Steelcase® is a global, industry-leading company that helps create great experiences for the world’s top organizations. They offer a comprehensive portfolio of architecture, furniture, and technology products and services that are accessible through a network of channels, including over 800 dealer locations. Steelcase needed a survey tool to capture how their customers feel about their office space and to gauge the overall satisfaction of employees regarding their work experience. This survey measures factors like employee well-being, choice and control, and overall workplace effectiveness. Results from the survey are used as a starting point for the sales team to create solutions (and suggest office furniture) to alleviate the pain points that a client may be having.
Building a workplace satisfaction survey tool to streamline consumer research
Steelcase’s workplace satisfaction survey (called the Workplace Snapshot) is used during the pre-sales process to identify the areas of their workplace experience a customer enjoys and the areas for improvement.
The web-based application allows for control over the question types and data collected. After members of the Steelcase team log in to the application, they can set up a new survey for each client, adding in a title, start and end dates, and more. The application supports six different languages, allowing for instant translation with the click of the button for Steelcase’s global customer base. The translation component is critical to the success of the tool, as the real-time translation not only applies to the front-end survey portion of the tool but also on the reporting side, helping the team to derive meaning from the data they collect. To make survey creation easier, Emergent Software built an admin tool that controls the back-end setup of each survey. This makes the creation, finalizing, and reporting for each survey simple and efficient.
Data-driven analytics to inform the sales process
Another integral feature of the survey platform is the ability for the Steelcase team to compile survey data into detailed reports to understand prospective customer data and inform the sales process. These reports needed to be easy to build, understand, and only use the data that was going to be most valuable in making decisions for the customer. The Steelcase team also wanted the ability to compare data across a variety of factors such as job discipline and across organizations. The database is configured to accommodate each unique question on the survey and allows the team to build only the reports that will bring them the most value.
The survey tool allows for easy data collection and modeling for the Steelcase team. Survey results can be compared against the results of Steelcase’s global study of more than 14,000 office workers by either global or specific country averages. Results can identify areas for improvement in an effort to enhance experiences at work. The survey can also be used for pre- and post-occupancy measures. This customization can also reflect inward, comparing survey results across different disciplines within the same survey taker base. Executive summaries of survey results are calculated by the tool to provide overall workplace effectiveness.
Overall, the survey tool has been well-received by the Steelcase team and helps to give them a greater understanding of their potential customers. With the flexibility and customization options the platform provides, the team at Steelcase is more in touch with what their clients are looking for and in turn, can provide for a more effective sales and consulting engagement. Emergent Software looks forward to continuing to transform this platform to create a solution that brings the most value to Steelcase and their customers.
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