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

Happy Customers Are Hard Work…

Posted by Doug_M Jan 26, 2009

Our morning breakout track here at the NetPromoter Conference on Developing Customer Focus in Service Operations created a full house. Even though the speaker was Lindsay Notwell from Verizon, the room was full of customer zealots and NOT the Verizon Network folks that you see in their ads. If you, missed this session then you missed a great talk.Lindsay and the Verizon team are deeply engaged with NPS. They started just last year and have listened to over 2 million customers and have followed up with 750000 calls. The title for the presentation was “Getting Customer Religion: The Virtuous Circle of Listening and Delivering Great Service”, listening is really a key point. Lindsay made the point several times that if you survey, you must follow up and call back those customers who took the time to share their opinions. If they took the time to complain, then they want to help you improve. This is a great tip on how to turn detractors into promoters.
Lindsay pointed to some key success factors that seemed to also be a theme for the conference. His key success factors were:

This must be a part of the C-level mandate. The C- suite must be believers
The right executive sponsors are a key to success
There needs to be a dedicated group driving program leadership, it can’t be just a part time job of many and it needs to be cross organizational
NPS has to become part of the DNA of company.

Beyond the survey, Lindsay noted that the hard work continues with the tactical work efforts that includes gaining employee engagement via training, consistent messaging and integration in all communications. The program also needs to be sustainable and cannot be viewed as the ‘program du jour’. NPS can’t be just the program for THIS year, or quarter or month, it must be durable.

He pointed out that the NPS score is not the goal, it is a symbol that helps you decide what to focus on to improve the customer experience. Using the verbatim, the actual words from the customers, is a powerful tool that allows everything from direct employee coaching to creating the rallying cry for the organization. Focus on the customer experience and the scores will come.

Does it work? Verizon uses NPS as a benchmark tool for a very competitive industry. They top the benchmark and recently have shown impressive financial results that match. The competition who does not hear you now and is at the bottom of the benchmark is leading the pack in losing customers, losing money and losing jobs. So, while NPS and customer experience is hard work, it seems to be worth it for Verizon.

Click here to download the presentation.

1804 Views 0 Comments Permalink Tags: b2c, notwell, b2e, lindsay, verizon, dna

How to Ride Out the Recession with Your Customers

Posted by JohnAbraham Jan 26, 2009

Richard made a pretty compelling call for investing in customer experience rather than advertising, especially with the economy in a shambles.

Sprint was one of his main examples: a company that has had trailing Net Promoter scores in the telecomm space for several years, and is now investing heavily in trying to turn the company around under its new CEO. Most of us have seen the ads, right? The problem is, Sprint’s NPS is negative, and they are trailing the leader in the space (Verizon) by about a 50 point gap, as Richard pointed out. In fact, Satmetrix recently ran the U.S. Net Promoter Industry benchmarks in December 2008 (they aren’t released yet, but my group runs them, so I got a preview of the data which I’ll share with you here). Sprint is still trailing Verizon by over 50 points on the NPS scale (remember, the scale goes from -100 to +100), but even worse, they are trailing the next best competitor by more than 20 point. So the story hasn’t changed much in the telecomm space over the last 2 year, despite their advertising efforts. As a former Sprint customer, I do have to them credit for one thing. About a year ago, I had a customer service problem, and then was asked to complete a short survey to give them my feedback. Guess what…I actually did receive a call back from their customer service group. And it’s an experience that I won’t forget. I was not a detractor for Sprint…more of a passive. And the reason we moved our family’s plan off of Sprint really had nothing to do with their service. It was because my wife got an iPhone!

The next story Richard told was that of the defunct retailer. He pointed out how retailing is increasingly moving online. Moreover, 3 of the top 4 retailers in customer service, according to one industry, are online retailers Amazon.com, Overstock.com, and Zappos.com. Richard highlighted that these companies focused primarily on great customer experience, service, and product selection…NOT on advertising.

Zappos is speaking later this morning, so I’m looking forward to hearing more about what they are getting right.

Finally, Richard turned to the topic of change management. I work with Richard, so I know that he is an avid pilot. And he wrote a blog back in December that compared FAA training for pilots to Leadership of a major corporation. If your pilot lacks the skill to prevent the plane from getting into what he called an “unusual attitude,” then it is very UNLIKELY that the pilot can recover from it. So it goes for leadership too. Can leaders who institute bad profit policies and get companies into a mess with their customers really be expected to fix the problem. Or do you need new leadership?

Our next presenter may give us a view into how this transpired at Charles Schwab.

1479 Views 0 Comments Permalink Tags: verizon, overstock, amazon, richard, zappos, owen

Keeping Your Employees (and Management!) Motivated

Posted by JohnAbraham Jan 6, 2009

The 2009 Net Promoter Conference is just 3 weeks away, and I wanted to highlight a couple of the sessions that were added during December.

With all the recent news of corporate restructuring and expense controls, many employees and managers feel pretty beaten up. These sessions provide a dose of good medicine for what ails us...they are about keeping your employees engaged and motivated in the task of delivering excellent customer experiences.

For those of you in the telecommunications sector, we are pleased to have Lindsay Notwell of Verizon Wireless joining us. Lindsay is responsible for NPS at Verizon, and when I discussed his session with him, he was passionate about the impact Net Promoter has had on their employees. He pointed out that when customers start to describe why they love a particular service rep, and that feedback actually makes it back to the employee, it has a huge motivational impact. I'm sure Lindsay will have many more suggestions to share about how they are making this work at Verizon.

Verizon has earned a reputation in its industry as a loyalty leader. Dr. Vince Nowinski will touch on Verizon's strong performance in his presentation about WOM economics. Vince and his team are completing a whitepaper that will be available soon on WOM in the cellular phone industry, to add to their recent publications on the same topic for computer hardware and credit cards.

Another session I'm looking forward to is the panel discussion on Day 2 on "Making a Habit of Customer-Focused Behaviors." Dr. Laura Brooks will host this discussion with three companies that are pushing the envelope in the area of cultural transformation. The companies are from different industries, but all are highlighted as case studies in Dr. Brook's new book with Richard Owen called Answering the Ultimate Question.

Laura will be joined by Aisling Hassell of Symantec, who has been using Net Promoter for several years now across a global organization with both B2B and B2C customer relationships. Symantec is now actively measuring employee NPS and using a broad range of engagement strategies with its employees and management team. We will also hear from Diana Dykstra of San Francisco Fire Credit Union, whose focus on service and culture change has earned them Net Promoter Scores in the 75%+ range. The panel is rounded out by Laura DeSoto of Experian, who delivered the opening keynote at our first Net Promoter Conference in New York back in January of 2007. Experian has used many innovative engagement and training strategies to improve the employees' "line of sight" to the customer in their daily work.

Finally, I should remind everyone that Fred Reichheld will answer questions from the audience on Day 1. If you are registered, watch for an email this week to submit your questions for Fred.