1974
TARP is commissioned by the White House and the assistant to the president of Consumer Affairs to study customer service and complaint handling.

1974 – 1978
TARP researches and publishes its first report, “Increasing Customer Satisfaction Through Effective Complaint Handling.”

1978
TARP expands services into the private sector. Some of the first clients include:
• American Express
• General Motors
• Coca-Cola
• Pepsi Cola
The Coca-Cola study officially quantifies that an unhappy customer will tell about 10 people, whereas a satisfied customer might or might not tell one person.

1980 – 1982
TARP becomes the first company to quantify the effects of consumer education (funded by American Express).

1982 – 1984
TARP researches and publishes a second Consumer Affairs report, expanding on its findings from the first report.

1984
Business Week publishes cover story, “Using Service for Marketing,” crediting TARP for creating the 800- service numbers concept for companies to manage customer complaints and feedback.

1984 – 1985
TARP makes the business case for and develops Toyota’s first 800# system and creates the field service and dealer strategies.

1984 – 1985
TARP conducts the first contact center satisfaction surveys at American Express and helps establish the Executive Customer relations function.

1985
TARP leads Polaroid to emboss an 800 number on its camera and to use customer service for problem prevention and cross-selling.

1986
TARP develops Apple’s first 800# system.

1988
Al Gore cites the Tip of the Iceberg Phenomenon in “Serving the American Public: Best Practices in Resolving Customer Complaints,” Federal Benchmarking Consortium Study Report.

1988
Xerox and Motorola studies show that customers with problems that are resolved quickly and satisfactorily are more loyal than customers with no problems.

1990
TARP develops the 5-point Pentagon Model for maximizing contact center performance.

1990 – 1995
TARP develops the framework for today’s customer relationship management systems with a DOS system that is implemented at clients such as DaimlerChrysler, Qantas, and Neutrogena. This framework is based on TARP’s 19-point customer service guidelines.

1992
TARP publishes “Ineffective: That’s One Problem with Satisfaction Surveys.” This paper suggests measuring market action such as “willingness to recommend” rather than customer satisfaction.

1994
In his newsletter On Achieving Excellence, Tom Peters says that TARP is “perhaps America’s premier research firm.”

1994
TARP publishes “The Key Problem with TQM.” This article asserts that TQM often lacks customer-driven priorities and effective measures of impact.

1998
TARP pioneers methods that focus on the customers Web experience, such as the Click & Mortar studies.

1998 – 1999
TARP coins the phrase “word of mouse,” for online, measured word-of-mouth complaints and satisfaction.

2004
Quirk’s publishes TARP’s “Stop Wasting Money!” which outlined how organizations waste resources on surveys to discover what they probably already know.

2005
Alfred Street Partners acquires TARP.

2006
Dennis Gonier, market research veteran and visionary, joins TARP.

2006
TARP launches its Practices Division, a customer experience agency, to help TARP clients optimize their customer interactions.

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