Lenna Mariana's session on Benchmarking your NPS performance raised a number of old chestnuts about 'The Score' and the need to understand the context of your market and your territory.

One of the counter-intuitive things about NPS for newbies is the concept that a negative score can be good. Negative always has to be bad - right?  Lenna's summary of the Satmetrix cross-cultural benchmarks in Europe really drove home three key messages for me:

1.     You need to understand your score in the context of your competitors. This is particulalry important as in some markets, the market average may be a negative NPS score BUT if you have an above average NPS score you can typically expect to out-perform competitors who do not. In fact the study by the London School of Economics identified some interesting trends here.

2.     You need to understand your score in the context of your territory. The European benchmarks covered by Lenna show some fascinating things. For example the average score in Western Europe is lower than the 25% in Southern Europe. So if you work for a multi-national that believes in league tables, the UK team could be best in class in the UK but seemingly failing against the score for Italy where the team may only be average against their competitors. Understanding this is vital to motivating a rewarding teams correctly.

3.     The verbatim responses from customers are usually more valuable than the number. If you haven't the benefit of benchmarks for your market sector and territory, it is worth remembering that the verbatim feedback from your customers about the reasons for your score will provide the insight you need to raise your game. The Net Promoter Score without this context could actually be an unhelpful guide if you don't understand the importance of cultural and market differences.

The Satmetrix benchmarks are well worth a look for organisations keen to understand where they stand against their competition.