Bill Review Survey, Takeaway #3

Our last Bill Review Survey was in 2012; things have changed a lot since then – and mostly for the better.

Overall Industry rating

Six years ago we asked the 24 respondents to rate their overall impression of vendors on our standard 1 – 5 scale: the result as reported in 2012:

In what might be best described as a wake-up call for vendors and application providers, there were no ratings higher than a 3.4, with the average a 3.07 on the 1-5 scale (among respondents who knew of the specific vendor).

Put another way, the people who use BR services view BR providers as generally mediocre/adequate/acceptable.

Today, the average rating was just under 3.3, a small but significant improvement.

However, there were significant shifts for individual companies.

In 2012 the three top vendors – Medata, Mitchell, and StrataCare were all in a statistical dead heat, with Xerox/ACS rated a full point lower. (Xerox/ACS bought Stratacare, converted most/all of its users to the Strataware platform, and now operates under the Conduent brand.)

No longer.

This year, we asked the 30 respondents to provide ratings of ten bill review vendors on four different metrics;

• overall perception
• handling the basics of bill review
• customer service and implementation
• innovation and forward thinking

(All respondents did not give ratings for all categories or companies; the findings below are averages across those respondents who gave a rating for that specific company).

Mitchell (3.75) and Medata (3.71) were in a statistical dead heat for top honors in Handling the basics.

For Customer service and implementation, Medata (3.94) was the clear leader with Mitchell second (3.54).

Medata held serve for Innovation (3.91) and Mitchell (3.5) again took second place honors.

Here’s where it gets interesting. Medata and Mitchell were essentially tied for Overall perception by respondents who rated them.

But across ALL respondents, Medata’s Overall perception rating was 3.4, with Mitchell at 3.08. While Medata has the lowest market share of the top three application providers, it was tied for highest name recognition among our 30 respondents, and thus garnered the top spot in Overall perception amongst ALL respondents.

Here’s where we link back to last week’s posts on the critical importance of customer service;  the data shows Customer Service has the highest statistical correlation with overall perception.

Note – Corvel shared the top spot in name recognition, but got the lowest rating for customer service – and was essentially tied for the lowest score for Overall perception.

What does this mean for you?

Customer service wins.

Note – I’ve received several anonymous comments/emails lately.  I’d remind commenters that anonymous comments on MCM posts are ignored, as are comments with fictitious email addresses.

You know who I am. I and my readers need to know who you are.