More MPP Project Briefs Examples of Return On Event (ROE)

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			MPP Project Briefs

Client: Health Care Company
Client Industry: Health Care Industry
Type of Event: National Sales Meeting

Situation: Meeting planners had anecdotal information through the grapevine that people in the field sales force were troubled, that there were serious morale problems. Yet, the division was one of the fastest growing, most profitable businesses in the company.

MPP pre-meeting focus groups and a survey prior to the national sales meeting uncovered an extremely high degree of personal stress and frustration throughout the national sales organization due to abnormally high (average 60+ hours per week) work loads over many months.

The signs of extreme unrelenting stress within this largely female professional medical sales staff were hidden from view of sales management, but were seen everyday in their personal lives; broken marriages, nervous breakdowns, physically damaging accidents, and more poured out in the confidential focus groups.

The anguish of this field sales force, almost exclusively women (medical technicians and nurses turned salespeople) who were afraid to share their feelings with their male sales managers for fear of being seen as "weak" and "unable to cut it" was so severe, several broke down in tears in the interviews and focus groups.

Sales Management, unaware of the extreme emotional stresses and needs of the sales people, had already designed an intensive 2 day, 8-hours a day training meeting at a resort site in Arizona. Wrong.

Based on the MPP research, a very different meeting design strategy was recommended. Training time was cut back and replaced with networking, R&R and informal discussion opportunities with management. The redesign provided attendees with a much needed respite from their intense job stress. The balanced agenda and relaxed meeting style gave the entire organization a much needed "time out" and provided the opportunity to step back, look at the business and personal issues and to talk candidly about how things might be changed.

Pre-event MPP services included conduct of 6 executive interviews, 6 tele-focus sessions and a 60-question-survey, reporting of findings and strategic meeting recommendations.

Post-event MPP included the conduct of a 60 question survey with a full report package plus a Return On Event (ROE) Report.

Post-Meeting Return On Event (ROE):
(ROE represents the total percentage shift on a question from pre-meeting to post-meeting.)

Attendee satisfaction and ROE on this event were very high:

• 147% ROE on the sales force's satisfaction that their leadership understands what people are experiencing and feeling about their jobs
• 90% ROE on satisfaction that the company is a unified team working together
• 69% ROE on satisfaction with recognition
• 62% ROE on confidence in achieving sales goals
• 56% ROE on satisfaction with morale in the work group
• 45% ROE on satisfaction with organizational support
• 71% increase in the sales force's confidence in meeting/exceeding their objectives for next year

Client: Copier Company
Client Industry: Business Machine Industry
Event: National Dealer Meeting

Situation: Four years of financial instability had created a negative image in the marketplace, loss of market share and severely declining profitability. Dealer morale was low. Dealers were critical of family mismanagement and cynical about the future. Dealers' investment in the brand was limited to 30-90 day agreements while the industry standard was one-three year contracts.

A new president was brought in from the outside. He decided to employ the MPP as the means to develop a national dealer meeting that would help him start turning things around in terms of the company's relationship with its dealers.

Pre-event conduct of 4 structured dealer telephone interviews, four tele-focus group sessions and a 59 question survey with "Client" dealers to identify their attitudes, perceptions, confidence and commitment levels and investment intentions regarding the "Client" brand and management plus their needs, concerns, preferences and suggestions for the upcoming meeting.

Pre-meeting MPP research found that many of the largest dealers had a long-standing personal commitment and affection for their business and the "Client's" unique technology. In many cases, it was the "Client" brand with which they started their business years ago. But, they were soured by what they perceived as the family's mismanagement over years that had dragged down the brand and the company. They were receptive to the idea of new outside leadership that would invigorate the "Client" business.

It was clear that the challenge of the dealer meeting was to convince these core large dealers that a new era for "Client" was being planned and implemented by the new president and his new leadership team. Every pre-event, meeting agenda item, core meeting experiences and post-meeting follow through initiatives with these dealers was focused on winning their confidence and commitment to reinvest in their "Client" business.

In fact, if these core dealers left the meeting still disappointed and disaffected and with no greater investment and brand support intentions than they had before the meeting, it was doubtful the company would survive much longer.

Post-event conduct of a 67 question survey to determine the dealers' satisfaction with the meeting and their attitudes, perceptions, confidence and commitment levels and investment intentions regarding the "Client" brand and "Client" management.

Post-Meeting Return On Event (ROE):

• "Client's" annual sales increased by 10% when 98% of the dealers signed up their first annual purchase agreement at the meeting.
• 86% of the dealers increased their confidence levels regarding "Client's" business growth
• 85% are confident their "Client" business will increase in coming year
• 79% state that the meeting addressed their most important concerns
• 76% of attending copier dealers changed their commitment and investment levels at the meeting
• 72% of the dealers had improved perceptions and attitudes towards the company
• 72% are confident of "Client's" consistent profitability
• 52% increased their investment intentions

The meeting accomplished its critical objectives. The dealer network recommitted to their "Client" business, and "Client" stayed alive to rebuild its brand and market position.

Client: Health Care Company
Client Industry: Health Care
Event: New Product Launch - Serenity

Situation: "Client" Product Launch Meeting Pre-Event Research
Structured, confidential interviews (6) plus two live focus group sessions with prospective attendees to identify their initial responses to the product and their concerns, needs, preferences and suggestions for the launch meeting with their colleagues.

• A national sales meeting for a division of "Client" motivated the sales force to achieve 95% of their retail shelf space goals for a new product launch within 45 days of the meeting, half the targeted time.

Client: Health Care Company
Client Industry: Health Care
Event: Quality Selling Processg & Account Team Building Event Training Program

Situation: "Client" conducted a series of 28 4-day training events in Pecos River, NM, for approximately 2,500 sales representatives and sales managers from 22 "Client" divisions. Each training group had approximately 85 participants.

A multi-stage framework of research services was developed to provide "Client" management with pre-event insight into the attitudes and needs of prospective training participants; pre-event attitude bench marking research; on-going, on-site training evaluation and post-event attitude and behavior studies to both determine the overall ROE of the program and to provide guidance for follow-up initiatives.

Services provided:

1. Pre-event - design, conduct and summary reports of 6 pre-event tele-focus group sessions with prospective participants.
2. Pre-event - design, conduct and reporting for a pre-event bench marking survey (60 questions) for each of the 28 participating groups.
3. On-site - event evaluations utilizing a questionnaire (29 questions) with each group. Services include data scanning, statistical analysis, coding and tab summaries of open-end responses and weekly "Snapshot" report on each of the first 10 participant groups plus additional data table "Snapshot" reports for continuing groups.
4. Separate tracking reports and written analysis for 5 aggregated sales groups and 5 aggregated sales management groups plus a combined report comparing the two groups and all participants.
5. Post-event - design (currently in development): tracking survey to determine attitude perception and behavior changes among participants, overall ROE of the training program and guidance for follow up initiatives.

Client: Telecommunications Company
Client Industry: Telecommunications Industry
Event: Teleconference

• A 48% increase in employees' confidence (from 60% pre-event to 89% post-event) in their regional telephone company's future plus a 110% increase (from 40% pre-event to 84% post-event) in confidence in their personal future and a 130% increase (from 37% pre-event to 85% post event) regarding their commitment to being more competitive.

Client: Brewing Company
Client Industry: Beverage Industry
Event: 1999, 1998 and 1997 Distributor Conventions & Sales Conferences

Situation: Pre-event qualitative research consisting of 28-30 structured executive interviews with distributor principals and company field sales management and representatives to identify their pre-convention and pre-conference needs, preferences, attitudes, perceptions, intentions and behaviors.

Pre-event qualitative measurement in the form of a faxback tele-Survey conducted with 1,500 people in mid-October, 1997, 1998 and 1999. Data analysis and Key Findings reports prepared from which Convention recommendations, including a set of meeting strategies and individual executive presentation objectives, are developed.

The 1997 pre-event qualitative measurement was in the form of an 81 question 800# touch-tone Tele-Survey was conducted with 1,478 people with a 31% response rate. Data analysis and Key Findings reports were prepared from which Convention recommendations, including a set of meeting strategies and individual executive presentation objectives, were then developed. The 1998 and 1999 survey designs use a mail-out-faxback data collection method.

New in 1999 is the use of e-mail questionnaires for the "Client" field sales force surveys (2).

Client: Brewing Company
Client Industry: Beverage Industry
Event: 1996 Distributor Convention& Sales Conference

Situation: Pre-event qualitative research consisting of 15 structured executive interviews and two series of 12 Tele-Focus group sessions each with distributor principals and company field sales management and representatives to identify their pre-Convention and pre-conference needs, preferences, attitudes, perceptions, intentions and behaviors. A set of meeting strategies, presentation objectives, themes, a set design and video module concepts were also developed for the client.

Post-event, a 94-question FX-Tele-Survey was conducted with 1,428 people with a 46% response rate. A two-year tracking of post-Convention results and Return On Event (ROE) Report was developed on benchmark questions in addition to the standard array of MPP post-event survey reports.

Client: Brewing Company
Client Industry: Beverage Industry
Event: 1995 National Distributor Convention & Sales Conference/Restructuring

Situation: Pre-event qualitative research consisting of 11 structured executive interviews, 11 Tele-Focus group sessions with distributor principals and company field sales management and representatives plus an FX-Tele-Survey (faxback) with 64 questions to 1,555 people to establish baseline measurements of attendees' understanding, attitudes, perceptions, intentions, behaviors, etc. Meeting strategies and presentation objectives were also developed.

Post-event, a 96-question FX-Tele-Survey was conducted with 1,450 people with a 66% response rate. A Return On Event (ROE) Report was developed on benchmark questions in addition to the standard array of MPP post-event survey reports.

• 107% increase in distributor satisfaction that the company and the distributor network are a unified team moving in one direction together, 101% increase in satisfaction that recent changes strengthens their ability to grow the brand's business and 138% increase in their perception of the company's product marketing
  

Client: Real Estate Company
Client Industry: Real Estate Industry
Event: Recognition Program

Situation: Chairman's Circle Conference Post-event Research
Design and conduct of post-event tele-focus groups with "Client" real estate brokerage firm principles were conducted to acquire participants' insights regarding the satisfaction, attitudes and perceptions of the conference and their needs, concerns and suggestions for the 1993 conference. Focus groups were divided by size of business and number of years attending the conference. Reports included summaries of the focus groups and analysis of the implications for the 1993 Chairman's Circle Conference.