The MSR Group - A Market Research Company

The MSR Group Announces New Product for Banks

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Omaha, Nebraska January 29, 2008 – The MSR Group, a national market research organization, today announced the release of version 2.08 of its proprietary customer advocacy measurement tool, the APECS® Performance Monitor.

The APECS® Performance Monitor is a proven system to measure customer satisfaction and advocacy. According to Dick Worick, President of The MSR Group, the new version offers enhanced functionality for its large retail banking clients who need a granular, user-friendly program that will put actionable information in the hands of the people who can make a real impact on improving the customer experience—individual branch managers.

Features debuting in the 2008 edition are:

Dashboard and Overall Score Monitor: Located on the main landing page of the APECS® Performance Monitor is an Overall Score and Advocacy Rating Dashboard Meter. The meter feature provides an instant view of overall Net Advocacy Rating (NAR) and positive or negative trending. Below the Dashboard Meter is an Overall Score monitor. The arrow on the Overall Score monitor indicates trends for each branch’s overall score when compared to the previous year.
Key Driver Analysis: Performance Monitor 2.08 uses a key symbol to indicate those specific items on each client’s survey (called Key Drivers) which have the greatest impact on overall satisfaction for customers in each region. Color coded key symbols show how individual branches score for that item compare to the average for the region.

Version 2.08 of the Performance Monitor also improves upon existing functions, including:

Action Alert Status: New with version 2.08, the percentage of alerts within each status category is displayed in a pie chart at the top of the Action Alert status page. In addition, improvements have been made to the Alert status function. Up to ten contacts can be recorded in the ‘yellow’ (customer contacted, problem not yet resolved) alert phase. The ‘blue’ alert phase now offers two options to indicate Final Resolution: Navy blue to indicate the problem has reached the Final Resolved stage and Light blue to indicate the problem is not able to be resolved and has therefore reached the Final Unresolved stage.
Action Alert Reports: A Coding Summary Report feature allows users to see the percentage of Action Alerts within nine pre-coded categories. Each of the nine categories is comprised of a number of more specific responses. Detailed responses within each category also are provided through a “Show Details” function.
Toggle Between Current and Historical Branch Scores: When viewing Current Branch Scores the new Performance Monitor offers a “Switch To” function, allowing users to immediately shift between current and historical scores within the same branch.

According to Worick, the enhancements further establish APECS® as unique in the field of customer experience monitoring. Prior to the 2008 additions, APECS® offered the following unique features.

Advocacy Charting: Scores are calculated and converted to a pie chart showing the percent of a client’s customer base who are “Advocates,” “Loyal,” “At Risk,” and “Critical.”
Net Advocacy Rating: The above information is summed up in a Net Advocacy Rating (NAR) calculated as the percent of “Advocates” minus percent of “At Risk” and “Critical.”
APECS® National Banking Norms: Statistically reliable norms by conducting the APECS® survey with a random sample of banking customers across the United States.

The MSR Group is a nationally recognized full-service market research company. The company’s APECS® Performance Monitor has received a number of awards for its value in customer experience monitoring. For more information about the APECS® system and to view the online demo, visit The MSR Group’s website at www.theMSRgroup.com.

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