Vignette Corp.

Company: Vignette Corp.
Company Description: Vignette enables enterprises to achieve real-time advantage by rapidly building, deploying and optimizing enterprise Web applications. Vignette powers the Web applications of more than 1,600 leading organizations and is headquartered in Austin, Texas. Vignette has offices located throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia and in Australia, and can be found on the Web at http://www.vignette.com/.
Nomination Category: Team Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best Customer Service Team

Nomination Title: Vignette Corp's Enterprise Account Management Program

1. Tell the story of what this team has achieved in 2002 (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:

   Vignette is proud of its customer roster, which includes many of the most recognized brands in the world. However, customer feedback revealed that Vignette needed to review its vendor/customer interactions and focus more closely on communication with its installed base. Customer feedback also revealed that despite Vignette’s leading reputation, customers were not achieving a significant return on investment. Furthermore, due to Vignette's explosive early growth, some customers were not receiving the attention they deserved and reported that doing business with Vignette was cumbersome and challenging.

   The Vignette Enterprise Account Management program’s goal is to advise and inform customers on the company’s products and future direction. Each Vignette Enterprise Account Manager (EAM) becomes a trusted advisor and advocate for customers in the pre- and post-sale environments, providing leadership and strategic program and account management. EAMs are tasked with demonstrably increasing customer satisfaction by providing proactive account management, ensuring that expectations set during the sales cycle were met/exceeded, and addressing customer needs.

   To evaluate the success of the program, Vignette established measurable metrics (NOTE: metrics have been removed from this nomination for publication):

   Customer Satisfaction: Vignette retained Prognostics, an independent firm, to survey customers to determine satisfaction. Information received measures satisfaction by measuring specific items of importance to the customer and satisfaction level. The difference is called the gap, a lower gap indicating a higher satisfaction. Goal: Survey gap at or below the world-class benchmark of 1.5.
   
   

   Maintenance: Maintenance fees are a key economic indicator of company health and represent a significant, predictable year-over-year revenue stream. Goal: Percentage of customers current on maintenance fees at or above the world- class benchmark of 80%.
   
   Referenceability: Increasing the number of referenceable customers was a major goal. Goal: Customer referenceability percentage at or above world-class benchmark of 95%.
   
   Customer Upgrade Plans Understood: Required understanding of customer business and technology direction to ensure product, technology, and services directions stay aligned with customer requirements. Goal: 100% upgrade plans understood for customers assigned an EAM
   
   Revenue At Risk: Vignette EAMs work with customers to ensure there are no outstanding issues leading to a delay or refusal of payment, resulting in lower Daily Sales Outstanding, a key metric used as an indicator of satisfaction issues. Goal: Percentage of best customers with revenue at risk at 0 %.
   
   Impact to Revenue : Satisfied customers that realize value and ROI are more likely to be references for new customer sales cycles and expand their product license and services footprint. Goal: No definable goal was set for this metric. Although, as a customer’s satisfaction increases, so will the probability that they will serve as a reference and purchase additional products.