Company: Bronto Software, Durham, NC
Company Description: Bronto Software provides web-based email marketing services to online retailers and more than 3500 other organizations worldwide that see email marketing as a critical function of their business. Bronto's enterprise-level software application is used by customers like Gander Mountain, Etsy, Progress Energy, and Bigelow Tea.
Nomination Category: Customer Service Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Customer Service Department of the Year

Nomination Title: Simplifying Metrics for Proactive Customer Communication

1. Tell the story about what this nominated organization/department achieved since January 1 2009 (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

One of the guiding principles at Bronto is the concept that “making something
easy is hard to do.” As a software company, Bronto’s product team strives to
make our email marketing application sophisticated and feature-rich while
maintaining ease of use. As the application has grown more sophisticated, our
Client Services team has the challenge of making complex metrics easy to
understand so clients can improve revenue and reach other goals. One major focus
to simplify the complexity in 2009 was the use of the Sender Rating tool to help
customers understand their email reputation. Due to the nature of Bronto’s
“software as a service” application, there are some shared application resources
and, as a result, what customers do in the application may unknowingly impact
other customers. In a handful of past cases, customers not using best practices
put Bronto’s reputation at risk. That’s how the Sender Rating was born. Bronto’s
Client Services team educates clients on how to effectively use the application
to achieve their goals and maintain a high reputation but this can be a
challenge when the data is hard to understand. To help clients understand the
impact of their actions, the Sender Rating was created and is based on
combination of metrics and algorithms that gives the client a score that
reflects their reputation.

Having a Sender Rating score, based on a 1-10 scale, prominently displayed on
the home page of the application makes customers more aware of how their actions
impact their reputation. By simplifying the metrics into a friendly number,
there’s no need to get into technical discussions – usually the customer calls
and wants to know why they scored a 5. If the customer does not reach out first,
Bronto has a chance to address a situation before it gets worse. The Client
Services team proactively contacts customers if they dip below a six. In
addition, automated messages are proactively sent to customers that include next
steps as well as a reminder of why the score is important. After being contacted
by Client Services for a low score, the customer receives a personalized plan
for how to move toward a higher score. This entire process helps to educate the
client and serves as a barometer of their progress. Additionally, the Client
Services team is able to act more as a service provider to help understand the
score instead of having to react after the fact and attempt to explain complex
metrics to change customer behavior. To our knowledge, we are the only email
marketing service provider offering such a tool. By simplifying this complex
information in a customer facing and friendly way, the Client Services team is
able to effectively educate customers, giving them the knowledge and actionable
steps to improve their email campaigns and drive revenue. As a result of having
a Sender Rating score to reference and new procedures to educate clients, Bronto
reduced the number of clients below the acceptable threshold from 4% of
customers to only 2% in 2009.

2. List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:

http://blog.bronto.com/2009/05/18/6-considerations-to-lower-complaints-improve-your-sender-reputation/

http://brontoversity.com/2009/05/12/dont-let-your-campaign-jump-the-shark-keep-your-sender-ratings-high/

3. Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of the nominated organization/department:

As Vice President of Client Services, Carolyn leads the client services team to
meet the needs of Bronto customers. An accomplished, results-driven service
professional, Carolyn has a strong background in call center support,
professional services, project management, and technical service leadership.
Carolyn has over 20 years of global operations experience, spanning
multi-functional disciplines including services support, education, consulting,
international support and business management. Prior to joining Bronto,
Carolyn’s was Vice President of Worldwide Product Support for Red Hat where she
led the services team from its infancy to a global, 24x7 open source support
operation, providing services in seven languages around the world.