer feedback on which awards are based must be representative of the entire business, business unit or business segment to which the award applies.  MarketTools ensures that the survey processes on which metrics are based are rigorous, defensible and repeatable. Surveys may use either a census of the target audience or representative sampling with specified minimum confidence levels and maximum margins of error.  The ACE Awards for Best Use of EFM acknowledge MarketTools ACE Award winners who have used their customer, employee or partner feedback solution to achieve results that have benefited their business.  The award categories include:  Best Use of EFM for Voice of the Customer, Best Use of EFM for Voice of the Employee, Best Use of EFM for Voice of the Partner, Best Use of EFM Across the Enterprise, Best Use of EFM to Drive Overall Business Impact, and Best Use of EFM in the Contact Center.

About MarketTools CustomerSat Software and Services

MarketTools CustomerSat is a Web-based Enterprise Feedback Management (EFM) solution used by the world's leading businesses to capture, analyze, and act on feedback from customers, employees, and partners. MarketTools EFM consultants are available to help CustomerSat customers get the most out of their investment in EFM, from design of satisfaction programs to advanced analysis of survey results. Through the use of comprehensive analytic tools, action management technology, and the expert knowledge of customer satisfaction consultants, MarketTools helps clients optimize satisfaction and loyalty programs that deliver high-value business impact.

About MarketTools, Inc.

MarketTools is the leading provider of software and services for Enterprise Feedback Management (EFM) and Market Research. The company is focused on providing leading organizations the actionable customer insights they need to make better business decisions that lead to high-value business impact. As the first company to make online surveys widely available on the Web, MarketTools continues its market-leading position by providing the broadest range of powerful, accurate and integrated customer insight technologies that empower companies to become the most customer-centric organizations in their industries. The MarketTools premier portfolio of technology-based insight brands includes CustomerSat™, TrueSample®, Zoomerang®, ZoomPanel® and ZoomPanel Tech™.

MarketTools is a privately held company with corporate headquarters in San Francisco and European headquarters in London. For more information, please visit: www.markettools.com.

All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

SOURCE MarketTools, Inc.