In this session by John Griggs, Director of Customer Experience for H&R Block's Digital Tax Solutions Group, we learned that in July 2006, Net Promoter Score was mandated throughout business.

John opened up with the question: Why is Voice of the Customer (VOC) important? Consumers have many choices, so it's really important to understand what customers want. H&R Block believe it's not just about the score, it's also about finding out what's behind the score. They wanted to find out if customers were vested in their product and if they were willing to have a conversation with them. After all, he stated, its your chance to impress them and their perspective is better than yours.

H&R Block has vested customers — 49% gave them feedback via an online  Net Promoter survey. They kept it to 3 questions long and embedded it within product registration. They did allow for people to opt-in and have more dialogue with H&R Block if they were willing to do so. They created a centralized VOC database for all customer touchpoints, and they built feedback so it was easy for customers to speak to them. It was not buried somewhere in the corporate website.

They first survey had 2 million completes with 1 million verbatims. How did they analyze this? The verbatims were important to them because they needed to know what to fix and link the verbatims to the scores. Net Promoter is a good indicator of behavior, but they believe the driver for the score is really important. So they created "experience scoring."

They used an approach to analyze verbatims and roll them up into a category and then drill down to specific issues and discover the root cause. Sometimes they needed to go 1 step further so they went directly to the customer. Their employees (not a third party) contacted some 300 customers. These notes went into the central VOC database.

John noted its only valuable if the information is used (seems to be a common theme). In their case some employees didn't think VOC applied to their job so the key was to find where the data makes a difference. For instance, they quantified the reason; i.e., error or defect at IT, and told them why it's important to fix and related it back to the NPS.

They also are looking at "behavior modeling," which is interesting, to see how they can use Net Promoter Score and VOC combined to predict what people will do in the future.

The results: they are able to make better decisions as they have the data to prove it. "Net Promoter is about trying to keep our people (customers), not lose them."

In the session by Marina Hannaford, Consumer Insights Manager for LEGO, we learned the Net Promoter Score (NPS) fits with the core of LEGO, including the company's philosophy of focusing on consumer experience from top down and their "only the best is good enough" motto. The the goal is to produce only the best to ensure positive Word of Mouth (WOM) and lifelong loyalty.

In 2004 their new CEO set a strategic plan to prime the company for organic growth. One of the main focuses was to improve core business. This not only meant great products, but also a premium consumer experience. As such, a division was formed to specifically focus on consumer experience. This group and every employee within it has a key performance indicator (KPI) and bonus linked to the NPS.

When do you set a KPI? LEGO recommend doing it when you have a baseline or some historic data. In LEGO's case it was having at least 1 year of data.

To LEGO a successful Net Promoter program is about measuring the right consumer in the right channels via the right tools and understanding key drivers to improving the score. To start, one of the things they did was map out all the consumer touchpoints to determine 8 NPS for "direct to consumer." They also need to understand the segments (kids, parents, adult fans, teachers) and the individual experiences for each segment at each touchpoint an NPS is measured. In their reports they can look at the key metrics and highlight areas that need immediate action. Real life cases included improving packaging materials and communications. In both cases, they saw immediate upswings in their Net Promoter Scores.

LEGO look at the consumers as buyers in the mass market or as indivuals in their connected community. The most influential of these is the "lead user" who belongs to their Ambassador Program or the Kids Online community called the Inner Circle. These are identified as passionate advocates that want to co-create with LEGO. They also know that the more connected a consumer, the more they recommend LEGO.

Key to success are their monthly reports with all the key metrics and insights, actions, plus identifying those people accountable for that NPS. Also, if someone wants more information, they can click on links to get more detailed reports. These reports are shared with all relevant people within LEGO, right up to the executive team.

Results for LEGO: increases in NPs directly linked to actions taken, record NPS in LEGO Stores and Consumer Services, plus 2007 Net Promoter scores are higher than those measured in 2005 and 2006.

Please see the LEGO blogs from the London Net Promoter Conference 2007.

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