Barry Saik shared the experience of Intuit in using NPS to drive product design and user experience.

As anyone who has read The Ultimate Question knows, Intuit has embraced NPS as a key metric of the business. When getting started, they debated whether to invest in competitive benchmarking.  Barry's advice to anyone starting on the NPS journey is to invest the time in mapping yourself relative to your competitors on the growth vs. NPS charts from Fred's book, The Ultimate Question.

Another best practice Barry stresses is to use your verbatim comments. When reviewing verbatim comments in more detail you can gleam insights that your survey may not produce. Some tips he offered:

• Categorize verbatim comments, ranking themes to provide further analysis of common concerns or opportunities. He shared their own experiences on how the verbatim comments are used to drive product development.
• Intuit uses a product from Informative that allows the users to "vote" on responses from other customers. This allows an organization to find the top of mind issues they may not have previously offered as options on the survey.
• Don't let your teams suggest it takes too much time. Print out the comments and comb through them for that nuggets your customers share.

It's important as well to look at issues that can affect your data. He shared a number of charts that breaks down their NPS scores by product line and seasonality. Understanding the context of your customer's responses increases your ability to use the data in a relevant manner. A prime example we can all relate to was their NPS scores relative to the tax season. By time-analysis they have found that NPS declined as the tax season progresses since early users are likely to have returns vs. those of us that wait till the last minute to write that check to Uncle Sam.

Another way Intuit is leading the pack in building Promoters is through their community site, The Inner Circle.  This is an online community where they can engage with promoters in a richer way.  They have found the members enjoy community participation and sharing their ideas with other customers, giving them a great community for building promoters and collecting insights for product development. An unexpected side effect of this community is a 4.5 star rating on Amazon largely driven from customers that had early access to products.

Intuit has clearly embraced customer centricity and is seeing the results. One of my favorite comments from Barry today was "If you do the right thing and listen to people, they will get on your side and help you out." Too many organization are doing what they think is the right thing for their business and need to re-engineer around doing the right thing for their customers.

And lastly in the B2B track we heard from Simon Lyons, Global head of Marketing & Communications at Aggreko. He clearly demonstrated his mastery of NPS and driving change in his organization.

Simon described being motivated by the feeling of lacking meaningful data in the boardroom. While the financial team brought in their data, the marketing team was looking in the rear view mirror and not driven by the voice of the customer. He found Fred’s HBR article (The One Number You Need to Grow) a defining moment, embraced the simplicity of NPS, and rallied the organization around it.

Internal selling required he break the silos and move marketing to the bleeding edge. Others sensed a shift in power and skepticism in the data. Simon pushed on and embarked on a NPS journey.

They developed a 10-question survey with the following components:

• Would you recommend?
• 4 questions to understand the drivers of loyalty
• Value for money
• Experience variance on expectation (open)
• Nominate one area of improvement (open)

The benefits were clear. Real-time data gave them the opportunity to respond immediately. Through account level engagement they were able to justify the system in one deal uncovered by the sales rep due to follow-up from the survey process.

Simon states, “NPS has changed our business”. It’s standardized, customer-defined and fact-based. It has given increased visibility into the relative value of loyalty drivers and recalibrated operational efficiency at the customer interface.

Not unlike other speakers, keys to success included CEO-driven, integration into the business, and executive buy-in as indicator of growth. In fact today, every area manager at Aggreko knows his or her score and loyalty data is included in the board package as a key indicator of the health of the business. (Blog master note: this is a similar strategy noted in Andy Sernovitz's blog on Experian's best practices.)

Simon took us on a journey of evaluating the financial health of the business through the loyalty lens. As Simon shared several charts and graphs used throughout his organization, it strikes me that we are creating a framework for evaluating the health of the business similar to the traditional financial metrics such as the P & L and balance sheet. We have a real opportunity to shift the focus from current state analysis to predictive analysis of the future business.

Could this be a sign of things to come?

For more details, read about their Net Promoter program with Satmetrix .

We wrapped up Day one with a panel discussion moderated by Richard Owen with executive participation from Charles Schwab, GE Real Estate, and Mellon Investor Services. In their opening comments, each of the panelists shared a summary of where they are today regarding NPS.

Troy Stevenson of Charles Schwab shared important insight from "Chuck." In a recent meeting, Chuck indicated that focusing on the customer was a guiding principle for how they built the business and lack of focus in the organization caused it to lose their way: an important lesson for all of us as the business grows and your attention moves from customer-centric to financial-centric metrics.

Bernhard Klein Wassink of GE Real Estate shared how they found the need to build both a marketing and loyalty focus. Bernhard has built the marketing organization based on the insights they found from their customer feedback processes.

Barton Hill of Mellon Investor Services shared his challenges of being in a mature, competitive market where supply exceeds demand. They started on an NPS journey as a result of identifying ways to differentiate. While traditional market research gave them initial customer insight, they needed a continuous process for evaluating customer pain points and delivering relevancy.

Richard started the discussion with the question of how well the organization embraces customer centricity as a core value. All responses clearly demonstrate customer centricity as a core value.  Mellon found that market research data was not timely enough to engage the organization and they find value in real-time feedback. GE found that value in simplicity and how the people on the front line were able to take this and run with it. Schwab found that the field was thrilled to see the focus driven from the top.

It's clear that executive sponsorship and focus is critical to success. Yet, when the audience responded to the question of how many organizations have the CEO as the key driver of customer loyalty less than 20% of the room raised their hands!

Next we went on to discuss the elements of program design. Both GE and Schwab have found value in rapidly taking action around detractors as a critical element of their program. Mellon found that most deals come from referrals, so they have focused on driving new business through client references.

There were so many great insights shared, but in the spirit of sharing the most interesting points, here's a summary of other key takeaways:

• Schwab found NPS higher in touchpoint surveys because of the recent interaction
• GE found that promoters had 84% higher likelihood for repeat business
• Mellon was able to double win rates by using NPS to select customer references in new pursuits vs. account team-reported relationship metrics
• All participants suggested you focus on pilots before full rollout
• None of the participants are linking employee loyalty to customer loyalty, yet; all indicated this might be a future initiative.

Throughout the day there has been a great deal of discussion around the correlation of growth and NPS. While there are many factors that drive growth, who can argue that loyal customers drive financial performance? My observation is that the organizations on the stage today truly embrace customer centricity. This may cause them to build better products, improve service touch points and communicate in a more customer-relevant manner. While this may not specifically tie to their NPS measurement programs, they are all factors that improve customer acquisition and retention. Doesn't that mean that building a customer centric enterprise drives profitable growth? Isn't NPS a measure of customer centricity?

Today has been a great day of sharing best practices and lessons learned. I'm looking forward to another exciting day tomorrow including insights from Fred Reichheld, Bain and Intuit.

http://netpromoter.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/matrix.jpghttp://netpromoter.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/handshake.jpghttp://netpromoter.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/respect_and_handshake.jpgAfter learning of the journey at Experian, we had the chance to hear from Das Narayandas, a well-regarded authority on B2B marketing & customer management. Das shared two very simple frameworks with a powerful punch. 

The basic message was if you want to build good loyal customers you must understand the value you create for customers and evaluate your customer portfolio to meet their unique needs. 

Creating value for customers requires that you move from product features to customer benefits. This has never been more important than in today's selling environment. Gone are the good old days of buying on the promise of the value your product or service may bring. Customers today are more discriminating and demand measurable business outcomes.   

Das offers a 2x2 framework: your ability to quantify the benefit on one axis and your ability to communicate the benefit on the other. By looking at your value proposition in this context you can quickly identify where your value proposition is and how it drives sales. The framework offers 4 categories:

1. High economic benefit, high ability to communicate: you must compare yourself with your competitors and have superior price performance.
2. High economic benefit, low ability to communicate: the burden of truth is on your side. Get a 3^rd party benchmark, pilot test or offer guarantees.
3. Low economic benefit, high ability to communicate: focus on building brand preference
4. Low economic benefit, low ability to communicate: not ideal for acquiring customers. Use as the glue to loyal customers.

The second framework he offered allows you to evaluate your customer portfolio. After all, customers are not all created equally and you need to manage them differently. In this framework, he offers us another 2x2 matrix. Here, we look at price on one axis and cost to serve on the other. Keep in mind that cost to serve excludes cost of goods sold (COGS).

In his experience companies have customers scattered in all four quadrants, and the important point is to understand where customers are in their lifecycle. Here's how they break down:

• High price, high cost of services: this is where life begins. Customers here value innovation, want full service, and are willing to pay for it.
• High price, low cost of services: the good life! Are these customers loyal or uninformed? They will eventually become informed and you need to understand them and keep them as long as possible.
• Low price, low cost of service: commoditization. This can be 40% of a business. Here you have to strip away and sell the core product at the lowest possible price.
• Low price, high cost of service: while obviously not ideal from a business prospective, you may choose to invest in some customers in exchange for reference or partnering on new products. Here you should evaluate whether you can move the client to another quadrant, strategically invest, or whether you need to fire them.

Das wraps up by telling us Promoters can live in any of these quadrants. The important point is to understand where they live and how best to serve them. 

I would recommend evaluating your benefits and customer portfolio in this context. I put this tool in my bag for future use. Sales & marketing today requires a focus on benefits vs. features -- these frameworks can provide the discipline to evaluate how best to serve your clients and create more Promoters.

http://netpromoter.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/charts.jpghttp://netpromoter.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/charts_1.jpgThe Net Promoter conference is off and running with a full house. We are sitting in a packed room with eager students ready to learn about how companies are applying Net Promoter to drive business performance. Richard Owen shared with us the demographics of our fellow attendees representing several industries from financial services, pharma, consumer goods, industrial and tech companies from all regions of the world including representatives from Latin America, Europe, North America and Australia. The buzz of Net Promoter is clearly spreading across the world.

After a warm welcome from the Satmetrix executives, we got started with Laura DeSoto, SVP of Innovation & Synergy at Experian.

Experian: Discipline and Patience Pays Off in Double-Digit Growth

Experian was faced with a mature market, highly competitive with similar go-to-market models and single-digit growth. Their goal was to differentiate their business by creating a unique customer experience. In today's economy, so many of us face this same challenge.

Laura did an excellent job of sharing their journey, and it's clear these types of programs are a journey. Fortunately for Experian, their journey is paying off. They have successfully doubled their NPS over the last 6 quarters and achieved double digit growth in both revenue and profits in a market of single digit growth. 

Some of the key lessons learned from Laura's journey included:

1. Creation of the brand promise through understanding their customer segments and crafting a promise relevant to those segments.

2. The biggest challenge was organizational alignment. Given that delivery of a superior customer experience is in the hands of each employee, employee engagement is critical. Some of their best practices included:

3. Selection of the right partners to support deployment for ongoing feedback. Experian's criteria included:
   • Reliable methodologies
   • Global sample management with the ability to segment at multiple levels
   • Security & other technology support
   • Reporting capabilities
   • Integration with Siebel CRM system
   • Linkage to business results

My key takeaways:

Alignment across the organization is key and from what we heard today, Experian took this task seriously, providing every employee the tools they need to truly embrace and deliver on the promise.

Another key learning was the patience shown by the Experian leadership. In their first 14 months, they actually saw their scores decline.

Some organizations do not have the patience displayed by Experian and therefore many not have enjoyed the benefits achieved in the last 6 quarters of double digit growth and 100% improvement in customer loyalty! Change takes time and commitment. Impacting NPS and realizing the financial benefits associated with this takes time.

In between the next speaker I'll share with you the other sessions from Das Narayandas and GE Healthcare. Stay tuned....

For more details, read about their Net Promoter program with Satmetrix here: http://www.satmetrix.com/casestudies/experian.htm

Couldn't make it to the Conference (Jan. 31 & Feb. 1 in NYC)? Then check out the Conference blog for real-time updates from Deb Eastman, Andy Sernovitz, and John Williams.

Blogger Biographies

Deborah Eastman
Managing Principal, Windward Solutions

Deborah Eastman, Managing Principal of Windward Solutions, provides advisory services to companies interested in putting Net Promoter into practice by defining their brand promise, measuring an organization's ability to deliver on that promise, and building brand ambassadors internally and externally.

Previously, Deborah was EVP of Sales & Marketing for Biz360, an information services company providing market intelligence to marketing executives. Prior to that, she served as a Managing Director at BearingPoint (formerly KPMG) where she held a number of global leadership positions including marketing, global accounts, and strategic partnership development. In 2000, Consulting Magazine named Deborah one of the top consultants of the year for her efforts in building a partnership with Cisco Systems that generated a $1B investment.

Andy Sernovitz
CEO, Word of Mouth Marketing Association

Andy Sernovitz, a 15-year veteran of the interactive marketing business, is CEO of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA). He was a Visiting Scholar at the Wharton School of Business, where he taught Internet Entrepreneurship, and is author of Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking.

WOMMA is the 300-member official trade association for the word of mouth marketing industry, which is building a prosperous word of mouth marketing profession based on best practices, measurable ROI, and ethical leadership.

John I. Williams, Jr.
Director, The NPS Loyalty Forum, Bain & Company, Inc.

An experienced loyalty executive and entrepreneur, John Williams is the Director of the NPS Loyalty Forum, an information exchange offered by Bain & Company for senior executives of loyalty-leading organizations. The NPS Loyalty Forum brings together companies committed to achieving outstanding results by earning superior levels of loyalty from customers, employees, and partners. The Forum's mission is to enhance the effectiveness of its members by presenting best practices across industries and national borders, and by creating a network in which members can share, learn, and enhance those practices.

Previously in his career, John was a senior executive at American Express, where he led the U.S. Platinum Card business and the Consumer Travel Network. More recently, John has been a successful entrepreneur/CEO of a number of travel-related companies.