Fred Van Bennekom

Dr. Fred Van Bennekom

Consultant�- Survey Design, Survey Data Analysis and Research

Biography:

Dr. Fred Van Bennekom helps organizations increase their effectiveness by applying customer feedback.� Fred delivers workshops teaching survey research practices based on the principles in his book "Customer Surveying: A Guidebook for Service Manager" published by the Customer Service Press, and he has conducted many survey programs for organizations to measure product & service quality and then apply the findings to improve customer retention.� Through his Survey Mentor Suite, Fred provides hands-on mentorship to people about how to develop better survey questionnaires and survey programs.

Fred's business practice also has a special focus on the strategic linkage between customer support and product engineering.� Fred co-authored a major research report on "Problem Prevention Through Design for Supportability: Gaining Competitive Advantage from Customer Support," with Keith Goffin of Cranfield Management School in England.� Their work shows how companies can delivery lower Total Cost of Ownership and a higher Total Net Benefit of Ownership through product design practices that explicitly incorporate lessons from the product use and support period of the product life cycle.

Additionally, Fred teaches operations management and service management courses in the Executive MBA program at Northeastern University and in Harvard University's Certificate in Management program.� Fred's business practice examines the use of customer feedback for organizational improvement, with a special focus on the strategic linkage between customer support and product engineering.

Prior to his consulting and academic career, Fred served ten years as an information systems consultant for Digital Equipment Corporation's Customer Service organization, developing management reporting systems for field management.� He received his A.B. from Bowdoin College and his masters and doctoral degrees from Boston University's School of Management.� Fred has published in both industry and academic journals and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences worldwide.� He is president of the New England Association of Service & Support Professionals.