I talk with the customer's leadership team regularly

The mean rating was 5.6 and the median 6.0 (n = 333 respondents). Ratings of 3 or below, the distressed range, made up 6.01% of the answers. The rating was not associated with cancellation (r = 0.01, 95% CI −0.15 to 0.17, p = 0.943, n = 150 engagements), customer satisfaction among active engagements (r = −0.05, 95% CI −0.25 to 0.15, p = 0.621, n = 94 engagements), the engagement indicator mean (r = −0.01, 95% CI −0.17 to 0.15, p = 0.920, n = 150 engagements) and intent to leave (r = 0.07, cluster bootstrap 95% CI −0.03 to 0.17, p = 0.158 with standard errors clustered by engagement, n = 324 respondents). Each of these associations was equivalent to zero. No segment family differed after Holm correction.

All eight negative written responses among the 12 carried the strongest negative score and came from respondents who never met anyone on the financial institution's side. Three described direct contact with a senior leader or committee of the financial institution. No written outcome test reached significance.

Ratings of 3 or below, the distressed range, accounted for 20 of the 333 answers (6.01%). The engagement mean fell in the distressed range in 2 of 150 engagements.

All 12 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.

Eight responses, each with the strongest negative score, came from respondents who never met or spoke with anyone on the financial institution's side, and several said they could not rate a leadership team they had never seen. Three responses described direct contact with the financial institution's leadership. In one, a credit head joined a call within the hour when a surveillance agent misfired, though switching the agent off took nearly two hours. In another, the respondent had to explain to a head of compliance why the tool's own summary of its work was not evidence, after six of eighty investigations reported as complete had stopped part way. A respondent with long experience in the industry said the team talked with the financial institution every day and that it deferred most decisions.

Of the 12 responses, 8 (66.67%, 95% CI 41.67% to 91.67%) were negative and 8 (66.67%) carried the strongest negative score of −10. Positive responses numbered 3 (25.00%), and 1 was neutral. The mean written score was −5.0 (95% CI −8.8 to −0.8, n = 12 responses), and the median was −10.0.

Of the 12 responses, 5 came from respondents who also rated the indicator, too few for a correlation. Of the 2 negative responses with a rating, 0 came from respondents whose rating was in the distressed range.

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 did not differ by engagement status and lifecycle stage across the 11 engagements with a written response (Kruskal-Wallis H 1.26, df 2, p = 0.532). Fewer than two groups held 10 or more responses, so the groups are reported as counts only: active engagements in Build-Out (2), active engagements in Transition/Cut-Over (2), active engagements in Production (1) and canceled engagements (7).

No test across respondent roles was run, because fewer than two roles had 30 or more written responses. Individual contributors wrote 9, engagement managers wrote 1 and portfolio directors wrote 2 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 = −0.05, 95% CI −0.25 to 0.15, 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 = 0.07, 95% CI −0.04 to 0.18, Holm p = 1.000, n = 324 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 142 other engagements, 138 had no written response addressing the indicator. These two comparisons therefore do not isolate written sentiment. Of the 8 engagements with a negative response, 6 were canceled, against 50 of the 142 other engagements (35.21%). The difference did not reach significance (Fisher exact p = 0.053). 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 12 engagements with a written response, the engagement mean written score was not associated with cancellation (point-biserial r −0.46, p = 0.133). Across 10 respondents, the respondent mean written score was not associated with intent to leave (Spearman rho −0.58, p = 0.077). Of the three comparisons, none 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 −0.09). Clustering reduced the 333 respondent answers to the equivalent of about 333 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, 66.67%, ranked 4th from the highest, against a median of 33.33%. Its mean written score, −5.0, ranked 1st 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 12 responses (83.33%). C072, “I talk with engagement management inside the customer regularly.” (10 responses), C109, “Rate how quickly the customer responds when this engagement raises issues that need customer action.” (4 responses), C035, “How long ago did this specific engagement start, in months?” (2 responses) and C105, “Rate the effectiveness of the customer's management of its side of this engagement.” (2 responses) followed.

The most frequent theme was “The scale or question does not fit”, in 4 responses (33.33%). The second was “Insufficient exposure to rate”, in 4 responses.

Fewer than one in ten ratings of regular contact with the financial institution's leadership team fell in the distressed range (20 of 333 answers, 6.01%). 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 = 119 respondents).

The written evidence is thin. Its negative responses describe no contact with the financial institution at any level, The responses that describe contact with leadership show it arising after a problem had already occurred, or as daily contact in which decisions were deferred. No written outcome test reached significance.

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.

Customer management executives gave 2 answers, a base of anecdote strength.

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 (12 responses on 12 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.