Who we are

Driving global brand success with a new standard in experience management

About us

SMG works with top global brands, united by a shared focus on quality and a passion for creating great experiences. Our AI-powered platform helps you connect with people and make real improvements across:

Vision

Make human experiences the heart of every business.

Mission

Accelerate value by changing how brands act on brand, customer, and employee insights.

Core values

Be deeply curious | finding answers to important questions

Always be hungry | striving and driving like you really want it

Crave collaboration | energizing and feeding off one another 

Make ’em feel elite | creating advocates from world-class service

Our technologies

- Our purpose-built, AI-native data platform delivers faster research cycles, intelligent insights, and prescriptive actions.
Ignite

Our purpose-built, AI-native data platform delivers faster research cycles, intelligent insights, and prescriptive actions.

- SMG's experience management platform delivers role-based reporting and action tools to ensure insights lead to measurable results.
smg360

SMG's experience management platform delivers role-based reporting and action tools to ensure insights lead to measurable results.

- Bulbshare empowers brands to co-create, gather insights, and drive decisions through rich audience collaboration.
Bulbshare

Bulbshare empowers brands to co-create, gather insights, and drive decisions through rich audience collaboration.

- SMG’s team of experts guides you through experience management, using smart technology and hands-on support to help you succeed.
Expert Consulting Team

SMG’s team of experts guides you through experience management, using smart technology and hands-on support to help you succeed.

Our history

1991

SMG was founded as a unit of a Kansas City ad agency called Barkley and launched an employee experience solution

1995

Customer experience solution launched

1997

SMG co-founder Leonard Schlesinger published “The Service Profit Chain”

1999

SMG spun off from Barkley as an independent company

2003

Introduced competitive benchmarks to the marketplace

2007

Launched brand experience solution

2012

Launched top-rated smg360® mobile reporting app

2016

Launched digital feedback and call center solutions

2020

Patents granted for tracking consumer brand strength and capturing consumer location and behavior data

2021

Identified by Forrester as a “Leader” in Customer Feedback Management Wave and received significant strategic investment from Brentwood Associates

2022

Closed our offices and adopted a remote-first model

2024

Acquired Bulbshare

2025

Launched Ignite®

SMG by the numbers

30+

Years

180+

countries

550+

brands

18B

active/passive signals per year

Diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB)

We firmly believe all benefit when everyone is heard, recognized, and valued. Our workplace policies and practices support a culture of inclusion and respect for all employees, partners, and suppliers, which strengthens the work we do for our clients and drives our success.

See SMG in action

Let our team of experts show you how you can take your experience management program to new heights.
SEE SMG IN ACTION