Getting the Real Story

It looks clear and clean but can I drink it. That clear flowing stream may look trustworthy but Giardia, a painful parasite, might be invisibly lurking there. Sometimes reality isn’t what it appears.

My sweetheart periodically likes to take in a movie (with me of course). She goes on line and looks for any shred of evidence that the movie is worth seeing and devours all the moviegoers’ comments that accompany the critic’s corner. Sometimes there are only 2-3 comments but that can sway her. KLAS faces a similar need from providers, a voracious appetite for any insight into how a product or vendor performs. KLAS is committed to providing unbiased measurements. Most vendors let nature take its course in the random accumulation of KLAS-collected performance scores. However, a handful of vendors attempt to fool Mother Nature by pushing their happiest clients to KLAS or by giving KLAS a cherry-picked list of clients.

The good news is that two roadblocks stand in the way of vendors contaminating “clean” and random performance measurements. First, most providers tell us at KLAS that the vendor has pushed them to our door. Secondly, and even more effectively, KLAS has a myriad of safety nets we use to keep the research basically clean and unbiased. Is it foolproof? No. But it does work quite well, and when performance scores tilt to the biased side and get contaminated with some Giardia, it takes little time for KLAS to take the appropriate action. Our goal is to provide clean drinking water (performance scores) for our provider partners, keeping Giardia (contamination) out. We are grateful to the many providers that have sent us emails and letters from their vendors keeping us on top of attempts to “stuff the ballot box”; and especially to those that provide us the names of fellow clients for vendors that choose not to share client lists with KLAS. Your comments on how we can do better at this are appreciated.