You're pushing all the right buttons and your customers are more than likely to recommend you to their friends, family, colleagues and even their parish priest? But between being willing to recommend and actually doing so, there's a gap that is not easily bridged.

After all, the payoff for generating positive word-of-mouth and recommendations for your business can be big. Word-of-mouth is validated as the largest influencer in B2B and B2C buying decisions. A recommendation from a peer is the strongest medium money can buy.

But to move from "likeliness to recommend" to "active recommendations", every business needs to do more than delight its customers. It needs to be worth talking about. The harsh truth is that - as a customer - no matter how much I like you, I will only talk about you if it makes *my* conversations more interesting. If it increases *my* prestige of being "in the know". If it makes *my* friends laugh, or smarter, or happier.

Achieving this takes planning. But having been involved in two Management Centre Europe projects which among other things looked at this challenge, I have learned that it can be done. One was the redefinition of the Lexus Customer Experience. The other, the introduction of storytelling at Gemalto.

Here is what I learned:

STEP 1. Look at all those who can talk, not just the customer

In our drive to get customers to become promoters, it is easy to forget that there are others out there who can also speak well of our brand or business. They are the "influencers". The faceless group of people who say good or bad things about your brand, regardless wether they ever used it. But they are not to be disregarded. Some research even suggests that non-users may be more active promoters or detractors than actual customers. So when setting up programmes to identify and activate promoters, don't just stop at the customer. Include "everyone" who is exposed to your brand or business.

STEP 2. Dig for the emotion

To get people to talk about your brand or business they need to be passionate. And passion is an emotion. But people don't always tell you what they feel, even when asking all the right (NPS) questions. For example, in automotive, half of the women entering a showroom feel intimidated about the prospect of having to negotiate with a male. But unless specifically asked in the right way, hardly any of them will volunteer this information. Still, whithout that deeper, emotional, level, there will be no passion, and hence no real conversation. That is why you need to complement your NPS research efforts, with insight research that digs beneath the surface and uncovers the true emotional triggers.

STEP 3. Script a "talkworthy moment" at every step of the customer journey

Customer journeys shouldn't be "too scripted", but it does pay to include "remarkable moments" at every step the customer takes. This is not necessarily the proverbial "moment of truth" which helps your customer deepen their engagement with your business. Is a typically a small moment which is remarkable enough that people actually think it is worth talking about. For example, at Lexus UK they once had a woman's favourite doughnuts waiting for her, 3 years after she last visited the dealership. While no doughnut ever sold a car, in this case it did make a great piece of conversation.

STEP 4. Bring in the Storytellers

Sometimes people need a hand. Not everyone is equally gifted in telling passionate and relevant stories, even if they are about events that happened to them. Also, unique moments sometimes need amplification to be heard by more than the people involved. So once you have something remarkable happening, capture it. Bring in storytellers to structure it in a narrative that is easily retold. Create compilations which can be circulated through the business. Make your business' stories spreadable. Lexus once did this by compiling a Book of Legends. At Gemalto we did a global story hunt. And of course the classics like FedEx, Ritz or Nordström need no further mention.

STEP 5. Don't forget your staff

Finally, there are the people that work in your business. If you are a large corporation, their recommendation impact, and that of their friends and families, can be massive. Running the numbers in past projects I've been involved in, we have seen staff WoM affect upto a million individuals. The final step (or is it the first one?) is therefore be to make sure that the people who work for your company actively promote your business everywhere they go. Not because you tell them, but becaus they are willing, skilled and able to do so.

Marc Anné, Vice President, Customer Insight & Advocacy, Orange Business Services

While some of you may now Orange as one of the 50 most recognized brands in the world, perhaps you didn’t know the breadth and depth of Orange Business Services (OBS).

Marc began the presentation highlighting the complexity of Orange Business Services (global telecommunication services) serving over 3750 multinational companies around the globe.

Starting in 2006, one of the benefits that OBS has was a CEO who was a great visionary, who also believed that outstanding customer experience should be central to everything they did. As well, Marc highlighted that they focused on other core cornerstones such as profitable growth, people development and competitive advantage.

One are that Marc noted that OBS performed extremely well at was its agility in times of change. He noted as a telecommunications company, change was something they expected which had made them an extremely flexible organization. This undoubtedly makes Orange a nimble organization for any time and place.

Marc then detailed their customer journey. When they started, he said they did not have a deep understanding of the customer experience. This was in part due to the mergers, which lost some of the “heart of the customer”. This phenomenon does not seem unique to OBS as organizations sometimes lose sight the customer at this very crucial time. In addition, due to the complexity of the relationships with the customers, there was a lack of understanding of who owned the customer relationship -- they had silos of ownership. He also noted that there was a lack of executive ownership at the time, and there were more spectators than doers. As well, there was little link between the customer data and core operations of the business.

So why change? One of the reasons was that they saw a clear difference in revenue growth between loyal vs. non loyal accounts so they realized that customer intimacy was critical to their growth strategy. So they launched a program called “Outstanding Customer Experience” as a transformational program for the business, not a quick fix.

Some of the core tenets of the program were that it helped them improve weak areas, yet also build on their strengths. In addition, it was a pragmatic prioritization – allowing them to focus their actions on areas that were customer priorities.

Marc also outlined two areas that the customer feedback was used for:

1. To focus at the individual customer level – addressing very specific customer issues – by business unit managers, end users etc. This focus was therefore at the account level. He noted that now more than ever in the recession, customers want reassurance and security. Therefore, it was very important to integrate the feedback into the account management rhythm and review process. In addition, OBS monitors this closed loop process very closely, making sure that the service improvement plans get the right people involved. Marc also mentioned the importance of understanding and measuring feedback from various account relationships – decision maker, end user etc – how important it was to get a “representative voice”. OBS also launched a series of initiatives around customer teaming – meaning how a global team can better serve the customer. They found by training employees on these skills, they were able to therefore have better focus on the customer, and hence improved loyalty compared to those teams that had not received this training.
2. A second area OBS is working on is improving overall end to end customer experience. In this area they are taking a broader view incorporating industry analysts, customer boards, as well as loyalty surveys. Through this focus they are making process improvements that will become part of the “natural life” of the company. By increasing efficiency, Marc emphasized that this allowed service managers more time to spend with the customer, which had an impact on customer intimacy.

Finally, Marc also showed some industry benchmarking noting that they are very good against the competition but are part of a “bad industry.” Therefore their comparison should be against ICT providers like IBM, HP, etc.

In summing up, Marc said that the key to an outstanding customer experience requires the following:

• Long term vision
• A structured approach
• Operational buy-in and focus
• Clear communication to employees to help mobilize them
• A focus on continued improvement

In terms of key takeaways, I think OBS has been able to be very focused on their customer intimacy strategy, despite complicated B2B relationships, mergers, economic changes. The story is a great one for all B2B businesses.

Creating an integrated NPS strategy: Oliver White, Director, Customer & innovation, Aviva

Oliver proudly states this is his favourite mantra right now, having recently joined Aviva. The phrase is not a headline taken from “Farming weekly”. “You Don’t Fatten the Pig by Weighing it” refers to the ubiquitous cross border challenge of helping countries to go beyond the Net Promoter score and implement the Net Promoter disciplines that we know drive improvements to the Customer Experience.

So who is Aviva? – Many of you will have seen the “One Aviva” brand campaign recently in the run up to One Aviva go live on June 1^st. The heritage of multiple brands going back over 200 years have come together under the One Aviva brand. Aviva’s ambition is to be the most recommend brand or choice. Clearly NPS is the deal KPI to measure progress towards achieving that ambition and not only within the Insurance industry.

Operating in 28 markets and a diverse mix of distribution channels from direct sales to 91 bankassurance partner agreements brings its own cross border NPS challenges.

The journey so far - Back in 2005 the executive team took the leap of faith to link remuneration to a single balanced scorecard approach with a consistent customer measure and employee measure. NPS, was selected as the customer measure. Countries had the freedom in how they implemented their Net Promoter programme. Consequently not everyone implemented exactly the same NPS question, scale or methodology. In 2007 Group guidelines were created to bring greater consistency and NPS targets were put in place based on absolute scores. The phrase “herding” now springs to mind. In 2008 tighter guidelines were issued and NPS targets set “relative to an industry benchmark”. To support countries adopt best practices brought some consulting expertise to produce a “NPS blueprint” and made this available online to all parts of Aviva. This “Advocacy & Growth loyalty house” is being constantly added to. To assist country practitioners bring these key building blocks to life regular Webex sessions are held to showcase an internal best practice and support broader adoption across borders. The central team also invested in a global reporting platform to support all markets view and disseminate Net Promoter results and insight.

Some countries are further along the implementation journey than others. In Asia, India is a Net Promoter best practice market now into their 3rd year of rapid progress. In Europe Poland are strong believers in the Net Promoter discipline. Acting on Voice of Customer feedback they reduced the claims process from 30 days to 10 days with instant impact to the Customer Experience. UK Healthcare – have done a marvelous job of mapping the Customer Experience journey with the key moments of truth across the customer life-cycle.

In these markets the pig is clearly getting fatter and to Gloucester Old spot proportions!

By now we know that focusing on the customer can help you grow sales, build loyalty and even get customers to recommend you to others. There are even a growing number of people that deploy the Net Promoter Score or similar metrics as a tool to achieve just that.

But while the ultimate number can point you in the right direction, it cannot change the way your business operates. That needs to be done by your people. They need to understand why customer focus is important. Be prepared to walk the customer talk. Truly listen to the customer. Change their habits and behaviours. Even re-organise the business.

We've learned at Management Centre Europe that this is a totally different ball game. Over the past 3 years we've been involved in a variety of companies wanting to focus on the customer. We've even done it to ourselves. And while metrics are important, we found that only companies that place equal value on the mindset of their people, stand a fighting chance.

On this note, I’d like to share five success factors we've picked up along the way. The list is far from exhaustive, yet it’s definitely a place to start.

Success Factor 1: Show them the money

No matter which way you look at it, businesses are about money. Shareholders want returns. Staff wants to be paid. So any conversation about customer focus should start with the money, and the measurable profits the business can make by making customers “happy,”  plus the bonuses that can be earned by growing customer delight. Only if both the leaders and the staff of the business clearly see what’s in it for them and for the business, will they consider changing their behaviour.

Success Factor 2: Involve everyone

Customer focus is not about graphs and PowerPoint presentations. It is about having your people experience what customers are looking for. Showing them why customer focus matters. How their job, no matter how customer-remote, can have an impact. That is why it’s important to involve everyone in the business in the customer research conversations taking place. And rather than prescribe the right behaviour, encourage them to formulate for themselves what customer focus means in their job.

Success Factor 3: Adapt the KPI’s

Getting your people to understand the importance of customer focus and what it means to their job is a start. But if the KPI’s they face tell a different story, the initial enthusiasm will quickly disappear. Efficiency measures can eliminate staff time to deal with the customer. Cost controls can create bad profits. Project priority sheets can lead people astray. As a third – crucial - step businesses need to review every KPI they use. Does it encourage people to do what is right? Or does it get in the way? Is it customer-focused, or is it customer-toxic? After all, only when every KPI is aligned, will the people be able to put their intentions into practice.

Success Factor 4: Back it with leadership support

Once people are willing to do what is right for the customer and have formulated a vision of how this applies to them, they need to be empowered to act. This is where the leadership of the business comes into play. They need to allocate resources to the right places, encourage the right behaviours and forgive well-intended mistakes. They need to set the example by actively talking to customers, and doing what is right. And when processes, habits or politics get in the way, they need to be decisive and clear that the customer focus drive is not up for debate.

Success Factor 5: Break the silos

But even empowered employees can only achieve so much. After all, customer feedback typically doesn’t fit the processes and silos you have devised for your business. That is why customer focus should not become the responsibility of any given department (marketing, sales, or service). Instead, cross-functional teams should be created and resourced to understand what customer focus means across departments. And subsequently align individual parts of the organisation so they "deliver what is right for the customer and for the business."

Success Factor 6: Focus on mindset and completion

Any customer feedback system is a rear view mirror for your business. It can tell you how well your business has done and trigger improvement projects, but it cannot predict the future. Every new situation will be different and your people need to instinctively select the right actions. For this they should rely on the customer facts, but above all on a mindset in which they know what matters most, and are free to do this.

I’ll be writing more on this topic in the coming weeks, but would welcome your views either by commenting below or by getting in touch at alain.thys@services.mce-ama.com. Alternatively, I look forward to seeing you at the Net Promoter Conference.

Welcome to the 2009 European Conference blog. This year's event comes in the midst of great change and volatility in almost all businesses. In this unstable environment, one thing that all companies have in common is a need to focus on business fundamentals. And this year's conference agenda is aimed directly at that target.

We have brought together over 25 guest speakers, representing leading companies and industry experts, to share specific ideas that will help you improve customer experience in the current environment. Whether your primary focus is in marketing, customer service, product development, or corporate change, you will find case studies to spur your creativity and help you "think differently" about the experiences you provide to your customers.

The conference theme, "embracing customers in a challenging market" is all about re-focusing the enterprise on those priorities that matter most for your most strategic customers. With budgets under pressure, companies can not afford to take the eye off the ball when it comes to current customers. Those relationships must remain rock-solid, to provide a platform of stability to weather change and position your company for growth.

Companies understand this, and are continuing to engage with us on how to use Net Promoter as a transformational tool to support customer experience strategies. Our January US conference, which took place in the midst of the worst crisis in decades, still drew hundreds of professionals, committed to ensuring their company's continued success. And as I write, I am about to fly to Chicago for another sold-out certification course, with over 45 professionals digging into the strategies and tactics that help to make NPS impactful in corporate change programmes.

Recent research confirms this too. According to a Forrester report issued in April, customer experience has resilience in the downturn. "Only 12% of respondents think spending on customer experience will be cut at a higher rate that it will in other parts of the business."

But the question is, how will you deploy your resources and energies on this critical subject? Join us in London as we explore this question with other like-minded customer centricity professionals. I look forward to seeing you there.