Net Promoter conferences are so often focused on highlighting success, that it was a brave and refreshing change that Arti Ots started off his presentation with the shocking reality that, despite adding NPS to compensation from the outset, Net Promoter scores dropped across the first year of measuring from +1% to -7%.
Arti Ots is the Marketing Director at Elion, the top telecoms company in Estonia. To add a little flavour around the company:
- Elion are the #1 provider of broadband, telephony and IT services
- They are the world #2 in provision of IPTV
- With a revenue of €200 million, and 1,300 employees, they belong to the TeliaSonera group of companies
The main driver for implementing their program in 2007 was the increasing cable competition and Elion wanted to focus on providing low price broadband and high quality TV.
With implementation came immediate linkage to compensation - including an annual bonus work half-a-months salary for a 5 point jump in NPS across the first year. As mentioned, this didn't happen and no-one got a bonus.
Elion quickly realised that there was too much focus on process and not enough on people. Arti and his colleague, who held the COO position, focused on an overall review of both the transactional and relationship elements of their program.
This led to a focus on:
- Awareness
- Seeing the value chain through the customers' eyes
- Understanding the key issues
- Understanding key team level success factors
- Responsibility
- Compensation was linked to weekly, monthly and annual targets
- Quality forms introduced
- Cross functional work groups to take hold of improvement planning
The results have been exceptional - by moving the focus to a more transactional based approach, Elion have uncovered the key pain points for customers as being Problem Solving and Sales. Despite the rough start, Elion have really learned from the insight and are making great strides in fixing these customer issues. Scores around problem-solving have risen from -12% to +17% and in sales have reached a staggering 30%.
Well done Elion! And thank you, Arti, for sharing the story - all of it!
