Marketing is many parts listening and one part using what you’ve heard to affect change in your organization. It is amazing what a simple client survey can do to validate what you do as an organization and give you the confidence to make changes that will positively affect the customer experience.

For the past year and a half, Hudson has participated in the Inavero, Best of Staffing™ awards sponsored by CareerBuilder. It is based on sending surveys to all of our clients that essentially asks a simple question – How likely are you to recommend us to a friend? The answer to that question, rated on a 1-10 scale speak volumes to how well we’re doing as an organization. If a client rates on a scale of 1-6, they are detractors, 7-8 are passives, and 9-10 are promoters meaning they would likely give us word of mouth recommendations. Inavero also collects the primary reason for the rating and anything we could do better with our service.

From a marketing perspective, the survey is golden because it gives us great client testimonials to put in our marketing materials. It helps us with our search engine optimization for people who might be looking for the best IT staffing agencies, or one of the best staffing firms for client satisfaction  (: shaaaaameless linkbuilding right there baby :). It also gives us something to validate our quality to prospective clients and candidates. Here you can see one of the ways we address the survey in a web video from our CEO (a quick little production I did with a Flip cam):

From an organizational perspective the survey has even more benefit. It opens a communication channel with clients and helps to rescue relationships that may have ebbed in recent times. For a group spread far and wide like ours, a positive satisfaction rating gives employees a sense of pride. The direct feedback can also inject innovation into the service offering based on great ideas from clients. Overall, I’m convinced that periodic client surveys are a great way to build the quality of a staffing firm. After all, success is built one promoter at a time.

Net Promoter, NPS, and Net Promoter Score are trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company, and Fred Reichheld.

It has been over a week now since my grandfather’s funeral, and I’m getting back into the swing of things before this upcoming holiday weekend. I wanted to post a photo from the event because, as with many families, funerals are like family reunions. It’s also a really good excuse to get dressed up and take a nice picture. So here’s the family:

The Rzepkowski Family in front of the Dunkirk Kosciuszko Club
Back Row (from left): Neal Rzepkowski, Ian Vosper, Duane Mallaber, Kyle Rzepkowski, Michelle Rzepkowski, Terry Rzepkowski, Dick Rzepkowski, Marlene Rzepkowski
Middle Row (from left): Esther Rzepkowski, Taryn Rzepkowski, Wendy Vosper
Front Row (from left): Michael Short, Lindsey Short, Lilyan Short, Mason Rzepkowski, Anna Rzepkowski, Tricia Rzepkowski, Kris Rzepkowski

This same crew is getting together for the 4th of July at my parents’ lake house. It will be nice to see everyone again and continue to heal.

It was a crazy deer-lover’s weekend indeed. From the exact same tree stand where Terry put one down earlier in bow season and where I bagged a doe on November 3rd, came news this morning that Terry got a doe to fill his extra Deer Management Permit.

In the waning minutes of his weekend jaunt to Western New York, he said that a gaggle of does decided to poke around the mowed corn and bean fields behind him. The biggest of the group walked to 50 paces and presented a broadside shot almost like a decoy. Terry said that it was one of the best shots of his hunting career. Unfortunately I couldn’t be there for the great event, but I’ve got the picture to prove it. Congratulations Terry on a great deer donated to the Venison Coalition!.

Terry Rzepkowski and his doe from November 18, 2007

The big 2-9. My Grandma and Aunt are coming into town from Buffalo and South Carolina respectively, to celebrate and see the kids. Can’t wait to see them. Gotta go to the airport now. Yipeeeee!

GotFreshmen?–Yeah, last night was our first Quest meeting. 12 Freshmen and their parents all in our house. We even roasted marshmallows and hot dogs in our fireplace. I’m loving being able to make an impression on these “kids”…

YouAreAnAnimal— Come to find out, Interaction Designers are sexy beasts. Mark got married this weekend. I don’t even know Wendy, cause I’ve only met Mark in person once. But, he’s the second of our fine TMP trio to be hitched. Is Walt next?

BloggerForHire?–It’s pretty interesting that there may be room in this world for Professional Bloggers. This site makes it pretty clear that BlogMonster is right around the corner. I have some serious questions about the professionalization of something that was supposed to be empowering to the everyday writer. Part of the fun of blogging is fooling yourself into thinking that a.) someone is reading your stuff, b.) you are writing in a “professional” enough style to make your opinions seem to matter, c.) you might someday be recognized by people in some community or other as the author of Magnetic Poetry. As soon as there are “Pros” doing this, it kinda takes the fun out of it. Suddenly news stories about blogging or “professional blogs” about blogging will begin to refer only to themselves. Only professional blogs will be blogs of interest.

I wonder if that is the nature of things though. In the beginning of the web, people could express themselves through web pages, and even the suckiest sites were getting lots of love. As the medium matured, the only sites that got any play were the ones that were done by professionals, or came off as “professional”. I think, in a way, that is what drew me to becoming a web professional. I wanted to be able to express myself in the medium in a way that would still warrant other people’s attention. It remains to be seen, as I’m only a few months into this blogging thing, if I will wish to hone my skills enough to at least come off as “professional”. I’m curious to see how this thing becomes a part of my life…

SpeakingofOutstanding–My parents got to go to the Bills v. Bears game at Ralph Wilson Stadium. I got to spend the day nowhere near a tv or radio, but came home to the pleasant surprise of a Bills victory over the local Bears. Once again my flag was defaced, this time taken out of the falg pole holder and thrown on the ground. I can take it. Bring it on, oh fantom Bills Flag defacer. BRING IT ON!

AndMakeMistakesToo–I forgot to mention another thing I learned from IDEO. Making mistakes early and often should be everyone’s mantra. Clients don’t know what they want until they see it. So accept this. Draw out your ideas early. Get them on the table. Help everyone visualize. Developers, please don’t complain about making changes. That’s part of this whole process. Enjoy change!

ResearchReeeeSEARCH–I went and saw Tom Stat from IDEO Chicago speak at last night’s Chi-squared meeting. The topic was pretty much just learning about their company. It wasn’t totally fresh for me since it was a Business Week article featuring IDEO’s great design and great design-process that made me leave my job at Xerox. I went to my boss saying “When are we going to design products like this, and use this process?” When he said “We’re on our way, but we’re not there yet.” I bailed and went to a dotcom.

Of course now I’m at TMPW. People who know me well understand that I get fired up when I listen to the voice of reason. Reading outside perspectives on our company, or learning about how another company works always makes me reflect in a more meaningful way on how our company works. It’s a lot different than being spoonfed the company line saying that we’re innovative. How about we ACT innovative, and convince the public that we ARE innovative by marketing that fact. I respect that people have opinions about TMPW (look at the blog from 8/22/2002), and more often than not they’re right at some level or another. I have opinions too. But I’m a person that acts.

Currently, we can’t admit that we as TMP are a product development company. While we make products, we claim that we are a sales and marketing company. Well guess what? The way you ACT innovative is to make innovative things (products) that people find useful. Sales and marketing aren’t innovation. They are the RESULT of innovation. The IDEO way is to keep the user at the center of everything. And not what they say…what they DO. Every time IDEO does a project they study the potential users in their environment – Contextual Inquiry. They take pictures, they observe user shortcuts like post-it notes, or crib sheets. They observe their processes. They don’t rely on the words of the client, or their own account people to define innovation. The design teams DO RESEARCH. IT IS NOT OPTIONAL. And the user is the only thing Senior Management cares about. Design is king. Design is innovation. Good design sells and markets itself. Arrrrrghhhh. I’m way too fired up. I will not bail. I will find a way to innovate.