Richard opened the conference with his take on the top 10 takeaways from his new book co-authored with Laura Brooks, called "Answering the Ultimate Question."

He shared his top 10 list of takeaways from Net Promoter companies.

1. The winner takes it all

Richard contrasted Verizon Wireless and Sprint, who are the leaders and laggards in NPS for US wireless. This shows up in their churn rates: Verizon's has been around 1 to 1.1%, while Sprint's churn rate is 2.4 to 2.7%. This may seem small, but is a huge gap in terms of industry performance.

2. Inertia is the enemy of greatness

Companies who get themselves into a bad position with their customers are unlikely to be able to recover from it. The only way for companies like that to recover is with a drastic switch in leadership.

3. Relative importance is all that matters

Absolute scores mean little; what really matters is relative scores among competitors. What is a good score in your industry?? The competitive set is who your customer compares you to, not who you think you compete against. If you are in retail, consumers may compare you to other

4. Pick your battles

Companies who are especially good at Net Promoter usually do ONE thing really well. LEGO, for example, is known for innovation. First Direct is known for employee loyalty. Amazon has focused a lot on logistics and reliable service execution. Most companies pick one thing to win on in the loyalty battle. So, know what you want to be good at.

5. Create the experience on the front line

Employees really matter. This is a huge challenge for companies who outsource important functions to third parties. NPS winners, by contrast, often have a very strong employee culture.

6. It's how your customers see YOU (not how you see your organisation)

Coordinate the way you get feedback. Don't just Net Promoter customers from every department in your company. It's not important to measure everything...what's more important is to measure the moments that mattter most from the customer's perspective. Consider whether you are measuring yourself, or measuring what matters to the customer.

7. Word of mouth economics trump advertising

If you have an advantage in WOM, you have a critical competitive advantage. For example, leading online retailers spend almost nothing on advertising. Richard postulates that advertising (traditional advertising) often serves as an alternative to good WOM economics. He mentioned recent findings from Satmetrix showing that companies with very high NPS get an expenential boost in actual WOM behaviors. This occurs because socially we are motivated to recommend more when we perceive that others will agree with us.

8. Follow the money

Companies must be sure to understand their core business economics and put NPS in that context. All feedback is not equal, understand which customers matter most to your long-term success.

9. Be like finance

If your company's NPS data as robust and consistent as your financial data? Is your information hoarded centrally? Or can it match up to financial data that is used throughout the organisation.

10. Don't confuse "simple" with "easy"

Richard wrapped up with the example of the iPod. On the surface, it might seem like a trivial product... How hard can it be to create a better solution than the iPod?? It turns out that this is really difficult, because making something simple is NOT EASY.

Net Promoter is like that. Its simplicity is a great strength, but that doesn't mean that it is easy. Your company has to leverage its simplicity by putting the right efforts in place around the metric. The most successful programs are treated like corporate transformation efforts. When companies do this, it ends up looking simple, but they earn it by putting in remarkable planning and effort.