From: Eberle, John
Sent: Sunday, March 01, 2009 8:04 AM
To: Robert Malmud
Subject: A Letter for Your Staff


To the Staff at MAXimum Research:

On behalf of GfK Healthcare, I would like to personally thank each and every one of you for your hard work on this project. Your efforts made a significant difference to the overall success of this phase of the project. In any project, the overall success is made up of a lot of smaller successful pieces; here are just a few I wanted to mention.

• Elizabeth, who was aggressive in getting past the office gatekeeper to the doctor, or into the doctor’s voicemail to leave a message.
• Amylee, who was interviewing a physician in Texas, recognized a language barrier, seamlessly switched over to Spanish "on the fly", qualified the doctor and then got his email and fax number (way to go!).
• Kristy, who navigated a number of IVR menus to get to the correct voicemail box, leave detailed voicemail messages and got fax numbers.
• Donna, who handled an "idiot" exceptionally well and managed to qualify him for the survey (I was laughing a lot through that call!).
• Vanessa, who got the physician on the phone and stayed with him for 12 minutes, successfully screened him, and then went on to get an email address and fax number.
• Gerald & Robby, who each knew when to "fail fast, and fail cheap" (that is, kill the call and move on).
• Katrina, who I suspect is behind much of the amazing consistency I heard in the 100+ calls I monitored; great training shows.
• Guinevere, who patiently put up with me, answered a bunch of questions (repeatedly), ripped off ad hoc reports, and demonstrated a lot of grace under pressure.

These are just a few of the pieces-- there are so many more. If I left anybody out, it was not intentional, that error in mine. I also want to thank MAXimum Research for allowing me to work on-site at your location for a week.

A final observation I would like to share with all of you. I have worked in many industries and a number of companies in the last 20 years. One can always tell how well a company is run, the quality of leadership, and how well they will do for clients -- just by walking around, and listening.

I will tell all of you that you have something special here at MAXimum Research. Rarely have ever I seen the overall level of dedication, the high level of employee morale, the longevity of employees at every level and just the overall sense that everyone was working together toward a common goal. It was (and is) something very, very special that I have not often seen.

It is my hope and expectation that GfK Healthcare and MAXimum Research will be working together on this, and other projects, in the future. Again, my personal thanks to each and every one of you for your efforts; it really did make a difference.

Cordially,

John C Eberle
Research Director
GfK Healthcare