Net Promoter Community

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

1. It’s about relationships, not surveys (engage customers in a partnership)
2. 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)
3. 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.

Laura DeSoto, Experian; Dr. Laura Brooks, Satmetrix; Desirree Madison-Biggs, Symantec; Diana Dykstra, San Francisco Fire Credit Union

“The customer is always right.”

Wrong, according to this panel. That’s how our first session of conference day 2 began. Our panelists did not agree on all topics, but on this one they seemed united on the idea that a much better mantra would be “Do the right thing for the customer.”

Seems like a subtle distinction, but it’s not. As Diana Dykstra pointed out, you can certainly have customers with unreasonable demands. What matters is that the employee does the right thing for the customer.

The panel discussed several different topics, but I’ll highlight a few of the big ones here:

First: Break the shackles of corporate policies.

Desirree Madison-Biggs of Symantec talked about how Symantec had created a “Myth Busters” website to help employees let go of old policies and corporate myths about what was and was not acceptable. From my perspective, it’s sort of like cleaning up your desktop. When you are driving change into an organization, make sure you don’t just hit “delete” on the obsolete files, but also be sure to “empty trash” and then restart the computer.

Diana Dykstra agreed. Get rid of the policy book. Her policy for employees is to do the right thing for the customer. They have 4 core values: Creating Elationships; Be the Member; Done in One; and Listen, Learn, and Innovate.

Laura Brooks commented on how action oriented and descriptive those value statements are, and I wholeheartedly agree. Don’t underestimate the power of good, descriptive language…especially when they see leaders and other team members also living it out in their actions.

Second: Hire or Train for Customer Focus, but Do It

Hire or train? We had different opinions on that. Laura DeSoto of Experian rightfully pointed out that “you’d better hope you can train for it,” because most organizations already have a lot of great employees on board, and you want to leverage their knowledge and expertise. Diana Dykstra took the other angle. At her company, they hire for it. And she admitted that when they were changing the culture, a lot of employees who didn’t fit with the new values left over time…which allowed them to bring in new people who were more naturally inclined to customer-focused behavior.

Whatever your strategy, be sure to do it. You won’t get change if you don’t invest in different hiring practices, training, or both.

Third: Get Leadership Commitment

Employee behavior follows cues from company leadership, especially when you are trying to make change happen. An audience member asked, “What do you do if you don’t have leadership on board.” And Desirree Madison-Biggs summed it up nicely in her response: you’re hosed! I couldn’t have put it better than that. Companies try to dance around this topic, especially passionate customer experience advocates at mid-management level who really want to make Net Promoter work in their organization. But ultimately, long-term success is intimately tied to having your top management on board.

Desirree made the point that showing execs the economics of promoters and detractors can sometimes help to sway opinion. But ultimately, most executives either have a belief system that lends itself to believing in customer first, or they are likely to remain skeptics. Find the right exec to spearhead this.

Fourth: Tell Stories

All the panelists agreed that stories were an extremely effective way to drive home the importance of customer-focused behaviors, both to make change happen and to reinforce behavior and culture.

Laura DeSoto told a story about Experian’s CEO, Kerry Williams, who personally followed up with a disgruntled detractor. The purpose of his call was simply to confirm that the account manager had closed the loop already, but when the customer said “no,” the next call was a personal one to the account manager. What drives change faster…a couple of stories like that, or a corporate email memo advising account managers to close the loop with detractors? You get the point. Stories matter….a lot. As do actions from top management.

Desirree Madison-Biggs explained how Symantec uses peer awards to get the stories out there. Not necessarily for “grand” heroics, but for the day-to-day heroics that represent a regular rhythm of customer focus in the operations.

For Diana Dykstra, the employees at San Francisco Fire Credit Union evaluate great customer-focus stories, and how they fit with the organization’s core values. Moreover, their entire performance review process is based on the core values, which drives home the importance of these stories to the company’s culture.

Fifth: Compensate, At the Right Time

Laura Brooks closed the session with a hot topic of debate: should you link compensation to NPS or not? We got three very different answers…from “yes, I did it right away” to “it took us 6 years,” and one smack dab in the middle.

I was waiting for Laura Brooks to chime in and break the tie…but we ran out of time. What was obvious from the discussion, and what we teach in the Net Promoter Certification, is to make sure you have trustworthy data and buy-in before taking this big step. Tying compensation too early introduces a lot of risks, including gaming, an overly strong focus on “the score” instead of changing customer experience, and the potential for a major crash and burn if the underlying response rates and data quality are not representing the customers or segments who matter most to the business.

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?”

How My M&Ms has bucked the trend and grown their business

Speakers: Tom Kehler, Satmetrix, and Claudio Pugliese, MARS Direct

How do you get your customers to feel that your brand is important to them?  Claudio Pugliese, who manages the Customer Care center for MARS My M&Ms, found first-hand that by genuinely engaging your customers in a conversation, your brand becomes more important to your customers, you create more Promoters, and the business grows.

When My M&Ms first started their community reading the Detractor comments was “emotionally” difficult, but they were full of insights. And the comments from Promoters were also invaluable, yielding improvement ideas for both product and go-to-market. The critical element in both cases was around engaging their customers in dialogue, and to demonstrate through effective action and communication that they listened to customer feedback. Taking action – and then demonstrating that they listened – is critical to their success.

The results My M&Ms has achieved from taking action on feedback speaks for itself. Over 8 time periods since they started this approach, My M&Ms not only improved their NPS from 25% to now 58%, and even more significantly they’ve significantly grown sales. They’ve found that creating a superior customer experience leads to:

• Enlisting more brand Promoters
• Building brand loyalty
• Activating positive Word of Mouth

Bottom-line is that by listening to the feedback from their customers they were able to grow their customer base (which also ordered more!).

As illustrative examples, the My M&Ms team implemented a few changes based on customer feedback:

• They listened to customer complaints about pricing and adjusted it, resulting in larger orders per customer
• They responded to customer requests for higher quality by introducing new inks and new capabilities
• They adjusted their service policies, for example “no-questions-asked” returns

They started off averaging 14% repeat customer-order rate per period, and that has now grown significantly to a 25% repeat rate. More customers are ordering more, and in this economy My M&Ms has grown where their competitors are losing money.

How do they do it?

1. My M&Ms established their online community with the important element to enable customers to join a club of influencers. And by demonstrating that the company listened and took direct action, customers talk more and provide further insights. Once you’ve established the relationship with Promoters, you have the ability to influence many more through those indirect connections
2. NPS is part of everything they do. It tells them where to invest marketing dollars to get the greatest returns. It tells them which employees are creating Promoters. And it tells managers where to invest to ensure they are keeping their employees as Promoters.
3. They are constantly looking at how they create more engaged customers, and they know that this is a measure of how important My M&Ms is to the customer.

In other words, Claudio tells us that they found that customers are looking to influence the companies they do business with.  If you talk to your customers they will talk to you.  Through their online community, My M&Ms has created a direct-to-consumer experience that allows them to engage. This works by asking open-ended questions and allowing customers to contribute ideas or select the ideas of others through the community platform.

Tom Kehler reminded us that engagement with your customers drives three major benefits:

• Better products that your customers want to buy
• Better marketing by letting your best customers tell you what resonates
• Better word of mouth from engagement

Incidentally, Claudio started his talk by stating a critical success factor: “Make it easy.”  Claudio also closed his talk with a similar comment:  “Work across the internal organization, and make it easy for them to work with you on this important effort.  Put the information into terms that they need and understand.”

Well said.  Congratulations to the My M&Ms team for driving real business results through Net Promoter!