GMAC

GMAC GAINS INSIGHT INTO CLIENTS, EMPLOYEES THROUGH KEY SURVEY. RESPONSE RATES QUADRUPLE; EFFECTIVE RFPS MADE EASIER

Summary

GMAC Global Relocation Services is a leader in both international and domestic relocation management services. The Global Relocation team aims to remove much of the stress and frustration involved with moving by providing a variety of services aimed toward making an employee's relocation process go as smoothly as possible. With clients in a variety of different industries, and offices in the Americas, EMEA and Asia, GMAC works with companies and their employees all over the world, providing personalized service.

The Challenge

The challenge facing the GMAC team spanned both external and internal audiences. First, they needed a better way to measure customer satisfaction in order to ensure that they were providing the highest level of service possible. Traditional paper surveys just weren't effective - not only were the response rates dismal, but the turnaround time (from survey distribution through receipt and analysis) was unacceptable. GMAC's managers felt frustrated - why go through the pain and expense of the survey process if the results are practically out of date by the time they get the data?

Their second challenge centered on how to make the best use of available information. GMAC's human resources team had implemented a Key Survey of their employees. How could they take the data and insights they'd gathered and make them directly (and positively) impact the company's bottom line?

The Solution, Customers

Patrice Labelle knew that she needed an alternative to high-priced, time-intensive paper surveys. She turned to Key Survey to provide online survey tools capable of increasing their response rate, handling a large database of customers and employees and offering real-time reporting capabilities.

GMAC managers use Key Survey's insights on a daily basis, immediately reacting to potential issues and being proactive about developing ones. "One of the nicest things about Key Survey's software is the alert feature. It tells us immediately if a customer has a problem, letting us intervene and attempt to fix the situation. With the old way, we wouldn't have a chance to act that quickly - in most cases, we'd just have to wait until the end of the quarter and look at feedback as a way to eventually improve," said Jill Taylor, VP Strategic Services. "A Key Survey alert lets us immediately spring into action. Even if the event has already occurred and it's too late to reconcile it, the alert still helps us to find problems internally, taking corrective actions with the people involved and avoiding repeating the same issues in the future."

GMAC has been a happy Key Survey customer since October, 2002. In that time, they've completed thousands of end-customer surveys and more than 100 client surveys, with cost and turnaround time both sharply decreasing from previous methods. Using Key Survey, GMAC is able to immediately query the customer right at the close of the transaction, when their experience is fresh in their mind and their likelihood of responding is exponentially higher. Since instituting Key Survey's online surveys, response rates have increased from 10% to more than 46%.

The Solution, Employees

Because of their existing relationship with Key Survey, it was only natural that GMAC would ask Key Survey for assistance in surveying their employees. Using a Key Survey similar in format to their external surveys, GMAC's human resources department implemented a series of Key Survey questionnaires, inquiring about employee's education levels, professional licenses and work experience, in addition to asking their opinions on 'hot' issues.

When the survey was complete, GMAC's human resources team discovered an innovative use for the information they'd collected. Never before had they had so much employee information available: was there something they could do with that info rather than just let it sit in the database? An idea sparked - why not use some of this information they'd just collected in responding to RFPs?

GMAC now actively uses specific employee profiles (gathered in response to Key Survey) in replying to RFPs, allowing them to allocate human resources more effectively. While crafting RFP response tools wasn't the survey's original intent, it is a shining example of innovation and creativity. In the future, GMAC will use Key Survey tools to guide training initiatives, using questionnaires to better understand their employees evolving educational and training needs.