Net Promoter Community: San Francisco Conference Blog 2009 : Tags : nps

B2B and NPS: A Match Made in Heaven

Posted by LWest Jan 27, 2009

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.

Click here to download the presentation.

6123 Views 1 Comments Permalink Tags: nps, methodology, b2b, eastman, sanfrancisco

Improving Your NPS in B2B Relationships 2

Posted by mkirschn Jan 27, 2009

Deborah Eastman, CMO at Satmetrix, talked about improving NPS in B2B relationships. She focused on three themes:

It’s about relationships, not surveys (engage customers in a partnership)
integrate the program in the business (don’t rely on an independent NP team and demonstrate the value account teams receive which include protecting their key business assets: customers, and a better understanding of the customer relationship)
ensure action.

Deborah emphasized how a NPS program helps understand the strength of your customer relationships, be proactive in improving and leveraging relationships and avoid surprises in account churn and lost business. There are many customer relationships across the enterprise and the health of the relationships have traditionally been determined by the account teams. But, these can be very biased. While the team may believe all is good, the NP scorecard shows the real story.

Deb then reviewed best practices for creating and managing a successful NP program. She began with creating a continuous process where account teams are involved in all steps of the process from contact participation to account planning based on the results. Next, Deborah talked about the sampling strategy by understanding client revenue segments and roles (decision makers, influencers and end-users). Her experience has shown that NPS varies by role and revenue tier. She said that many companies conduct a pulse survey once a year. She suggested segmenting the customer base and surveying a segment per quarter. Twice a year per account is best. The first time should be a short (pulse) survey and the second a more detailed diagnostic approach. This is a good balance for the company and its customers and provides a good read on differences per quarter before it’s too late to act. Next she talked about defining and publishing timelines and synching with the business operations. For example, don’t require closed-loop follow-up at the end of a quarter when sales teams are trying to close deals. She then talked a little about the importance of a governance structure for the program. With regard to survey design she said it needs to be focused, role-based (different survey for Execs versus End-users) and the importance of delivering surveys in the respondent’s native language.

Deb talked about actively recruiting for participation where the account teams need to engage clients by positioning the intent and benefits and setting expectations. She said if done right, you should have response rates of 60% or higher (the audience gasped). Deborah stressed the importance of immediate response since this creates opportunities. In one example she said that for one Satmetrix client immediate follow-up after a trigger saved an $8M account AND resulted in a $2M up sell. She talked about incorporating program results in account planning using account influence charts (NPS by role) and linking to business metrics (revenue by NPS).

The last best practice she shared was about closed loop processes where broad communication to all customers about actions taken will serve to increase response rates. She suggested doing this within 30 days of the survey close, but realized this can take a little longer in many cases.

Finally, Deborah warned not to tie compensation to NPS right away or it will surely kill the program – account teams will try to game the system. In closing, she shared a few case-studies on successful NP programs including a Business Telco company that experienced a 150% increase in orders and an IT product supplier who identified new opportunities in 39% of their follow-up meetings.

3448 Views 0 Comments Permalink Tags: loop, satmetrix, b2b, eastman, nps, methodology, surveying, b2c

The 80% You Almost Forgot: Relationship Follow-up with Executive Buyers

Posted by ShannonR Jan 27, 2009

Joseph Schlosser, Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers

There is certainly a difference between B2C and B2B, but even within B2B there is a wide diversity among companies, as well as within one B2B company. Despite this, however, some challenges transcend where you are in your company, or where you are in your program.

At PricewaterhouseCoopers, the context around the survey is the emphasis. We speak of the "PwC experience" -- can we create an experience that will differentiate us from our competitors. We know that all the companies in the Big 4 have technical expertise, a client-focused culture, and a global reach, so the question remains "Can the way we deliver the experience and build on our relationships differentiate us?"

PwC has a top-down commitment to deliver this unique client experience -- not just from our leadership, but down through every member of our staff. We emphasize our Behaviors: listening, providing value (not just to their company, but to their executives and staff), understanding their concerns, creating trusting relationships. Very often we have to have difficult relationships about complex subjects, and we have those conversations in a trusting way, recognizing and respecting our clients' point of view.

NPS is one way to measure how we are doing.

How do we train how to have these interactions?
We formalize the process. On an annual basis, we communicate the value proposition, we solicit feedback, and we communicate the value delivered. The feedback portion is 20% of the process, and the survey is 20% of the feedback. The survey consists of 3 questions, and there are 2 versions based on the services we provide to the client. We survey Fortune 1000 companies and we require 8 roles be surveyed in our audit clients; in our other clients, key executives and decision makers are the majority of the individuals surveyed.

Our Senior Relationship Partner program involves a senior partner in the Firm -- one who is not involved in the service delivery to the client, visiting the client at least once annually to assess the health of the relationship with the Firm. The visit is typically conducted after the survey has been completed.

The unique challenges of operating in a B2B professional services environment:

survey fatigue
survey is perceived as a B2C tool
small sample of surveys, approximately 50% response rate -- using NPS at the client-level hinders true analysis because one respondent can have a huge impact (and skew) the NPS score
one executive can have enormous (multi-million dollar) decision-making effect; therefore, we must reach these key executives, even if it isn't through the survey

Response Rates are critical.

firm level survey communications
account level survey communications
non-respondents = "silence is deadly"; these individuals may have significant decision making capability

Early Results

We have completed two years of surveys, and we show an improvement in NPS scores. We attribute this to:

follow-up with detractors
reaching out to non-respondents
one more year has passed following difficult legislation
improved consistency; the same issues that "wow" our clients are the ones that dissatisfy other clients. When we execute well, it has a significant impact on the relationship (and the scores).

While it is not about the score….

we do not use NPS for individual performance metrics
we do use NPS for firm level performance metrics

Questions:

1. Who follows up with the non-respondents?
The Senior Relationship Partner, the Global Engagement Partner (directly related to the service being provided), or a member of the client team.

2. Do you account for cultural bias?
We only survey in the United States. Firmwide we have other groups like ours in different global territories.

3. What about competition? Do you benchmark?
Statistically, there is not much difference. There does not appear to be much differentiation between the four firms.

4. Where is the Client Experience Team located within PwC?
Senior Leadership drove this from its inception. We work across all leadership.

5. Is the survey electronic or print?
The survey is delivered through an email, as a link to a website.

6. How often do you survey?
Each client is typically surveyed annually, although we administer the survey quarterly, to balance the workload. Our heaviest surveys are at the end of our fiscal year (the first half of the calendar year), which follows the year-end of the majority of our clients.

7. Do you offer incentives [to complete the survey]?
No. We are prevented because of being in a regulated business from providing incentives.

8. How do you recognize those who are closing the loop?
We track the follow-up activities by Partner, and this is incorporated into their annual review.

2775 Views 0 Comments Permalink Tags: up, pricewaterhousecoopers, pwc, b2b, nps, schlosser, follow, methodology

Looking Inside with Net Promoter

Posted by LWest Jan 26, 2009

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:

to set themselves apart in the uber-competitive staffing industry
they were working very hard to land clients (and were successful in doing so), but now they wanted to train their focus on KEEPING those clients
using the Net Promoter approach really fit their industry and what they do as a company.

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?”