Miami Conference Blog 2008

Understanding Customer Value to Drive Growth - Emilia Brad

info@netpromoter.com — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 02:30:00 GMT

Dr. Laura Brooks, VP of Methodology and Consulting for Satmetrix, presented on the topic of customer value, highlighting the value of Word-of-Mouth (WOM) advertising and the importance of employee engagement to foster customer loyalty.

With the increasing amount of advertising messages in the marketplace, people often turn to their friends and colleagues for referrals. Dr. Brooks provided research findings that link customer loyalty to positive referrals for multiple industries. Unlocking the full potential value of WOM is yet to be realized in a variety of industries. Quantifying WOM includes studying the actual positive referrals of Promoters and negative referrals of Detractors. For example, Promoters may provide up to 9 positive referrals while Detractors may provide up to 5 negative referrals.

The concept of WOM has an interesting implication for employee engagement and loyalty. Positive word-of-mouth must also be propagated by employees of a given company — a negative message delivered by an employee may have an even greater impact than a Detractor. The challenge for management teams is to foster a culture where employees are driven to focus on customer needs and can take pride in their company's product and customer policies — another reason to consider Fred Reichheld's notion of bad profits.

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Nurturing Customers by Living the Golden Rule

info@netpromoter.com — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 23:36:00 GMT

Four Seasons: Impeccable. Deluxe. Personal. In Touch.

Those are words that loyal guests use on a regular basis to describe the Four Seasons. All hotels experience glitches. The water gets turned off, the fire alarm accidentally goes off at 2:00 am, light bulbs burn out, shower curtains fall down. At Four Seasons, they are crazy devoted to glitches. Employees report each and every one and they are rigorously monitored to make sure they are resolved in a timely manner. Ahhhh... sounds lovely.

Deborah Carlisle, Manager of Marketing Planning for 74 Four Seasons in 31 countries, has the best job. She sells experience. By listening to their loyal customers they are able to distinguish themselves among a very competitive market. Hotels are always in danger of becoming a commodity. Websites like Hotels.com perpetuate that. The Ritz Carlton, Hotel Intercontinental, and Four Seasons are all within $100 in their price range for a standard room. Word-of-mouth among the high end business traveler is especially valuable. And Four Seasons gets that.

Ricardo Acevedo, General Manager for the Miami Four Seasons knows the secret sauce in their culture is the people. Can you imagine that every position you have open in your company must go through a minimum of 5 interviews? Every job candidate from the maids to management eventually will be interviewed by Ricardo. He is the final test, and uses his intuition and sense of humor to see if they are Four Seasons material. "If I can't make them smile, they are probably not a good fit" explains Ricardo.

Dignity.

"I will not allow a manager to mistreat employees. If they do, they will be dismissed," Ricardo said emphatically.

Dignity can come in the form of a free meal, clean pressed uniforms that fit nicely and are fashionable, and an employee locker room complete with a hot shower. These are not just employee perks; in some countries these are luxuries that provide dignity and instill pride. It's nice to hear of a North American company that doesn't take advantage of the work pool in less developed nations.

Employees are asked to rank their feelings towards Four Seasons in an annual survey.

#1 - I am proud to work for Four Seasons

#2 - I have a feeling of loyalty towards Four Seasons

#3 - Our guests are very happy with the quality they receive.

Fred Reichheld was in the room during this presentation. Throughout the conference, he reminded just how simple and how hard it is to grow a business. You have to treat people so well, that they'll come back and bring their friends and family.

The Golden Rule is truly ingrained in the Four Seasons culture. Can you say the same of yours?

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Integrating VOC and NPS: Making Sense of One Million Customer Responses - Laurie Weisberg

info@netpromoter.com — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 23:35:00 GMT

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."

Competitive & Cross Cultural Benchmarking by Satmetrix - Paul Pakalnietis

info@netpromoter.com — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 23:34:00 GMT

David Hankin, Director of Business Consulting for Satmetrix, discussed how and why organizations should benchmark their Net Promoter Scores against their competition and account for cultural differences. Competitive benchmarking helps executives answer the question, "How do I know if we have a good NPS?" There are three approaches to competitive benchmarking that can answer this question:

1) add competitor questions to your own loyalty survey,
2) use an external industry benchmark and
3) build your own panel of customers across your industry.

Each option has different costs, benefits and complexities.

Option 1
The first, and simplest, approach is to include some questions about competitors in your loyalty survey. This is easy to deploy quickly, and can be done at a low cost. One key consideration is to carefully word the questions to make sure the respondent has had recent experience with your competitor. The other is to realize that your customers may not represent the total universe of your competitors' customers. However, the approach can provide directional, or relative, performance of your company in the market compared to your competitors. Clearly, this can be valuable information.

Option 2
The second approach is to work with an external industry benchmark provided by a third party. The way this works is that competitors in a market space agree to provide their customer loyalty data, confidentially and in aggregate, to the third party so that all of the market players can view low, high and average Net Promoter Scores for their industry. Competitive gaps also can be included, which enables the participants to view the effectiveness of their differentiation strategies, or perhaps, develop new strategies. The third party ensures confidentiality. Satmetrix provides several of these types of benchmarks, most notably in Software and Telecommunications industries.

It is important in this approach to identify the companies included in the benchmark. In some industries, one or more large companies refuse to participate in the benchmark and thus lower the value of the benchmark itself.

Option 3
The third option is rent or build your own competitive panel, but be warned, costs are high. Costs per completed interview can run over $50 each to get the right sample base. The key is to make sure that a representative sample base can be acquired, because without the right sample, your insights from the competitive assessment may be off the mark. If done correctly, building a panel of your competitor's customers can be an incredibly powerful method to compare Net Promoter Scores and identify opportunities to differentiate.David also discussed the impact of cultural differences on survey scores, and their implications.

Cultural bias can be easily understood as the different way a respondent may score the same survey based on where they live. According to the Satmetrix cross-cultural benchmark, people in Latin-America typically will report higher Net Promoter Scores than people located in some areas of Asia. However, organizations should be very careful of overstating cross-cultural biases. Adjusting the Net Promoter model is not recommended; i.e., avoid the temptation to make 8's promoters, or 6's passive in certain regions. In line with the general theme we have heard during the Net Promoter conference, David described how important it is to track the rate of improvements to NPS, rather than comparing the baseline Net Promoter Scores across regions.

David's final topic discussed how to set NPS targets and goals. The first step is to identify achievable targets based on your internal NPS and external industry benchmark. Not all industries are the same. For example, the Satmetrix benchmark shows that the average NPS in Telecommunications is lower than the lowest NPS in Financial Services. Customer expectations and competitive pressures vary by industry, and this is reflected in NPS ranges.

There is also a law of diminishing returns that shows the higher your NPS, the harder it is to make large percentage improvements. It is important to understand where your NPS baseline exists today, and what a good improvement in NPS would like. Targets can then be set which are achievable and will lead to significant growth.

Any questions regarding this blog can be e-mailed to paulp@satmetrix.com.

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Internal Customer Service: Improving NPS by 12 Points in 12 Months - Denise Wymore

info@netpromoter.com — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 23:33:00 GMT

Can I bring my dog? That's a question Amber gets asked a lot. It has nothing to do with a company that specializes in the placement and recruiting of healthcare professionals. But Amber gets that it really has EVERYTHING to do with being named one of America's fastest growing private company by INC Magazine.

Dwight Cooper, Co-Founder and CEO of PPR Healthcare Staffing, wowed the audience with stories of guts and glory. His goal was to be the Nordstrom or Ritz Carlton of nurse staffing, not a commodity. Nurse retention is key to their reputation, and if that means they need to find an apartment that will take a 40 pound dog, they will do it. It also means scoping out great restaurants in a new city before the nurse moves there and buying a gift certificate or having groceries delivered.

Training, accountability, and rewards are Dwight's secret to success.

In order to identify gaps between where they were and want to be, he decided to look internally at their culture. His internal NPS question was not whether or not the company was worth recommending (as an employer) but rather co-workers were asked if they could recommend each other. It clearly separated the pack from service leaders to those who needed "help moving onto another career." One of those people that rose to the top is Amber. She has a following. Serving is in her DNA. She now gets rewarded for cultivating that kind of loyalty.

Dwight is so serious about service as a retention tool that he has "institutionalized great service." We "met" Jenny. Her job is to look for ways to wow their client nurses and make them feel at home. She's the purveyor of all tchotckes and fun things that make people feel special. I want that job.

The coolest and simplest solution to creating wow experiences was what they call "Best Answers." They identified their 64 most common questions ("Can I bring my pet?" being one of them) and brainstormed on not just the right answer, but the best way to answer. With caring and enthusiasm.

Bigger is not better. Better is better. PPR may only own 3% of their marketplace, but the two competitors (that own 80% of the market together) cannot boast being SHRMs best places to work for four years running.

Click here to download the presentation.

Focusing Employees on Member Wow -- Emilia Brad

info@netpromoter.com — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 22:38:00 GMT

How do you grow at double the rate of your industry with a $0 Marketing spend? Diana Dykstra, CEO of the San Francisco Fire Credit Union, shared her story of driving growth through a focus on customer loyalty and employee engagement.

The underlying theme was a fundamental belief that "people are good" — front-line employees want to do the right thing and management's job is to empower them to delight the customer. Ms. Dykstra talked about the measures implemented at the credit union that allow and reward employees for going above and beyond to address customer needs. It's this culture of customer-focus that has resulted in the impressive Word-of-Mouth results.

Another ingredient of success was an understanding of loyalty drivers — in this case convenience — and making investment decisions using NPS results. For example, instead of investing in branch offices at an estimated annual cost of $500K - $750K, the credit union decided to waive ATM fees no matter where the customer withdrew funds. The result was that customers received the "convenience" factor for a much reduced investment. Other examples include providing all customers pre-approved loans at any time, eliminating the traditional direct marketing campaign, i.e., junk mail, and eliminating bad profits — non-punitive fees.

This was a dynamic presentation and inspirational message about unleashing the creativity of the front-line and creating a working environment where customer delight is top priority — with impressive business results.

Click here to download the presentation.

Boosting Return on Ad Spend and Consumer Engagement - Colin Brogan

info@netpromoter.com — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 22:37:46 GMT

Lee Boykoff, Director, Digital Media Analytics and Distribution for A&E Television Networks shared an exciting presentation on their experience identifying promoters, engaging them in the content development process, and incorporating NPS into powerful segmentation that targets specific influencers with one to one marketing efforts to amplify marketing spend and jumpstart Word of Mouth.

Cable networks achieve success by developing programming to niche segments vs. a mass market. A rating of 3% for any particular show can be deemed a success. In this model, generating buzz and energizing loyal fans is highly important. At A&E, Lee and his team began by creating the A&E Insider community, providing relevant information and exclusive content to members, while asking them a series of questions designed to profile them as promoters, super influencers, and understand their programming needs and preferences.

To entice the "right" members, A&E avoided mass market sweepstakes as incentives, but rather opted for niche promotions tied to existing programming, such as Gene Simmons or Criss Angel related prizes.

A&E leverages the membership base in various ways. First, they measure NPS vs. the brand and individual show to find out how strong the relationship between the two might be. Directionally, higher rated shows tend to have high NPS scores, and vice versa for most of the lower rated programs.

Next, they engage the thousands of community members to provide input into potential pilots. In a case study shared by Lee, one show, Paranormal State, received unexpectedly high NPS scores, particular among "influencers." The show was aired and it was a complete success -- the highest rated show in 3 years. Other comments and ideas are collected during this review process and members are kept abreast of launch dates and the show's development process.

Third, Lee's team uses customer data collected via the community to subsegment promoters by their propensity to actually promote. The intent is to find the customers who really will share advice on the brand and individual programs, and prioritize marketing spend against them. In another case study, Lee shared the details of a recent Holiday Mailing campaign, where gifts cards were given to reward avid members. Rather than send small dollar-value cards to all members, A&E leveraged the segmentation to target a "WOW" gift to super influencers. Using this approach, A&E estimates it reached an incremental 1.4 million customers by targeting super advocates with a higher estimated propensity to promote.

Click here to download the presentation.

Focusing Employees on Member Wow - Denise Wymore

info@netpromoter.com — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 22:20:56 GMT

It's not just a noise a dog might make, it's a consumer ranking website of everything you'd find in your local yellow pages. In San Francisco, if you search for credit unions, you will find San Francisco Fire Credit Union's loyal members. They are the highest rated financial institution in one of the noisiest markets in the US. This is not a ranking you can buy, you have to earn it. Every single day.

Diana Dykstra is the CEO of San Francisco Fire Credit Union and a self-proclaimed Net Promoter Score zealot. She HATES satisfaction surveys. Why? Because when she took over as CEO, her credit union had a 98% satisfaction rate. But she knew, just from interacting with employees and members that they were not "delighted."

So that became her goal. To delight her members. Banking is an errand. You get in, get out, nobody gets hurt. Members are satisfied. But it doesn't have to be that way. One of the first questions she asked, was of her staff. Would THEY recommend SF Fire as an employer? "Our employees ARE our business" said Diana. "If they are detractors, we breed detractors." Her first round of internal NPS yielded a dismal -19.5%. Within three years she was able to turn that score around to 64.39% today, which she admits, is still too low. "Leaders would NEVER tolerate a large gap between forecast and actual financial performance but seem to look the other way when service gaps exist" explained Diana. She knew that she had to build a culture where service was the responsibility of the entire organization, not just the front-line.

To show that she was serious about service, she added her face and email access 24/7 to her on the front page of her website. Diana admits it has created a true addiction to her Blackberry. If a member wants to "Ask Diana" anything, DIANA responds as quickly as humanly possible. She shared stories of calling members on Sunday morning and helping folks as far away as Africa when their debit cards weren't working. By focusing on team, listening, learning and innovating and more importantly recognizing they are not in the banking business - but the E-lationship business - they are proud to say their member NPS has risen from 52% to 74% in just three years. Her BHAG (big hairy audacious goal) for 2010 is to outrank USAA at 85%. One way she has decided to elate members is to eliminate all fees (except bad behavior fees).

"Members don't like fees" she explains. "If they've been doing business with us and want travelers checks or a notary, I'm not going to charge them." She also recognized that with two branches, she would never be perceived as convenient to most members, so they took the bold step to rebate all ATM surcharges for members. Extreme service is now a core competency of SF Fire Credit Union, not just a function. She's whittling away at the "brick" of policies, procedures, rules, regulations and compliance that used to drive her culture and has a goal to have employee's so engaged in elating that her employee handbook will be one statement:

"Just do the right thing."

That's a WOW!

Click here to download the presentation.

Building a Net Promoter Program Brick by Brick - Laurie Weisberg

info@netpromoter.com — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 21:35:00 GMT

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.

Click here to download the presentation.

From Denial to DNA: How to Operationalize Net Promoter across an Organization

info@netpromoter.com — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 20:45:00 GMT

For the opening session on day 2, Enrique Salem, COO of Symantec, joined Richard Owen, CEO of Satmetrix, for a candid one-on-one chat on how Symantec is using Net Promoter to measure customer loyalty, drive operational improvements, and empower employees throughout the company. When introducing Enrique, Richard noted that Symantec, a global leader in infrastructure software, is an early adopter of Net Promoter and has focused on the discipline to guide strategy through tremendous growth periods, including the largest software acquisition in history.

For Enrique and all of Symantec, creating customer loyalty is a top priority. Enrique pointed out that to be successful with Net Promoter, you must put in place the processes to drive or change internal behaviors that center on the customer. Therefore, every employee has to understand their role to deliver a great experience and increase customer loyalty.

Enrique said that Symantec takes Net Promoter and customer loyalty very seriously. At the executive level the team is very involved with Net Promoter. The CEO gets together with his leadership team to review customer loyalty metrics and look for ways to improve on the processes that drive loyalty. The leadership team continues this by meeting regularly to review the Net Promoter dashboard that monitors key customer loyalty drivers. For Enrique and Symantec, Net Promoter is not just a score, it's about taking action across the enterprise, looking at driving behavior, and linking it to the economics of the business.

Symantec implements its Net Promoter practice on a global scale and segments across product lines and versions. And they've learned some key things in the process. For worldwide implementation they segment by regions because different cultures rate loyalty scores differently. For example, in general Latin America tends to give high scores where Japan tends to give the lowest scores. To keep the results as meaningful as possible scores are looked at by region. For products, Net Promoter scores are looked at for each product release so they can see specifically how each release is doing relative to expectations.

At the end of the session Enrique said that he believes Net Promoter is a clear indicator of how the business will perform in the future because it measures long-term customer value. He also reminded the audience that to be successful you need to create a closed--loop feedback system where you listen to the voice of the customer and take action.

Click here to download the presentation

Using Net Promoter to Drive Organizational Learning - Emilia Brad

info@netpromoter.com — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 03:58:00 GMT

Rob Markey, Partner and Head of Global Customer Strategy Practice with Bain & Company, spoke about using NPS to drive organizational learning at three levels:

Executive or strategic
Management or process
Front-line employee

At the Executive or Strategic level, NPS results can be used for strategic segmentation to help pin-point a target market. Mapping customer segments by NPS and profitability, one can see which segments are profitable and loyal and which may warrant additional investment. The example was a top accounting and consultancy firm, which mapped clients on the NPS / Profitability grid and found that clients with complex business models were more loyal than simple businesses. This company used this data to focus resources on a more attractive target market.

At the Management or Process level, NPS results can be used to identify those touch-points along the customer corridor that have most impact on loyalty. Investments in these loyalty drivers can create a competitively differentiated experience. A frequently cited example is the "card-replacement" process for a credit card. This example also showcases the need for multiple functional areas to act in concert, ensuring the process is seamless for the customer.

The third is the Front-line Employee level. Here NPS results can be used to monitor and improve performance by reinforcing the feedback received through the NPS survey and the closed-loop follow-up process. NPS results at the granular level are a key coaching tool.

The overarching theme is that customer feedback can and should be used at multiple levels in an organization to improve performance -- at each level, employees can take action within their span of control.

Click here to download the presentation.

Customer Centricity: The Role of Leadership

info@netpromoter.com — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 03:57:51 GMT

Fred Reichheld, author of the Net Promoter book, The Ultimate Question, gave a historical review of the history of NPS. He has spent 30+ years talking about the importance of loyalty. Loyalty is a difficult term it seems for businesses to latch onto, so you are better off talking about growth. The two are almost synonymous. Loyalty leaders grow at 2.6 times that of competitors. Loyal customers do four key things that drive growth:

Repurchase
Buy more
Refer
Give feedback

Fred talked about Chick-fil-A, and how even though it breaks the *traditional* rules of economics, it is a tremendous success by focusing on what is right for customers. Enterprise is another example of building a business around treating customers well so they come back and tell their friends! Fred gave some other anecdotes about Southwest and Harley-Davidson. The Golden Rule was integral to all these successes: "treat others as you would like to be treated."

Bad profits alienate customers and demotivate employees. Fred had some hilarious stories of how he personally has been impacted by bad profits. He outlined some of Enterprise's approach to operationalizing Net Promoter, as discussed in his book. The "recommend" question probes both dimensions of loyalty - the heart and the head.

The fact that it has assets (promoters) and liabilities (detractors) brings it somewhat closer to accounting methodologies. But don't get too hooked on the question. As long as you have one that works for your industry, the key thing is being able to categorize people as promoters, detractors, and passives. Companies Fred called out that are implementing NPS well, and from the top include GE, Apple, Intuit, and Charles Schwab.

To summarize, driving loyalty takes focus from the top, including both support and participation. It also requires a lot of hard work, involving customer segmentation, training, IT capabilities, team accountability and alignment, proper rewards, and senior execs on board.

You can check out Fred's thinking at http://www.netpromoter.com/netpromoter_community/blogs/fred_reichheld.

It's always great to hear Fred speak. It also would be good to hear some new case studies from his current engagements. Thanks Fred!

Click here to download the presentation.

Investing in Customer Communities to Drive Loyalty - Aisling Hassell

info@netpromoter.com — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 03:39:06 GMT

Kip Knight, VP of Marketing at eBay, talked about how eBay built an online community and how they are using NPS. eBay started in 1995 and now has 248 million subscribers from 37 countries around the world. It is now "The World's Online Marketplace." About 1.3M people make part or all of their living off eBay. eBay thinks of community as anyone who has a relationship with eBay Inc. Community is core to eBay. It is a strategic differentiator, a unique asset to eBay, builds loyalty and retention, and community members are more valuable.

Kip says they constantly think about keeping their community vibrant. They have a set of community values that have existed from the beginning. eBay stays involved with the community by many different means. Online has forums and a Voices program, as well as member workshops and news and blogs. Offline has Voices (in-person/calls) and town halls, in-person visits, and radio. Voices is probably the most unique program. It is an ongoing advisory group that was begun in 1999. In-person sessions are held with members of the community about 4-6 times a year. The attendees sign NDA's, so all topics are fair game. Over 400 members have been involved since 1999.

One key loyalty tool at eBay was the feedback system. It is very simple and effective. So, why does eBay need NPS? The feedback system wasn't really telling eBay what was driving loyalty and what they needed to focus on to keep growing loyalty.

They expect NPS to be a global best practice. It could also be a *red alert* system for their buyers. They think it will heighten competitive awareness, and help focus investments on the right areas. It will also help with root cause analysis on promoters and detractors. In summary, NPS helps eBay go places the other tools don't.

eBay will implement top down and bottom up feedback. Top down is to all customers, bottom up is focused on key segments that eBay wants to focus on and when they interact with eBay. They tried the "recommend" question, but it didn't work across sellers and buyers. They finally decided on "Intent to buy" for buyers and "Intent to sell" for sellers.

One challenge they have is how to make employees able to participate and drive loyalty. Globally, they are going to look at trends, and not compare regions. It also will drive a Red Alert program focused on the top buyers. If they rate 6 or lower, then actions will be kicked off.

Kip waited a year before he rolled out, and he doesn't regret waiting at all. He used that time to make sure that the program and company were ready.

I think the key message from Kip's presentation is that, even for a customer-centric company like eBay, you can always improve and this is really a continuous journey. The fact that eBay is just embarking on an NPS journey shows how we all continue to evolve all the time. It is also interesting that they found a question that works for their business, but will leverage some of the best practices around the Net Promoter discipline. I wish eBay the best of luck on its journey!

Click here to download the presentation.

Customer Experience in Retail Banking Accenture/Satmetrix Sponsored Research - Glenn Donovan

info@netpromoter.com — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 02:49:00 GMT

In the fall of 2007, Accenture and Satmetrix conducted a detailed study of retail banking in North America to uncover consumer attitudes and loyalty toward their primary banking institution. The survey, which included responses from approximately 3500 customers addressing 16 institutions, covered all aspects of customer experience relating to checking account, including channels, product quality and services.

According to Susan Piotroski, Partner, Marketing & Customer Strategy Practice with Accenture, who delivered the presentation, when Accenture thinks about touch points, it's important to consider all aspects of the experience, including the product experience. These factors are often not part of customer satisfaction surveys, which tend to focus on call center, web, branch, and the like.

These factors drive overall attitudes towards the institution. Thirty one percent of products and services drive loyalty, 54% were attributed to banking interactions. When the local interactions are examined, it turns out the local branch experience was most important, followed with about the same result for web experience and call center.

What matters to people in banking interactions? The ability to resolve issues and time to resolve. Online banking was the next most important function, closely followed by channel integration, meaning that all channels know who you are. Rising concerns include fees, security of personal information, and clarity of information about the financial products and related policies.

A great question/comment was made about not only bucketing the drivers but also clarifying those areas of most risk in the same way. Another question was raised about the importance of image in reputation. The biggest driver is customer experience, although reputation was important.

Accenture then performed needs based segmentation: I want it all, remote bankers, convenience bankers, and keep it easy bankers, in order of importance.

Accenture thinks customers are loyal for different reasons. As an example, there are people who shop around and those who don't. Category involvement is a measurement of importance of the service to them. Brand commitment speaks to the emotional involvement with the brand. It also was revealed that those customers who were charged fees, were correlated with loyalty and other operating metrics.

This study has a wealth information that could not possibly be addressed in one session. I'm looking forward to reviewing it after the conference.

Click here to download the presentation.

Q&A with Chief Customer Officer Author, Jeanne Bliss - Tom Kehler

info@netpromoter.com — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 02:49:00 GMT

Jeanne Bliss, Net Promoter blogger and author of Chief Customer Officer, and John Abraham, General Manager of Net Promoter Programs for Satmetrix, chaired a discussion session driven by questions from the audience largely focused on program implementation issues. For those who missed the session you missed the opportunity for free books!

An early question kicked off the discussion (and the first book give away) related to top management commitment. The case was presented of a committed top management but a somewhat confused middle management. Jeanne made the case that if top management is really committed they will change incentives for middle management. Middle management will be caught in the middle if the NPS program is a top management and front line philosophy without a complete look how it changes cost and operations.

One participant questioned why there was not a greater focus on employees. How do employees fit into an equation dominated by NPS measurement and operational improvement? While Jeanne gave examples of companies that built branding around "being a good place to work," a process for how you build employee engagement into an NPS program was not addressed. However, earlier in the discussion Jeanne had talked about getting front line employees connected to the CEO and top execs and had discussed the importance of closing the loop with the front line to build confidence that change was happening as a result of their input. In my earlier coverage of TD Canada, we did discuss how recommendation of TD as a good place to work correlated with the branch banks' ability to deliver a great customer experience.

Jeanne discussed the importance of creating a cultural environment where "it's good to work together" in order to lay the foundation for an effective environment that focuses on customer value. Come to agreement on the stages of customer experience. Discuss how does the customer feel at each stage. Prioritize moments of truth for the customer in order to create organizational focus.

The session demonstrated a growing appetite for interactive discussion on the down to earth issues around building NPS programs.