Net Promoter Community

Dr. Vince Nowinski, Director of Methodology for Satmetrix, discussed a newly completed assessment of how organizations are doing when it comes to Net Promoter best practices. Dr. Laura Brooks was originally scheduled to present this topic, but fell ill with the flu…we were lucky to have Vince already with us in New York, since he worked directly with Laura on development of the assessment.

From Vince’s perspective, many companies excel in one area or another. But they are asking, “How do I know where the gaps are?” That’s the question he set out answer today.

Vince described why Satmetrix calls the assessment Net Promoter 360. The feedback on internal practices includes viewpoints from the Executive Sponsor of NPS within the organization, the Senior Executive Team, and Program Sponsors who manage the feedback operations. Think of this as a 360 degree view of what’s going on with your Net Promoter program.

Who Participated?

Vince presented data from a group of 22 different companies from 12 different industries, with an even split of B2B and B2C business models. Most of the companies (about two-thirds) had over $1 billion in revenue.

The assessment itself was designed jointly by Satmetrix and Bain & Company.  Questions on the assessment capture a mix of internal attitudes, behaviors, and business results to assess a company’s maturity level in adopting the Net Promoter discipline. It includes questions like, “Does the organization invest resources? Do executives believe the data they have is reliable? Do they understand what the top customer priorities are? Do they have closed loop processes in place to address individual customer issues?”

How Mature Are You?

Vince separated the 22 companies into 3 groups, to understand different levels of maturity.

Level 1: Developing

Adoption of Net Promoter is limited to some parts of the organization. Data was not yet trustworthy, or fully used operationally within the business.

Level 2: Progressing

The biggest difference here was that NPS had wider adoption, and companies were regularly taking action on the data. This group also had a big focus on root cause analysis…indicative of a phase of adoption where tactical insights are being developed.

Level 3: Advanced

These companies had Net Promoter fully integrated with the decision making culture. They were focused on understanding relative competitive position, and had processes in place to focus both on limiting Detractors and, more importantly, generating more Promoters.

Some Key Differences

Ultimately, Vince pointed to the measures of customer centricity as the most linked to overall level of adoption. Many people describe this as “culture.” I like to think of it as passion for the mission of the company.

What really struck me was the internal NPS for the Net Promoter program itself. Advanced companies had 96% Promoters of their NPS efforts, with no internal Detractors. These are organizations where all the key executives and core team members are “on the bus.” In contrast, those at the developing stage had closer to 50-60% Promoters and a group of Detractors within the core circle that should normally be leading the rest of the organization.

Advanced companies (100% of them) felt that NPS was involved in the day-to-day operations of the business, while none of the advanced companies described it as a “research initiative.” I found this point interesting. What language does your organization use to discuss Net Promoter internally? I’m sure the advanced companies have “research” resources involved with the program, but they understand that the ultimate value of the research is its use in strategic and tactical decision making. The other word that jumped out at me was “initiative.” The advanced companies don’t think of it as a one-time initiative. It is part of the way they do business.

Finally, Vince turned to the big question: What’s more important, eliminating Detractors or creating more Promoters? Ultimately, companies need to do both, but we found that the more advanced companies were in their adoption of NPS, the more likely they were to be focused on creating more Promoters. That’s really the end goal, isn’t it? You may indeed need to focus on eliminating Detractors, but if that’s all you ever focus on, it can be hard to define a winning vision and sustain the motivation of your employees.

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Deborah Eastman – Satmetrix

It’s always a please to hear Deborah speak. In the past I’ve been fortunate enough to have her teach part of my NPS Certification class. One of the great things about Deborah is that she has really walked the talk. When she speaks it’s from real experience of implementing NPS programs in complex, international B2B environments prior to her joining the Satmetrix team.

During this session we heard a about Deborah’s time with Bearing Point and the successful NPS-based key account program she introduced. It was a really interesting insight to hear that when returning there some years later on a consulting engagement she saw exactly the same issues and customer feedback were still present in the business. They had been unable to leverage all the excellent feedback they had and move to action.

If there was one thing Deborah wanted us to catch it was the need to act.

Deborah outlined that B2B account relationships are complex. In B2C everyone is (mostly) equal but in B2B we have to focus on who is the decision maker, who are the influencers, who are the end users. In addition, often overlooked, your account management organization is often equally complex. Stitching those two organizations together in an operational program is really the key challenge:

• this complexity gives us multiple points of potential failure, that can impact the whole account. But also lot’s of opportunities to delight.
• We have to be cautious that without an NPS program we have a biased view of B2B relationships -> Account teams are not always facing the reality of the health of the relationships

In that context Deborah emphasized again that this is not a research project – it must be an operational program to open the dialogue, and one that’s not related to a sales opportunity or a service intervention. It’s not a survey to calculate a score; it’s a way in which you engage with customers in a continuous improvement cycle:

1. Contact selection and recruitment

2. Non-response alert follow-up

3. Team review and action planning

4. Account closed loop

5. Structural action and communications

Coming back again to the internal account team structure, Deborah then spent time highlighting that the account team is not just the sales organization – we have to include all the key players that interact with the accounts, e.g. service and support organizations, regional/general management, etc. Looking at the typical concerns amongst those different groups really gave an insight into how the success of the account is a shared responsibility.

Towards the end Deborah pulled out a few key points that we’d do well to track in our own programs:

• Active recruitment of customers into the program is key to drive response rates from the right contacts. Don’t drop a survey on them without warning. It has to be described in terms of how it’s part of the ongoing relationship, and that it is not just a survey.
• It’s about engaging employees to collect and exploit the feedback - not about having them sit on the side lines watching the score. Be cautious in tying compensation to the scores too early – it will just drive employees towards gaming the system
• Watch response rates carefully – less than 50% response rates means your teams are not engaging and you are not capturing a good picture of the real situation.But take care it’s representative of the different roles also (decision maker, influencer, end user) - it’s no good if all responses are from one population.

In summary:

• these programs are here to drive to growth (it’s not about a survey, so change your vocabulary)
• it’s about dialog not the score, the score comes from the actions we make
• action has to come at all levels throughout the organization to be effective at transforming the relationship

So, another great session and a good close to today’s B2B track!

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I’ve attended several Satmetrix conferences over the years, and one of the things that always hits home is the wide variety of backgrounds, businesses and best practices that they bring together. This year is no exception—in my track alone we have a business that manages pools and one that manages people! Roger Thompson from FirstService will be highlighting how he built the Net Promoter Score Program there across 18,000 employees, while Joyce Maroney of Kronos Inc will discuss how she revamped the existing voice of customer efforts across the 30-year-old company with 3000 employees in 60 countries. They will provide tips on starting from scratch, as well as tips on how to redirect existing, well intentioned efforts to something more impactful for the business. And of course we have some industry best practices from Steven Nicks of Satmetrix, who will share what he has seen at the coal face so that we can hopefully avoid the pitfalls!

Like any major endeavor, getting started on a loyalty journey is not easy…where to start is the main question new program owners have, especially when the to-do’s seem infinite! While not everyone’s journey is the same, and we all certainly face different terrain with different obstacles, you will find enough nuggets of commonality in these tales from real life to help you along your way. I have found that sometimes the best tips come from the most unexpected sources…I remember getting a ton of ideas from the discussion led by Simon Lyons of Aggreko…a company that rents generators! Who would have thought that there was much in common with renting machinery and selling software to consumers and businesses! It turns out that delivering great customer experiences transcends products, geographies and segments. Regardless of what you are trying to deliver to what audience, there are some basic tenets that you must adhere to—like the Golden Rule that Fred Reichheld refers to--and some basic checklist items that you will need to have to ensure that your journey is successful. You may have to add to the list, but you certainly won’t get far without making sure you cover off the minimum set. I am confident that you will find out what this minimum set is at the conference and figure out what your priority items are to go back and address at the office. Awareness, as they say, is the first step!

I managed to climb Mount Whitney (and get back) in one day on June 30, 2009. I did it by first deciding (easy), getting best practices (REI lecture, 2 books and countless blogs), building my checklist (fitness training, equipment, altitude conditioning), and lastly having a go (hard)! It just proved to me, a non-hiker, that everything is possible with the right attitude, some good advice, and the right company.

You can be successful on your journey…with a little help from people who have done it already. Roll on February!