We’ve been gearing up for our tenth anniversary this fall here at ForeSee, and I’ve been thinking a lot about the early days at ForeSee lately. The last ten years has been an amazing ride, and I can’t wait to see what’s in store for the next ten.
Ten years isn’t such a long time if you’re a bank or a newspaper or a manufacturer. But it’s a very long time for an analytics company.
We have not only survived a decade that has been very tough on American business (not to mention Michigan business!), we have thrived. We’ve done it because we make satisfying our own customers a priority and because I truly believe we provide a solution that is unmatched. We allow executives and managers to confidently prioritize investments that will have the greatest impact on future business. In other words, we help companies figure out where to spend their money and how to keep their customers.
There is no more powerful strategy, whether you’re in a challenging economy or a booming one. And we can do it across channels and across customer touch points so that you can understand how what happens on one channel affects what happens on another, and how the customer experience across channels impacts the bottom line.
Ten years ago, I decided to take a chance and leave a great job at Compuware to help build a new company that was going to bring the methodology of the ACSI (American Customer Satisfaction Index) to the quickly growing world of websites and other online marketing initiatives. Our first beta client was the week after September 11th. What we thought would be our biggest competitor went out of business the week before we were incorporated. Over the last ten years the global economy has been the most volatile that we have seen since the Great Depression, and we are headquartered in Michigan, one of the states that has been hardest hit by the series of economic downturns over the last decade.
But working with the team here at ForeSee to build a company from the ground up has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. With a great team of people, we built a business that helps other businesses. We quickly expanded our capabilities from measuring online customer satisfaction to measuring the complete customer experience across all channels and touch points. We’ve grown in revenue, market share, and staff every year since we started. We’ve built something we’re really proud of; something that we think can make a difference to businesses in good economies and in bad.
The thousands of clients we’ve worked with over the years have been a big part of why this job is so rewarding for me. I’ve gotten to meet so many of our clients over the years at various tradeshows, industry events, and our own summit here in Ann Arbor (this September—register here). I have learned a LOT from our clients about what to do, what not to do, how to improve our own offerings to meet their needs, and more.
As a result of our expanded capabilities and just in time for our tenth anniversary, we decided to update the way we talk about what we do, shorten our name, and freshen up the logo. We’re not changing what we do, just the way we talk about it, and we’ll be putting out a press release Friday about our new name and logo. The name change was a pretty obvious choice, since 99% of our clients, analysts, journalists, and employees already call us ForeSee. So that was an easy decision to make. Starting tomorrow, you’ll see us start referring to ourselves as ForeSee. You'll be able to reach us at www.foreseeresults.com or www.foresee.com.
Our new logo is really just an updated, modern version that we think reflects who we are today: a customer experience analytics firm that helps clients continuously measure satisfaction and confidently prioritize the efforts that will have the greatest business impact. We also wanted a logo that would still be recognizable and familiar to the millions of people who take our surveys every year. We have survey response rates much higher than industry averages and we want to keep it that way. Clients of ours will be getting communications on how and when to change the logos on their surveys, but we designed it and are rolling it out in a way that will have no impact on response rates.
The logo and the name change are in effect tomorrow. But over the next six months, our clients will start to see slight changes in the way we talk about our solutions and the way they work together. We’re going to be working on our website. We’re going to be offering new solutions that allow our clients to take advantage of the unique combination that only we offer: continuous measurement, trusted technology, proven methodology, and world-class analysis. You won’t find that combination anywhere else.
Oh, and I just finished my first book. It’s about how to manage the future using analytics rather than measuring the past using metrics. It will be released in late September/early October, but we’re going to give a copy to everyone attending the ForeSee summit in Ann Arbor this fall. Hopefully some people other than just my Mom will buy a copy from Amazon.
We had a great party at the University of Michigan football stadium last week and are planning a few more celebrations this fall. We're putting some pictures up on our Facebook page today. We thought about a press release saying “ForeSee Celebrates Tenth Anniversary in the Big House” but realized that people who are not fans of Michigan football might think we meant another kind of big house!
Thanks to all ForeSee employees and all ForeSee clients for an amazing ten years. We couldn’t do it without you. Here’s to the next ten!
ForeSee Timeline, First Ten Years, 2001-2011
2001
- March 2001: I was tapped to build a new company designed to bring scientific customer satisfaction measurement to web-based marketing initiatives
- September 2001: ForeSee Results, Inc. officially incorporates after being jointly founded by CFI Group and Compuware
- September 2001: ForeSee’s first beta client launches one week after September 11th
2002
- January 2002: ForeSee signs first paying customer
2003
- December 2003: ForeSee surpasses 1 million completed surveys
2004
- May 2004: First ForeSee Public Sector Summit in Washington DC
2005
- ForeSee surpasses 100 customers
2006
- August 2006: ForeSee surpasses 10 million completed surveys
2007
- September 2007: First ForeSee User Summit in Ann Arbor
- September 2007: ForeSee acquires usability firm Red Spade
2008
- January 2008: ForeSee hires 100th employee
2009
- June 2009: ForeSee acquires Session Replay technology from Nitobi
- November 2009: ForeSee announces expanded offerings to apply technology to measure satisfaction of call centers and store locations
2010
- ForeSee expands offerings to apply technology to measure mobile optimized websites and mobile apps
- July 2010: ForeSee surpasses 50 million collected surveys
2011
- ForeSee surpasses 500 customers
- January 2011: ForeSee hires 200th employee
- August 2011: ForeSee celebrates its tenth anniversary at the University of Michigan football stadium
- August 2011: ForeSee updates logo and shortens name