Great presentation from Suhail Khan, VP Customer Experience, Phillips International, focusing on promoters - a nice angle, as it is always to easy to just focus on detractors.

Over the last 5 months, Suhail did the 'world tour' and found that while the desire to do the right thing is there, the challenge is to really get this into 'how we do business round here' .

Don't forget that every dialogue you have with a customer is an opportunity to sell. It's not good enough to stop talking to people after you learn that they would promote you - if you can arm them with the right things at the right time, to spread the word, then that is even more powerful.

Need to create the same sense of urgency that there is around dealing with detractors, for dealing with  promoters  - they are just as important!

It is great to focus on the employees too - if you dont have a powerful promoter employee base, then it is harder to create customer advocates. But don't forget that if your delighted customers can recommend you to others who have not had a great experience, then it illustrates to that 'passive' person that you can get it right for others, and maybe they'll give you a second chance?

Phillips Include the promoter feedback in tenders for business now - very powerful! Suhail says that if you include a reference into a proposal, the likelihood of getting to the next round goes up 3%, but if that person is willing to speak on your behalf to others, it goes up 20%!  Imagine having a whole database of these people!

They have now formalized the process by creating a Reference Programme, a database of promoters willing to talk on Phillip's behalf, and also creates a knowledge base among staff, searching for promoters

Employees really need to be empowered to take action on your behalf, NPS is a behaviour - people need to be educated that all roles have a clear impact on customers, whatever their role. He has done lots of work to 'map' roles and what they do, and back to how it helps the customer.

Also, created internal network of champions, the face of Phillips, to spread the word, and delight internal employees to make it a great place to work. You need passionate people! The Face of Phillips is a great internal programme to create ambassadors, and spread the word, on customer and employee centricity. In a year, they had 300 ambassadors, who then started to host ambassador days, with customers in there too, hosted by regional CEOs, and then invited employees to come in and talk to the customers too - all maintained on company intranet, with access to all

On top management, he says, we want our executives to be promoters, but just approvers of budget! If they are your advocates, then it is so much more powerful, in Board and senior level discussions - it makes for less theoretical and more real and practical discussions.

Great stuff.