Fred Reichheld's Blog

RE: The Power of Frugal Wows

NicholasC — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 17:42:02 GMT

I think most reasonable people will recognize that taking a few minutes to help someone in need and not charging for the service is not license to expect free services in the future. I had a somewhat similar expereince over the weekend. I was lost driving through the mountians of northern Georgia when I stopped to ask for directions at a Petting Zoo/Horse Riding Stable. After the woman gave me directions she said, "Come back and ride with us sometime." The mechanic probably did something very similar; he helped a young lady out and said, "Come back when you need your car repaired or an oil change." The focus is not on the free, but the service.

RE: The Power of Frugal Wows

mpons — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 03:32:21 GMT

Did the mechanic set an unrealistic expectation that future work will be done for free? Nobody likes paying for auto repair. Was this really a "frugal wow" for the mechanic? Is the emphasis when the story is told by your daughter and recommended to friends, that "I've got a mechanic who does free work. You should try him." Lexus and Audi's are sophisticated automobiles. Fixing cars is the core function of corner garage's business. Do they give so much free work away that they can not afford to buy the sophisticated computerized tools to work on Lexus. Would the corner garage still be the same hero if they had charged $100 and given your daughter a t-shirt. My point is that your previous examples were about thank you letters, pizza, and t-shirts. None of the examples include the businesses giving their core services away for free. Businesses that provide a great experience need to be sustainable so that they can share that great experience with lots of customers. I think it's dangerous to encourage customer obsessed behavior where you give your services away versus customer centered behavior where your work is properly valued and you provide great service.

RE: Do Opposites Attract?

anuradha_mohan_kumar — Mon, 03 May 2010 17:45:38 GMT

Hello Fred Reicheld

I am Anuradha Mohan Kumar, a Doctoral Candidate in Experimental Psychology, with a Focus on Consumer Behavior. I have been avidly following the literature on the Net Promoter Score, and am fascinated by the body of work by you and your associates.

While reading the blogs and forums, the work led me to think about the related work by the Regulatory Focus Theory (Tory Higgins, 1995). Simply stated, Regulatory Focus divides people into two personality types: Promoters vs. Preventers. For Promoters, the most important goal is to achieve success. For Preventers, the most important goals is to avoid failure.

Although my reading is at the early stages, is it possible that the NPS focuses on the Promoters? In my lab, we have found that when the going is good, the Promoters will promote the brand. Surprisingly, when the brand faces some unexpected challenges, it is the Preventers who come to the rescue of the brand.

Thus,

1. Does the NPS take into account the differences in Personality which is distributed across the population?

2. Even more intrestingly, different situations can encourage promotion vs. prevention focus. Thus, depending on the perceived situation, the resultant behavior may or may not be promotion related.

I would love to know your thoughts on this matter.

Anuradha Mohan Kumar

RE: The Wow Ripple Effect

Ernest.Kottenbach — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 17:15:37 GMT

A well trained and cherished staff is capable of providing excellent service. Providing great service creates enjoyable customer experiences, makes the the work place environment more rewarding, and increases Customer Loyalty .

Ernest Kottenbach, SellMyPad.com

RE: The Right Number of Questions for NPS Surveys

Jim_Pendergast — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:21:41 GMT

We kicked off our NPS process just about 2 years ago (B2B). We asked 5 or 6 questions, then the "would you recommend" question last, followed by a feedback field. I think we lost a lot of customers with the first questions, and by the time they got to the NPS question, I'm sure they just scored us based on the previous 6 question perspective, and not from a true "would you recommend" mindset. Since then we've gone with just the "would you recommend" question, followed by the feedback field. I found that with just one question, we saw much greater rich, actionable feedback than we did from the multiple question surveys.

RE: Three Winners Have NPS in Common

AMS — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:51:03 GMT

I am building a case to continue to use this measurement at my company. What are the metrics behind the questions.

Thanks

AMS

RE: Getting Results with NPS

SarahFMCV — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:50:14 GMT

We are currently about to conduct a net promoter survey for our website. This is very valuable information as we have recently been talking about how we can improve our service for customers and measure this. I completely agree that NPS should not be something to conduct once and ignore; there is much to learn from the outcome, and something that should be sustained throughout the growth and improvement of your business services.

RE: Good Intentions, Erratic Execution, Wrong Feedback System

Dale_H. — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:45:56 GMT

Fred,

Thanks for taking the arrows for the rest of us. I did vow to never step through the doors of a HD about nine years ago. Many, many projects later they still have not seen another cent of business from me and I've done my best to encourage friends and family to evaluate their choices as well. I merely ask them to choose based on their experience. The results speak for themselves. I make it a point to never bad mouth or talk about my experience. The sad thing is that I don't need to.

They followed a similar path as Circuit City in ridding themselves of all of the people that knew anything and filling in with lower cost labor... I'm shocked that they are still around. At face value it mocks NPS. For as poor a job as they've done for as long as they've done it there should be a much more significant natural punishment.

RE: Good Intentions, Erratic Execution, Wrong Feedback System

epopes — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:27:59 GMT

Hi Fred,

When I read the first paragraph, I went back 2 yrs ago, and recalled all the consistent unpleasant experience I had with HD stores. The area I live, I’ve been to 2-3 locations, and experiences was more/less the same...Short of staff, and lack of customer follow-up were very much the standard pain-point when I was considering a major material-labor project work with HD. And of course I decided not to pursue any business having seen that the company has failed to do any good on the front-end...

Now, I would like to add some thoughts around why and how the erratic execution happens or happening right now at many companies.

First of all, your book, concepts are very easy and simple, and very effective in changing minds if people are looking for a process to change and how. I believe what makes execution hard is due to these primary reasons that traditionally run companies are facing:

New approach is not fully embraced by senior leadership (first of all, you need to accept the fact that you’re not good in the customer service area, you’re not effective and you need help and you need experts).
Program is not managed by people (real experts) with external/outside-in perspective; and even if these people are brought in, they are not given span of control and duration to make the changes...

What ends up happening is that old and new survey approaches are mixed; the purpose of the survey is so unclear (and everyone wants to be in it) the survey becomes 10 mins and you really miss the “ultimate” reason….(By the way, I think this phenomenon happens for any type of change initiative in large companies)…

Then of course people start questioning the method instead of their execution around it… I've seen this movie...

RE: Making the Golden Rule Relevant

younus mohamed — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 15:48:44 GMT

please forward me freds email address,as we met in spain at the travel counsellors conference.