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Social Media and NPS: A Strategy for Retailers

PaulMarsden — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 14:47:43 GMT

We're seeing retailers move into social media in a big way in 2010, deploying 'pop up' social media f-commerce (Facebook Commerce) stores to create word of mouth buzz around new products (Disney, P&G, NineWest, Rachel Roy), whilst giving their e-commerce stores a social media makeover, adding customers ratings, reviews, Q&A's and forums to make their stores sticky and stimulate word of mouth.

From an NPS perspective, the key value of social media for retailers is that it activates the referral value of promoters (from 'would recommend' to 'do recommend'), and allows them to monetize that value with hard sales and new customers. Social media also allows retailers to offer their customers an expectation-beating retail experience that not only activates promoters but creates them too. So here's a short downloadable presentation on an NPS approach to social media for retailers - comments welcome!

Net Promoter and Social Media - A Strategy for Retailers

Social Media + Net Promoter = ROI

PaulMarsden — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 20:13:25 GMT

Should Leboutin's new cosmetically-enhanced Barbie be our Net Promoter mascot? Read on to find out...

Head over to the online Barbie store and you’ll no longer see Barbie’s infamous fat ankles. Thanks to recent laments by celebrity bootmaker Christian Louboutin, the offending ankles have been mercifully subjected to plastic surgery.

What you will find over at the Barbie site though is some smart use of social media (online media that supports social interaction and user contributions). Specifically, you can go “social shopping” and co-browse the site in realtime with your remote Facebook friends and Twitter followers to share shopping advice and recommendations.

The result? An expectation-beating e-commerce experience that drives sales. Brands using social media to enhance the online customer experience have seen sales jump by 10%+ (see here for a fabulous compendium of evidence). In fact, a recent test of the social media feature on the Barbie store saw sales rise by 15%, with a 50% rise in average order value.

With its Barbie store, Mattel is part of the vanguard of brands using Net Promoter logic with social media to drive sales. The logic is simple - use social media to offer an expectation-beating online experience (the key variable driving your Net Promoter Score) and then monetize the result immediately with e-commerce.

It’s simple, it’s smart and it solves two challenges faced by Net Promoter and Social Media. First, “How do I get ROI on my Net Promoter investment fast?” Second, “How do I monetize my social media investment?” The answer, fusing social media with e-commerce and Net Promoter logic to deliver expectation-beating experiences that can be immediately monetized through e-commerce, may turn out to be your ROI solution.

Not all social media experiences can be monetized directly, and nor should they, but where they can they provide a fast business case for social media and Net Promoter investment. Take a look at how other brands are using “social commerce” (social media + e-commerce) with Net Promoter logic to monetize social media and drive sales, and ask yourself a simple question: How could we make social media pay with Net Promoter?

P&G, Nine West, and Best Buy walking the customer-centric talk and beating expectations by making e-commerce convenient and social with Facebook stores
Dell, beating their followers expectations on Twitter, by offering exclusive deals on their "Deal Feed" - and selling $7m+ of gear
Carrefour, the world's largest hypermarket retailer doing the same thing in Facebook, offering expectation-beating exclusive deals on their Deal Feed to their fans
Burberry showing how luxury brands can harness social media, with a ground-breaking Art of the Trench "user generated, brand curated" gallery linked to their e-commerce store
The Limited US fashion retail chain offering the ultimate in customer convenience, enabling people to buy directly from their social media newsfeed, with a newsfeed store on Facebook
Dell again, with Dell Swarm beating expectations with a nifty Group Buy feature - buy together with your social network - the more people who buy, the cheaper the price
Amazon beating expectations again their new Universal Wishlist service and Tag-Based and Contrast Reviews

Now, get over to the Mattel site and check out Barbie’s ankles with your friends....

Social Media / 10 Brands Doing it Right

PaulMarsden — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:30:39 GMT

How much time do your colleagues spend chatting with friends on Facebook, brushing up their résumé on LinkedIn, perusing photos of last night’s party on Flickr or just tweeting t-shirt slogans at Twitter whilst wiling away the hours on YouTube?

Social media. It’s a business bane, a time-bandit guaranteed to suck productivity and focus from your organization. Remember that first rule of corporate survival? Don’t make me responsible for what I can’t control. You can’t control what happens on social media (content sharing) or social networking (contact and information sharing) sites, so just don’t go there. And forget any upside; if Google can’t make money from it’s social media video sharing megasite YouTube (it can’t), what hope do the rest of us have. Better block those sites.

Sure, a healthy dose of business skepticism is advised in the faddish world of social media and social networking (remember MySpace or Friendster anyone?). But by donning our Net Promoter goggles, a viable and sustainable business model for social media begins to emerge.

From a Net Promoter perspective, business success is driven by delivering expectation-beating experiences that result in increased loyalty and referral value of customers. So if social media can either help deliver remarkable expectation-beating experiences, or help customers share those experiences, then there is real commercial value in social media.

So, here, for your inspiration and delectation, are 10 brands that are walking the social media talk in what I believe are remarkable - and commercially savvy - ways:

1. Amazon: Boosts sales with a deal of the day tweet on Twitter that, when remarkable, gets re-tweeted around the people-powered twittersphere. Combine this with allowing buying advice for customers by customers on their site, you have a veritable social media sales engine. Now head over to DellSwarm to see where this social media powered ecommerce is going.

2. Accenture: Value. Delivered. Lead generation, social media style. By posting free business advice in a useful presentation format on presentation sharing site slideshare.net, the consultancy establishes expertise and draw prospects to their sales funnel.

3. Nike: Boosting loyalty by offering runner support for runners by runners, Nike+ is the place for runners from around the world can come together to share performance stats, aching limbs and running tips. All under the Nike brand. In the words of Wired Magazine’s Jeff Howe, the key to social media is to ask not what the community can do for you, but what you can do for the community.

4. Charmin: Out in town and you need a bathroom, and you need it clean. Charmin to the rescue, the tissue brand sponsors sitorsquat.com, a user-powered information sharing site and mobile social app of public convenience locations - with reviews - around the world. If a toilet tissue brand can make social media work...

5. Hyatt: Customer Service for free for guests by guests through Hyatt’s opinion sharing user-review site Yattit. Guests offer each other concierge services on local places to dine and drink. Hyatt saves on bills. Smart.

6. Blendtec: Utility value is not the only social media game in town, entertainment value can work too. This small blender manufacturer tripled sales by posting homemade and highly entertaining “will it blend” ads on video sharing site YouTube

7. P&G: Teen support for teens by teens. By hosting a subtly branded forum BeingGirl where teen girls can connect, discuss and share girl stuff with each other P&G reach a difficult-to-reach demographic - and measure the results to be 4x as effective as TV advertising.

8. Starbucks: Business improvement ideas for free through opinion sharing open idea blog, mystarbucksidea where users can post, vote and comment on each others ideas for how to make the coffee brand better. Coffee ice cubes and free wifi anyone? (Dell, Bestbuy, Asus, and Microsoft are doing the social media idea blog thing too).

9. Threadless: Outsourcing. The hipster apparel brand uses social media to outsource t-shirt design. Site visitors submit designs, share opinions and vote in monthly open outsourcing competitions. Winning designs go into production - and sell out, every time.

10. Apple: eCommerce. The future of social media is mobile, and Apple is profiting today by hosting a social marketplace (App Store) where third party developers can post mobile applications for the iPhone, get them rated by customers, and sell them. Apple of course takes a healthy cut, whilst cutting its own application development costs to a healthy zero. Forget eCommerce, welcome to the world of social commerce - WeCommerce.

So forget ignored ads on social networking and social media sites, undiscovered and unused branded widgets, and ghost town groups haunted only by the desperate, lonely and compulsive (cat litter community anyone?). The real commercial value of social media is as a value delivery channel powered by user contributions and facilitated by you.

Lenovo: Happiness is Your Business Model

PaulMarsden — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:39:44 GMT

Sometimes the term Net Promoter can seem to get in the way of a really great idea - the idea that happiness is a business model; that the best way to grow your business is to make your customers smile.

Yes, smile. Forget for a moment arcane discussions about the metric itself or the corporate babble-speak around associated business processes. And look at Net Promoter for what it is; a business ethic that is based on the simple premise that doing business for good (delighting customers) is good for business (organic growth).

Take Chris Askew, from Lenovo who is up on stage now, talking about Lenovo’s Customer Delight Program that has substantially increased the number of smiling customers (NPS up 16%) all whilst trimming costs by 15%. Chris’ words could be those of the great philosopher John Stuart Mill, author of On Liberty, and who developed “the greatest happiness principle” - that when faced with a choice, we must first consider the likely consequences of potential actions and, from that, choose to do what we believe will generate most pleasure. This is the moral code that Lenovo follows - and as a result Lenovo is growing their business by making customers happy, and receiving some 39,000 gifts per month from happy Lenovo users. And it is also this moral code (utilitarianism if you want a label) of maximizing customer happiness that is at the heart of Net Promoter.

So, take the cue from Lenovo if you want a cocktail party version of what Net Promoter is all about - it’s about making happiness your business model.

Satmetrix: Answering the Ultimate Question

PaulMarsden — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:52:53 GMT

So Richard Owen, Satmetrix CEO and co-author of “Answering the Ultimate Question” is boiling down six years of research and experience in implementing high-impact Net Promoter customer loyalty programs into 10 key insights. Sweet.

Of the 10 insights, noted below for your delight and delectation, #7 is the one that I'd like to comment on - Word of Mouth Trumps Advertising.

First, my take-outs from Richard’s wisdom in a nutshell

Winner Takes All – Your goal should be a Best-in-Class Net Promoter Score. Why? NPS leaders grow faster and keep customers longer. Compare Verizon with Sprint: Verizon NPS = 40%, growth = 13%, churn 1.1% - Sprint NPS = -15%, growth = -13%, churn = 2.4%
Inertia is the True Enemy – The biggest obstacle in growing your NPS to grow your business is internal resistance to change. You need to cultivate internal momentum with top management sponsorship to make it happen
Relative Performance is All the Matters – Your NP Score is utterly meaningless – in isolation. It’s your score relative to your (local) competitive set – and your past performance that makes Net Promoter meaningful
Pick Your Battles – Using Net Promoter to grow your business usually involves delivering a differentiated customer experience that underpins a key reason to recommend. Few brands can be great at everything, find your inner experiential strength and build on it. (Amazon – logistics, Virgin – culture, First Direct – service)
Frontline Staff Are Key– A key driver of successful customer experience redesign is where humans meet humans. It’s difficult to overestimate the role of customer facing staff and partners in driving experience
It’s How Customers See You – 80% of senior managers believe their brands deliver a superior experience, 8% of their customers agree. Customer Experience Management begins with the customer experience from the perspective of the customer.
Word of Mouth Trumps Advertising – ‘Happy Customers Talking’ is the best advertising and acquisition tool you can get. Consider Amazon, Zappos, and Overstock – brands built on delivering *remarkable* experiences, not paying for ads. Advertising is the last recourse for the mediocre.
Understand the Economics – it’s all about money, the rest is just conversation. Unless you know the economic value of a Promoter and the cost of a Detractor to your business – and use it to build a solid business case your Net Promoter program is unlikely to get traction
Be Like Finance – It’s all about money, the rest is just conversation (2). To succeed, make your Net Promoter program CFO friendly, with language, processes, and rigor of your finance department. Excel not Powerpoint is your new best friend.
Don’t Confuse Simple with Easy – The goal of any Net Promoter program is simple – delivering customer delight. But just because it’s simple to get, doesn’t mean its easy to deliver. Consider the iPod and iPhone; years of development (perspiration as much as inspiration) underpin the elegance of simplicity.

So a useful 'reality checklist' for brands looking to walk the customer experience talk. And as the guy known as “Buzzman” in consulting circles, you can guess it’s at #7 ‘Word of Mouth Trumps Advertising’ when I started cheering.

It’s true, it’s true – just about every research study shows that word of mouth is more powerful than advertising. But the problem for brands is that you have to EARN word of mouth (by delivering a *remarkable* experience), you can’t buy it (word of mouth agencies notwithstanding).

But, and it’s a big but (and where I’d qualify Richard’s point) Word of Mouth trumps Advertising, but Advertising Activates Word of Mouth. Our own research shows that up to 50% of promoters are mute promoters – and that advertising can activate them and the Word of Mouth potential of a brand (transforming promoters from “would recommend” to “do recommend”). How? By helping promoters articulate the reason to recommend (think Sony Bravia ads and their creative focus on color).

The truth (as we see it) is that advertising and word of mouth are stronger together.

Purple Cows & Promoters

PaulMarsden — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 14:53:57 GMT

20 Questions to Brainstorm your Brand out of Recession

As marketers come under pressure to do more with less, here's a practical way that a Net Promoter perspective can help. Use the marketing logic of Net Promoter (what other people say about you is more important than what you say about yourself) to set up a collaborative workshop of colleagues, partners and promoters - and run a "Purple Cow" brainstorm.

A Purple Cow brainstorm - inspired by Seth Godin's marketing bestseller 'Purple Cow' (on the art of being remarkable) - has a single focus; how to make your value proposition(s) truly remarkable. The rationale is simple; most products and services are Brown Cows, that is, quite unremarkable - not worth talking about. But in order to cut through today's recessionary caution and marketing clutter, brands - more than ever - need to be truly remarkable, in the same way a 'Purple Cow' would be, truly remarkable. This is pure Net Promoter thinking, and backed up with Net Promoter evidence - in a pan-European multi-category study last year, we found that nearly 80% of all variation in Net Promoter Scores is explained by how remarkable your customers find your product or service experience. Which explains why 80% of the 30 newest entrants to Interbrand’s top 100 brand list owe their success to selling remarkable experiences rather that advertising clout. Experiential brains, not advertising braun is what you need to succeed in marketing today.

So here's 20 brainstorming questions, distilled from the Purple Cow, to help put the magic of being remarkable back into your brand. Try brainstorming with no marketing terms or jargon – it gets in the way of clear thinking about delivering remarkable experiences. Of course, a Purple Cow brainstorm won't replace the need for a systematic solution - like Net Promoter - for making your brand remarkable, but it might help as a useful catalyst for leading your brand out of recession.

Purple Cow Brainstorm

To warm up, imagine your product or service is a person, and you have to write a job reference for them – what’s remarkable and worth recommending and what isn’t?
Now draw up a simple customer wish list. Are there any gaps you could fill between what people want and what they’re getting today?
Make two lists, one of the top reasons to recommend products/services in your market and the other of top reasons not to recommend. Can you spot any opportunities?
Think about the current leader in your market – if you could change just one thing about it in order to make it more remarkable, what would that be?
Think again about what the market leader is doing, then focus on doing the opposite.
Make a list of very good products in your market. The opposite of remarkable is very good (because very good is bland), what would you do to turn these very good products into a truly remarkable products?
Take another look at the top ‘reasons to recommend’ in your market; these are what make products remarkable. What could you do to own one of these reasons to recommend?
Who currently makes the most remarkable products/services in your industry? What would they do if they were in your shoes to make your product more remarkable?
Focus on the two key groups who will drive your sales – your most profitable customers, and opinion leading customers. What would you have to do to make what you sell remarkable to them?
List all the customer suggestions and customer complaints you’ve heard, what could you do to address them?
Forget demographics for a minute – list the big social networks and communities in your market (associations, clubs, employers, institutions). Could you make a special edition of your product for one of these networks or communities?
Remarkable products are often controversial and outrageous – what would a really controversial or outrageous version of your product look like?
If you were going to make a parody or spoof of your product or service, what would it look like? This will give you a clue to what could be remarkable about your product.
Imagine you could get a world class designer to redesign your product, who would it be - and what do you think they'd do?
Packaging and presentation can make a product/service, and remarkable packaging and presentation can make a product or service remarkable. What can you do to make your packaging/presentation more remarkable?
Imagine you are your most loyal customer advocate - what could you do to make them rave even more about your product.
Think of ways you could build a competitor to your own product with costs 30% lower? If you could, why don’t you?
Imagine you are making a highly exclusive limited edition of your product for your 20 best customers – what would be remarkable about it?
Remember that convenience is king – what could you do to make buying, using or disposing remarkably easy?
Imagine you’ve woken up as a maverick, with no respect for the company way of doing things today – what the first thing you’d change about your product?

Web 2.0 and NPS - A Marriage Made in Heaven

PaulMarsden — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 02:44:25 GMT

We've all heard of Web 2.0, the database-backed social web. But how can businesses profit from Web 2.0? Social networks, social media and other social web services - so what?

But put on your NPS Goggles and see the world from an NPS perspective, and the value of Web 2.0 becomes clear; it's all about using the Web to add to your value proposition to beat customer expectations (the key driver of NPS).

Web 2.0 is not about what your customer can do for you, it's about what you can do for your customer.

So here's a presentation outlining three proven Web 2.0 strategies from an NPS perspective. (Click here for Dr. Marsden's presentation.)

The key insight - in a nutshell - is that Web 2.0 allows businesses to build web services rather than web sites that add to your value proposition, beat market expectations and therefore drive growth.

Think Nike+, think Lego Factory, think Apple's new Me.com.

Web 2.0 is about the Web as a Value Delivery Platform, not a Brochureware Platform.

Enjoy - and feedback most welcome!

Word of Mouth: Show Me the Money!

PaulMarsden — Fri, 02 May 2008 02:35:09 GMT

Word of mouth is all about the money, the rest is just conversation (pun intended). That's the key takeout of this roundtable on Net Promoter and word of mouth; tell me how much a recommendation is worth, and then I'll think about doing something about it.

Part of the attraction of Net Promoter Score is its link to hard financials, but the NPS itself measures propensity to recommend (would recommend), not word of mouth (do recommend).

As it happens, recent European research has found that only 50% of promoters (would recommend) actually do recommend.

There are some really cool and effective tools for activating the 50% of ˜silent" promoters that the average business unit has (such as online communities), but before time and money is spent, it's important to know how much a recommendation is worth in financial terms (see The Ultimate Question by Fred Reichheld, Net Promoter Economics: The Impact of Word of Mouth white paper by Satmetrix, and How Valuable is Word of Mouth white paper published by Harvard Business Review for calculating Customer Referral Value).

Only then can a business case be put together for activating promoter advocacy.

Promoters vs. Influencers: Follow the Money

PaulMarsden — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 21:14:05 GMT

So Yahoo's social network expert Duncan Watts, author of Six Degrees, doesn't rate 'influencers'. Armed with computer models, he's challenging the idea that innovation and marketing dollars work harder when they are invested with the trendsetting lead users in your category. Better to cast your net as wide as possible and cater to the mainstream majority ("mass seeding") rather than focus on fickle influencers and even more fickle network effects.

So what does this have to do with your Net Promoter strategy of achieving increased growth by putting the voice of the market at the heart of the business decision-making process? Well, it's all about deciding whose voice you should be listening to. Should you listen preferentially to lead users (influencers), because they act as gatekeepers to mainstream adoption, or should you listen to the mainstream majority because they make up the volume?

A case can be made for both -- but I'd add that it's the voice of the money we should really be listening to -- hardwiring the voice of your most profitable users (or the category's most profitable users in the case of new product development) into the business, rather than that of average or lead users. Why? Because it's profitable users, not lead users or average users that drive profits. If you want to segment further, then the Net Promoter Grid (below) will direct your listening to profitable promoters (because of the extra referral value they represent) and profitable detractors (because of the risk value of losing them).

An interesting example of putting this into practice is the leading UK cosmetic brand 'Simple', which has recently set up an online 'promoter panel' of high-spending brand fans to help them innovate.

Rather than try coolhunt influencers such as trendsetting fashionistas for the panel -- the company is following the money and putting the voice of profitable promoters at the heart of their business decision-making processes. Feedback (rewarded by an online e-shop selling Simple products at staff prices to panel members) has already led to the development and successful launch of a new product.

So if you get the opportunity to spend time with profitable users, lead users, or average users -- I say follow the money.

Paul Marsden: Building a Net Promoter Program Brick by Brick

PaulMarsden — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 21:54:00 GMT

Delegates are returning from a short coffee break – room is packed again.

Peggy Conley introduces her session by explaining LEGO adopted NPS two years ago as part of a turnaround strategy for company.

NPS has permeated LEGO company culture - focusing the business on customer experience (the key driver of NPS). Example of CEO receiving letter from customer asking for Space LEGO instructions - and replying personally.

Peggy is talking about critical success factors for NPS deployment:

1) Employees know the score

2) Employees are rewarded for improvements to score (10% of bonus on NPS improvement )

3) Employees feel they can personally have an impact on NPS

First step in building a Net Promoter Program for LEGO involved tracking NPS in surveys (which LEGO had been doing for several years - so they already had basic) benchmark data.

Measuring NPS is involves researching right consumers (core target groups), at the right time (after brand interactions), and right experiences (experiences over which business has some control)

LEGO measure user NPS as a customer experience metric across 5 key areas:

Product Experience (immediate post purchase), Online Experience, Store Experience, Customer Services experience.

The LEGO NPS surveys are kept deliberately short - four questions - to get impressive response levels.

Peggy is explaining how all monthly NPS data and actions are summarized on a single sheet that is distributed to the business departments.

NPS data is also used to feed into an affinity segmentation model to allow LEGO to build segment specific initiatives for improving NPS/experience.

Different methodology for different experiences - but goal of NPS research is to measure quality of experience and opportunities for improving it. Key is to turn data/info into actionable insights

Peggy is wrapping up by giving examples of how NPS research is driving business improvement initiatives.

how mood of customer services influences experience (NPS) - when engaging an fun experience quality (NPS) increases
how ease of finding instructions on the website influences experience - a site redesign increases NPS significantly
how search and navigation on online store influences experience - usability tests and “deep dives into open comments” identified how to improve experience
how packaging quality influences experience - improved packaging improved NPS
how delivery times for online sales influences experience - improving delivery times improved NPS

Paul Marsden: Building a Net Promoter Program Brick by Brick

PaulMarsden — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 21:54:00 GMT

Delegates are returning from a short coffee break — room is packed again.

Peggy Conley introduces her session by explaining LEGO adopted NPS two years ago as part of a turnaround strategy for company.

Peggy is talking about critical success factors for NPS deployment:

1) Employees know the score

2) Employees are rewarded for improvements to score (10% of bonus on NPS improvement )

3) Employees feel they can personally have an impact on NPS

First step in building a Net Promoter Program for LEGO involved tracking NPS in surveys (which LEGO had been doing for several years - so they already had basic) benchmark data.

Measuring NPS is involves researching right consumers (core target groups), at the right time (after brand interactions), and right experiences (experiences over which business has some control)

LEGO measure user NPS as a customer experience metric across 5 key areas

Product Experience (immediate post purchase), Online Experience, Store Experience, Customer Services experience

The LEGO NPS surveys are kept deliberately short - four questions - to get impressive response levels.

Peggy is explaining how all monthly NPS data and actions are summarized on a single sheet that is distributed to the business

NPS data is also used to feed into an affinity segmentation model to allow LEGO to build segment specific initiatives for improving NPS/experience.

Different methodology for different experiences - but goal of NPS research is to measure quality of experience and opportunities for improving it. Key is to turn data/info into actionable insights

Peggy is wrapping up by giving examples of how NPS research is driving business improvement initiatives.

i) how mood of customer services influences experience (NPS) - when engaging an fun experience quality (NPS) increases

ii) how ease of finding instructions on the website influences experience - a site redesign increases NPS significantly

iii) how search and navigation on online store influences experience - usability tests and "deep dives into open comments" identified how to improve experience

iv) how packaging quality influences experience - improved packaging improved NPS

v) how delivery times for online sales influences experience - improving delivery times improved NPS

Paul Marsden: NPS Success Story from T-Mobile

PaulMarsden — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 21:35:00 GMT

The room's full overflowing - standing room only to hear Gavin Sugden, Market Intelligence Manager for mobile operator T-Mobile, talk about the T-Mobile experience of deploying Net Promoter.

Gavin's talking about T-Mobile deployment of Net Promoter Score in the UK. At the heart of the initiative is a competitive NPS tracker conducted with a random sample of 3000 consumers by phone every month.

Interestingly, the T-Mobile tracker measures the NPS of T-Mobile and key competitors, reporting scores relative to category average to provide a competitive benchmarking. Smart.

bT-Mobile has implemented a 3 step NPS strategy - Communicate - Understand - Act

1. Communicate - first communicate adoption of NPS internally across the business simply and clearly, emphasizing that the initiative has senior level buy-in, and that improvement to NPS should be a key goal of all T-Mobile initiatives

2. Understand - identify key drivers of NPS with diagnostic research - interviews with detractors and promoters, and correlation of NPS with satisfaction and brand research.

Gavin presents key advocacy (NPS) drivers for T-Mobile

a) Brand Relationship (innovative and forward looking, involvement and knowledge, perception as a big confident brand, customer service and value for money)

b) Customer satisfaction (service, network coverage, value for money)

c) Tariff Popularity (popular tariffs)

Based on understanding of NPS drivers, Gavin explains how to T-Mobile put together a 2 step action plan

Step One of T-Mobile's Net Promoter action plan is to deliver on expectation priorities with a set of improvement initiatives that focus on getting the basics right. The KPI here is a reduction in proportion of customers who are detractors - who can have disproportionate negative influence on growth.

Step Two of NPS strategy is surprise and delight customers with initiatives that deliver on the key drivers of recommendation. The KPI here is an increase in proportion of customers who are promoters - who will drive organic growth through loyalty and referrals.

3) Act - implement action plan. Gavin is not giving away any company secrets here about the specifics of the action plan ;-( but he emphasizes the importance of ongoing monitoring of the action plan on the NPS. Gavin is warning of the â€˜hockey stick effect' that can occur when new initiatives are rolled out - a short term dip in NPS reflecting teething problems in delivery - and an expectation/experience disconnect.

Gavin is wrapping up with a summary - is talking about the importance of setting up NPS forum to share learning across the business and to continuously evolve T-Mobile's NPS strategy and action plans.

Paul Marsden: NPS Success Story from T-Mobile

PaulMarsden — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 21:35:00 GMT

The room’s full overflowing - standing room only to hear Gavin Sugden, Market Intelligence Manager for mobile operator T-Mobile, talk about the T-Mobile experience of deploying Net Promoter.

Gavin’s talking about T-Mobile deployment of Net Promoter Score in the UK. At the heart of the initiative is a competitive NPS tracker conducted with a random sample of 3000 consumers by phone every month.

Interestingly, the T-Mobile tracker measures the NPS of T-Mobile and key competitors, reporting scores relative to category average to provide a competitive benchmarking. Smart.

T-Mobile has implemented a 3 step NPS strategy - Communicate - Understand - Act

Communicate - first communicate adoption of NPS internally across the business simply and clearly, emphasizing that the initiative has senior level buy-in, and that improvement to NPS should be a key goal of all T-Mobile initiatives.
Understand - identify key drivers of NPS with diagnostic research - interviews with detractors and promoters, and correlation of NPS with satisfaction and brand research.

Gavin presents key advocacy (NPS) drivers for T-Mobile:

Brand Relationship (innovative and forward looking, involvement and knowledge, perception as a big confident brand, customer service and value for money)
Customer satisfaction (service, network coverage, value for money)
Tariff Popularity (popular tariffs)

Based on understanding of NPS drivers, Gavin explains how to T-Mobile put together a 2 step action plan

Step One of T-Mobile’s Net Promoter action plan is to deliver on expectation priorities with a set of improvement initiatives that focus on getting the basics right. The KPI here is a reduction in proportion of customers who are detractors - who can have disproportionate negative influence on growth.

Step Two of NPS strategy is surprise and delight customers with initiatives that deliver on the key drivers of recommendation. The KPI here is an increase in proportion of customers who are promoters - who will drive organic growth through loyalty and referrals.

3. Act - implement action plan. Act - implement action plan. Gavin is not giving away any company secrets here about the specifics of the action plan ;-( but he emphasizes the importance of ongoing monitoring of the action plan on the NPS. Gavin is warning of the ‘hockey stick effect’ that can occur when new initiatives are rolled out - a short term dip in NPS reflecting teething problems in delivery - and an expectation/experience disconnect.

Gavin is wrapping up with a summary - is talking about the importance of setting up NPS forum to share learning across the business and to continuously evolve T-Mobile’s NPS strategy and action plans.

Paul Marsden: Using NPS to Get Closer to Customers

PaulMarsden — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 01:09:59 GMT

Beatrice Dupuis, Directeur process et satisfaction abonnés with Groupe Neuf Cegetel, is introducing her talk - implementing a Net Promoter strategy in consumer call centers for Neuf Cegetel, a broadband supplier. Neuf Cegetel has a clear strategic vision to get closer to customers, address their needs and become the top rated supplier in terms of customer service - and is using NPS to do this. Neuf Cegetel outsource call centers and use Net Promoter Score (NPS) as a quality/satisfaction index to counterbalance productivity metrics they use as KPIs for call centers.

Beatrice is explaining how the purchase of AOL France has helped them understand key NPS drivers because of its position as

Top in customer service
Lowest in churn levels
Highest recommendation level

Key NPS drivers for call centers

Accessibility
First call resolution
Agent politeness
Added Value (surprise factor)

Neuf are learning from AOL actions to improve performance on these critical success factors

Accessibility - number of agents, scheduling resource availability, anti-absenteeism initiative, and for consumers development of self-care online tools
First call resolution - training agents to understand and solve problems quickly
Agent politeness - training agents communication skills - but no scripts
Added value (surprise factor) - giving information on new products, new intranet portal for agents to keep up to date on latest offers

The success of these initiatives is allowing Neuf Cegetel to build a business case for rolling a Net Promoter strategy across the business.

Beatrice is saying that Neuf are early on the NPS journey but are already learning lessons including:

Critical importance of marketing the strategy internally and with call center partners
Key to communicate results internally and with call center partners
Necessity of identifying the weight of call center Net Promoter in overall satisfaction

A great story involving two implementations of Net Promoter.

Paul Marsden: Using NPS to Get Closer to Customers

PaulMarsden — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 01:09:59 GMT

Beatrice Dupuis, Directeur process et satisfaction abonnÃ©s with Groupe Neuf Cegetel, is introducing her talk - implementing a Net Promoter strategy in consumer call centers for Neuf Cegetel, a broadband supplier. Neuf Cegetel has a clear strategic vision to get closer to customers, address their needs and become the top rated supplier in terms of customer service - and is using NPS to do this. Neuf Cegetel outsource call centers and use Net Promoter Score (NPS) as a quality/satisfaction index to counterbalance productivity metrics they use as KPIs for call centers.

Beatrice is explaining how the purchase of AOL France has helped them understand key NPS drivers because of its position as

Top in customer service

Lowest in churn levels

Highest recommendation level

Key NPS drivers for call centers

Accessibility

First call resolution

Agent politeness

Added Value (surprise factor)

Neuf are learning from AOL actions to improve performance on these critical success factors

Accessibility - number of agents, scheduling resource availability, anti-absenteeism initiative, and for consumers development of self-care online tools

First call resolution - training agents to understand and solve problems quickly

Agent politeness - training agents communication skills - but no scripts

Added value (surprise factor) - giving information on new products, new intranet portal for agents to keep up to date on latest offers

The success of these initiatives is allowing Neuf Cegetel to build a business case for rolling a Net Promoter strategy across the business.

Beatrice is saying that Neuf are early on the NPS journey but are already learning lessons including:

Critical importance of marketing the strategy internally and with call center partners

Key to communicate results internally and with call center partners

Necessity of identifying the weight of call center Net Promoter in overall satisfaction

A great story involving two implementations of Net Promoter.