Deborah Eastman, Chief Marketing Officer, Satmetrix

It was nice to see some focus on B2B business models. As the owner of a company that serves other businesses, this session was especially attractive to me – plus Deborah Eastman is always has the inside track on B2B and NPS. Eastman started off outlining the keys to success in using Net Promoter in a B2B environment:

• NP can be leveraged to improve relationships
• Make sure Net Promoter is integrated with the core business operations
• Insure that action is taken on any feedback

Eastman also suggested that the request for Net Promoter feedback be built into client engagement contracts to make sure projects don’t end without getting the feedback needed. The average NPS for a B2B company is 24%.

A key takeaway from this session was the best practice of only surveying twice per year and the response rates should be 60% or higher. Eastman cautioned against accepting high Net Promoter Scores without also looking at your response rates. High NPS’s without high response rates render high Net Promoter Scores almost meaningless and probably means that the data is not trustworthy. In fact, non-respondents should be viewed as detractors with the assumption that the individual doesn’t care about the relationship enough to take 5 minutes to complete the survey. Eastman recommends dealing with detractors in a very direct way – by responding IMMEDIATELY to detractors. In general, it’s a good idea to not let detractors feelings to fester. She says that she’s seen conversations with detractors result in upsells quite often. A session participant noted that many companies are quickly tiring of survey taking so many companies are creating their own survey evaluations for their top vendors and releasing the survey results to the vendors – a different spin on Net Promoter for sure.

At the close, Eastman recommended closing surveys on time and getting the results – along with action steps – out the door within 30 days. The potential debate is, whom should you return that survey data? Just to the respondents or to everyone regardless of whether they responded or not?

If you chose the former, you risk not engaging potential detractors (the people who didn’t respond) and filling them in on your company’s improvement plans. However, if you inform everyone, you air laundry and may point out areas of weakness that many people may not have otherwise known about. As with everything, there is a trade-off and you need to do what’s right in your specific scenario. Yet another reason to get certified – to help address pesky dilemmas like this one.

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Melissa Namiot-Mader, Director, Business Systems Analysis and Loyalty Programs, Veritude

John Abraham, General Manager, Net Promoter Programs, Satmetrix

Melissa Namiot-Mader and Satmetrix’ own John Abraham had a bit of a ‘fireside chat’ session about how Veritude has leveraged Net Promoter processes to double their NPS inside 6 months and all but leave their competitors in the dust. Vertitude decided to use the NPS for several reasons:

What got them to measurable improvement was a combination of a number of carefully thought out, consistent action-steps:

• Veritude’s CEO walks the floor and takes a high-touch/open-door approach to dealing with employees.
• They conduct surveys twice per year without fail
• They conduct Net Promoter workshops and weave Net Promoter concepts into employee meetings
• Net Promoter Scores are tied to compensation
• All new hires are introduced to Net Promoter
• All new executive officers are given a copy of “The Ultimate Question” and are debriefed on what role Net Promoter plays in the company
• Each of their sites is required to do an annual Net Promoter action plan based on the verbatim feedback from the previous year. Only until they have created their action plan are they given their NPS from the previous year and then the scores are published publicly.
• NPS questions have been randomly built into their online time recording software via a pop-up questionnaire. Employees answer questions like:
• • Have you heard from your staffing consultant recently?
  • Would you recommend this staffing consultant to a friend or colleague?

• They’ve also kept it light by creating personas for promoters (a cheerleader), detractors (a devil with horns and pitchfork) and passives (the “Pat” character from Saturday Night Live)

When I asked Namiot-Mader what she would recommend for Net Promoter newbies, she advised that those interested in Net Promoter should make sure the Net Promoter approach is a good fit for their company and industry. She also suggested getting an executive sponsor or advocate. But, most of all she stressed DOING something with the data you collect. She cautioned not to try to address all the weak points at once, but to instead break the list down into manageable chunks – business line by business line if need be. As someone who has earned her Net Promoter Certification, Namiot-Mader encouraged the session participants to opt for certification because it’s good to go through implementing Net Promoter concepts with a group of people who are in the same position as you and whom you can bounce ideas off. Veritude has been effectively using Net Promoter in closed-loop for the past 2 years, but have been keeping track of their scores for the past 3 years and the results speak for themselves:

• In 2007, their NPS doubled from 2006
• In 2008, they exceeded their goals by 13 points
• They have created a new standardized resume template and implemented a consistent resume submission process so that their customers are able to see the quality of their candidates
• They implemented a new internal communication plan
• And, more importantly, they were able to answer the tell-tale question: “What should we NOT be doing?”