I talk with engagement management inside the customer regularly

The mean rating was 5.5 and the median 6.0 (n = 790 respondents). Ratings of 3 or below, the distressed range, made up 5.19% of the answers. The rating was not associated with cancellation (r = 0.01, 95% CI −0.15 to 0.17, p = 0.888, n = 150 engagements), customer satisfaction among active engagements (r = −0.01, 95% CI −0.21 to 0.19, p = 0.937, n = 94 engagements), the engagement indicator mean (r = −0.01, 95% CI −0.17 to 0.15, p = 0.859, n = 150 engagements) and intent to leave (r = 0.05, cluster bootstrap 95% CI −0.02 to 0.12, p = 0.170 with standard errors clustered by engagement, n = 743 respondents). Each of these associations was equivalent to zero. No segment family differed after Holm correction.

The 26 written responses came mostly from C114, on the financial institution's organization, and C156, on joint management. All nine negative responses carried the strongest negative score and came from respondents who never met anyone in the financial institution's management or saw no one from its side take part. Seven described a standing call or a shared list kept with a manager on the financial institution's side. Three of the four written outcome tests reached significance, and the fourth was not computed.

Ratings of 3 or below, the distressed range, accounted for 41 of the 790 answers (5.19%). The engagement mean fell in the distressed range in 0 of 150 engagements.

All 26 responses were secondary. Each answered a question outside the indicator's survey section and addressed the indicator in its content. They came from 4 questions.

Nine responses, each with the strongest negative score, came from respondents who never met or spoke with anyone in the financial institution's management: no one from its side came to sit with the queue in nineteen months, no one from the financial institution joined the standup, and in one case the respondent and the financial institution's release manager were never in the same meeting in three months. Several said they could not rate people they had never met.

Seven responses described a weekly or twice-weekly call, or a shared list sent every Friday, kept with a manager on the financial institution's side. Several said these arrangements settled questions faster but were not formal change control, and that nothing agreed on them was signed. Six responses said the financial institution's managers answered quickly or were good operators, and placed the difficulty in access for the agents, data that disagreed across systems, or the absence of anyone with authority to approve a change. One respondent said that both managers on a call agreed what should happen and that neither could authorize it.

Of the 26 responses, 9 (34.62%, 95% CI 16.00% to 53.85%) were negative and 9 (34.62%) carried the strongest negative score of −10. Positive responses numbered 16 (61.54%), and 1 was neutral. The mean written score was 0.0 (95% CI −3.2 to 2.8, n = 26 responses), and the median was 5.0.

Of the 26 responses, 25 came from respondents who also rated the indicator. Among them, the written score did not track the rating (Spearman rho −0.05, 95% CI −0.45 to 0.34, p = 0.798, n = 25 responses). Of the 8 negative responses with a rating, 1 came from respondents whose rating was in the distressed range.

Respondents who wrote about the indicator and gave a rating numbered 25, with a mean rating of 5.3. The 765 respondents who rated the indicator without writing about it had a mean of 5.5. The difference, −0.2 (95% CI −0.8 to 0.4), included zero. Ratings in the distressed range made up 8.00% of the ratings from respondents who wrote (2 of 25) and 5.10% of the ratings from respondents who did not (39 of 765).

Every figure in the segment tables is at respondent level. Segments with fewer than 30 respondents carry no interval. Segments with fewer than 10 report counts only.

Segment families recorded at engagement level were tested on engagement means. Respondent role and vendor type were tested on respondents. Where an expected count fell below 5, the test of the distressed share used Fisher's exact test for a two-by-two table, marked exact, or a Monte Carlo test, marked simulated. No family differed after Holm correction.

Written sentiment differed by engagement status and lifecycle stage across the 24 engagements with a written response (Kruskal-Wallis H 6.93, df 2, p = 0.031). Of the groups with 10 or more responses, responses from canceled engagements were the most negative (mean −5.0, 10 responses) and responses from active engagements in Build-Out the least negative (mean 3.2, 11 responses). Responses from active engagements in Transition/Cut-Over (1) and active engagements in Production (4) are reported as counts only.

No test across respondent roles was run, because fewer than two roles had 30 or more written responses. Individual contributors wrote 14, engagement managers wrote 11 and portfolio directors wrote 1 responses, reported as counts only.

Cancellation rate is the share of engagements canceled by the study date, measured at engagement level (150 engagements, 56 canceled). Canceled engagements were rated after cancellation. The association is therefore a descriptive contrast and not a forecast of cancellation.

Across the study set, the rating was not associated with cancellation (r = 0.01, 95% CI −0.15 to 0.17, Holm p = 1.000, n = 150 engagements). The association held after Holm correction in zero of the 20 segment levels tested.

Customer satisfaction is the percentage recorded against each engagement. The primary estimate uses the 94 active engagements. A descriptive contrast uses all 150 engagements.

Across the active engagements, the rating was not associated with customer satisfaction (r = −0.01, 95% CI −0.21 to 0.19, Holm p = 1.000, n = 94 engagements). The association held after Holm correction in zero of the 16 segment levels tested.

The engagement indicator mean is the mean of an engagement's ratings across the rated indicators, measured at engagement level (150 engagements). The indicator does not enter the mean.

The rating was not associated with the engagement indicator mean (r = −0.01, 95% CI −0.17 to 0.15, Holm p = 1.000, n = 150 engagements). The association held after Holm correction in zero of the 24 segment levels tested.

Intent to leave is the answer to C019, “How likely are you to leave your current job in the next 12 months?”, rated 1 to 10. It is measured at respondent level on up to 798 respondents, with the engagement-level form reported alongside.

The rating was not associated with intent to leave (r = 0.05, 95% CI −0.02 to 0.12, Holm p = 1.000, n = 743 respondents). The association held after Holm correction in zero of the 37 segment levels tested.

Two comparisons set the engagements with at least one negative response against all other engagements. Of the 141 other engagements, 125 had no written response addressing the indicator. These two comparisons therefore do not isolate written sentiment. Of the 9 engagements with a negative response, 7 were canceled, against 49 of the 141 other engagements (34.75%). The difference reached significance (Fisher exact p = 0.014). The comparison of customer satisfaction was not computed, because one of the two groups held too few active engagements.

Two correlations test written sentiment directly. Across the 25 engagements with a written response, a more negative engagement mean written score came with cancellation (point-biserial r −0.52, p = 0.008). Across 24 respondents, a more negative respondent mean written score came with higher intent to leave (Spearman rho −0.47, p = 0.022). Of the three comparisons, all reached significance at 0.05.

The four associations were compared in pairs on their engagement-level forms, each oriented so that a higher value is the better outcome, across the 150 engagements with all four measures. After Holm correction, zero of the six pairs differed.

Answers clustered within engagements (ICC 0.02). Clustering reduced the 790 respondent answers to the equivalent of about 735 independent answers. Respondent-level intervals therefore used the cluster bootstrap. Respondent-level tests of intent to leave used standard errors that allow for clustering by engagement.

The association with cancellation, customer satisfaction, the engagement indicator mean and intent to leave were equivalent to zero. The detection floor shown is the study floor at 150 engagements. Intent to leave was tested on its effective sample size.

Each change was computed before rounding and may differ by 0.01 from the difference between the two printed values.

All 22 checks held. A check holds when its test falls on the same side of 0.05 as the primary test. Where the primary test falls below 0.05, the check must also keep the sign of the primary correlation. The thin-base check removes the engagements in any level of outsourcing model or process family with fewer than 30 engagements. Institution type is not used for that check, because every one of its levels has fewer than 30 engagements.

Each of the four measures was computed from data the indicator does not contain. Each result is therefore a finding and not an arithmetic consequence.

Each deviation was computed before rounding and may differ by 0.01 from the difference between the two printed values.

The comparison covered 150 engagements. The indicator departed from the study's typical pattern on all four measures. Its association was weaker than the norm on cancellation, customer satisfaction, the engagement indicator mean and intent to leave.

Among the 11 Part 4 indicators with 30 or more written responses, the indicator's share of negative responses, 34.62%, ranked 6th from the highest, against a median of 33.33%. Its mean written score, 0.0, ranked 6th from the most negative, against a median of 0.8.

The indicator most often present in the same responses was C071, “I talk with peers inside the customer regularly.”, in 10 of the 26 responses (38.46%). C073, “I talk with the customer's leadership team regularly.” (10 responses), C109, “Rate how quickly the customer responds when this engagement raises issues that need customer action.” (8 responses), C105, “Rate the effectiveness of the customer's management of its side of this engagement.” (6 responses) and C136, “Rate how effectively the customer and vendor jointly manage this engagement now that agents perform part of the work.” (6 responses) followed.

The most frequent theme was “The scale or question does not fit”, in 5 responses (19.23%). The second was “Comparison to a prior engagement”, in 4 responses.

Fewer than one in ten ratings of regular contact with engagement management inside the financial institution fell in the distressed range (41 of 790 answers, 5.19%). The rating was not associated with any of the four study measures, and each association was equivalent to zero. Canceled engagements rated about the same as the three active stages (mean 5.6, n = 299 respondents).

The written outcome tests point the other way. Engagements with a negative written response were canceled more often, a more negative engagement mean written score came with cancellation, and respondents whose written responses were more negative reported higher intent to leave. Every negative response came from a respondent who had no contact with the financial institution's management at all, so these tests rest on nine responses and describe the complete absence of contact.

The evidence is the reported experience of the vendor's delivery teams, collected in a single cross-section. The associations reported here are not causal.

Tests by respondent role and by vendor type treated respondents as independent. The section on clustering reports how far clustering within engagements reduced the information in respondent-level figures.

Shares of written sentiment are shares of responses and not of the study set of respondents. The written score takes five fixed values, so its mean and median are coarse. Responses clustered within engagements (26 responses on 25 engagements). Intervals for written sentiment therefore used a bootstrap by engagement.

The written responses number fewer than 30, so their shares and the written-sentiment tests rest on a small base.