The cost of feedback

Gathering feedback using traditional means can be expensive. FeedbackMatters™ changes this state of affairs and, for the first time allows you to continuously monitor satisfaction and gather feedback from your entire service user base.

What does a feedback system cost?

The answer is simple. As much or as little as you allow it to.

It’s easy to embark upon the specification and implementation of a feedback system – especially an in-house system – an either vastly over- or under-specify... paying for functionality that you simply don’t need or committing to a system that is simply incapable of delivering the insight you need.

Whilst FeedbackMatters can’t – at first glance – compete with simple online “comment” forms hosted on your own website... take a look at the actual cost of these (particularly management/staff time spent interpreting unstructured feedback) and you might be surprised at just how cost effective FeedbackMatters is... even against an approach that many organisations would initially classify as “free”!

There’s then the obvious “make vs buy” debate to consider – especially in mid- to large sized organisations.

There is however no escaping the fact that a well designed feedback system – providing management information – is costly to develop. In fact, it’s prohibitively so for many organisations with the options of “buying in” expertise to develop in house systems or leaving the job to your IT/management team both likely to yield a cost effective, high performance, outcome without committing substantial sums – in terms of initial development and ongoing maintenance.

If your information needs extend beyond “ad hoc” feedback left by your most proactive service users, we therefore believe there’s a clear case for regarding commercial solutions as offering the most cost-effective option... and that’s before even considering the issue of development time in a “make” scenario.

How we reduce your costs

We know that no organisation likes to spend money for the sake of it. Especially in the current economic environment. We’ve therefore designed FeedbackMatters to saves you money in a number of key ways:

First, FeedbackMatters has been designed from the ground up as a multi-channel feedback solution. By doing this, we’ve avoided the cost of “bolting on” new technologies to existing high cost business models.

FeedbackMatters is “lean by design”. Our system has been developed so that it can be provided to a range of clients simultaneously using standard internet architecture. This results in the ability to use shared infrastructure, and build in redundancy, with the costs spread across our entire client base. This results in considerable IT savings... especially for ongoing maintenance.

FeedbackMatters uses a “core” question set (clinically developed for NHS organisations). The significant cost associated with the development and validation of this is again amortised over the relevant client base rather than being borne by a single organisation. Although, we admit, it is possible to develop questions in house, few organisation have the technical expertise (clinical, research, and management) to generate truly relevant questions – thus many take shortcuts, with these becoming evident only later once data collection commences.

We work with you to specify the FeedbackMatters solution that works for you. Our focus is always on maximising the quality and breadth of information you receive, whilst minimising your expenditure and/or working within any predefined financial envelope you may have.

Finally, we take care of all ongoing system management. We estimate that, putting initial training aside, this saves a typical client 1-3 person days per week of mid-manager level time versus a self-managed system. The cost of this alone will usually easily cover a whole-site FeedbackMatters solution.

Cost isn’t everything though...

Cost is only ever one part of the picture when considering the balance between absolute price and best value. By developing FeedbackMatters as a proprietary solution we’ve added functionality that would be cost-prohibitive for a single organisation... unless, of course, they really wanted to spend a six- or seven-figure sum!

Some organisations do find that the simple in house “feedback forms” work for them. If that’s the case for your organisation, then great. On paper we can’t compete with this... but if you’d like to explore the true cost/benefit of this approach versus FeedbackMatters then please do get in touch. As we’ve already discussed, the actual cost difference between free text, ad hoc, receiving/processing and audit grade management information may be much smaller than you expect!

Cost allocation and accounting treatment

These days, more than ever, ensuring that accounting treatment “works” for your organisation is important. Directors of Finance will be pleased to hear that:

1. We understand that many organisations are keen to avoid increasing their capital commitments. FeedbackMatters, as a managed service, is deductible as a revenue item
2. Our managed solution can even avoid infrastructure / IT equipment costs (that would usually be incurred with a self-managed system) hitting your capital budget/allocation
3. As an information service, we believe FeedbackMatters should not be classified as a “management cost”... important in some sectors when deciding between in-house solutions (requiring dedicated, directly employed, personnel) and external managed solutions

Yet, in spite of this favourable accounting treatment, total solution costs remain significantly below those of in-house developed or self-managed systems and falls significantly below thresholds applicable to procurement under the Public Contract Regulations.

Perhaps most importantly though, from a pure finance perspective is this: by providing targeted opportunities for improvement, FeedbackMatters reduces the time it takes for you to make improvements... simultaneously decreasing your analysis costs whilst increasing project NPV or benefit realisation rates.

Long term flexibility

Many organisations are keen to avoid entering into lengthy agreements for the supply of goods and/or services. You need to retain your operational and financial flexibility. We know and understand this.

As a result, FeedbackMatters does not require clients to enter into lengthy fixed term contracts... and, should your circumstances change, we make it easy for you to restructure your feedback package to fit your budget or needs.