Ask Bernhard Klein Wassink, Senior Vice President, Global Marketing, GE Real Estate: "Why did GE Real Estate embark on the NP journey in 2005, when they have tripled their net income over the last 5 years?"

Well to start, Bernhard quotes GE CEO Jeff Immelt: "NPS is the best formula I've seen in my career here, and I want everybody here to get on board." This is seen as the next wave at GE, following other successes like Six Sigma.

So does GE Real Estate have a business problem?

Well, no, but they see factors that are affecting their business like globalization, mergers and acquisitions, and tons of liquidity. One thing they said for sure is that while they are global, their customers are local. Reputation and local relationships are key. And growing these relationships is the most important factor to overcoming the above problems.

GE has achieved results with their program - but how did they get there?

They accomplished it with the tried and true "Listen - Act - Grow." First, they listened with a telephone interview. Immediately after they collect this feedback, they act with a "detractor alert" email and quickly follow up. This email includes both email and audio from the call. What was interesting is that the audio files are even more compelling than the written response. Through this process, they have taken multiple detractor calls and turned then into new deals - a common NP story. But this is an operational approach.

Being GE, they also take an analytical look at the data. To do this, GE Real Estate asks other questions in their live interviews so they can conduct a driver analysis to see what factors such as speed and delivering on the promise impact the NP score. This approach allows them to focus on areas that will drive long term improvements, like products, business processes, etc. They have also learned the five key drivers of deal experience which account for 70% of the NPS variance. This helps them prioritize goals and focus on the right actions.

But this is not the whole program. There is also a communication plan to customers, internal and external. Internally, these are one and one and group reviews. "NPS Day", is an internal meeting where awards are given out and all employees are invited. These types of meetings are making a difference. Employees are learning that what they do is important to customers and their actions do have impact.

With customers, they are communicating through customer testimonial ads, customer events, and through the press, Bernhard states. But the main conclusion is that customer and prospects hear value - and that GE's brand has improved in customer perception since it started its Net Promoter program in 2005.

So does this result in growth? Bernhard gave some numbers around new business. This has accelerated for GE Real Estate lately (196% of goal). Bernhard would guess that perhaps $3-4 billion of new business volume (out of $25.5 billion) in 2006 could be attributed to the Net Promoter Score! Bernhard backs this up by the fact that for everything GE does, they have to put a business case together. They need to understand how the program works -  whether they were new customers or existing. They are still learning, so they still have a large margin of error on the estimate.

But in any case, they are getting results and growth!

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