Reality Check Ahead

Any concept as innovative as Net Promoter is bound to incite debate. Any methodology that is adopted so rapidly will naturally ruffle a few feathers. However, as a rule of thumb, the volume of complaints about any given innovation directly correlates to the level of business interest that is being threatened. Put simply, not everyone stands to gain from innovation in the customer loyalty marketplace.

To put the Net Promoter debate in context, let's examine who has the most to gain. Business leaders continue to embrace the Net Promoter discipline and, if the membership at netpromoter.com (or, for that matter, conference attendance) is any indication, they embrace it at an increasing rate. As corporations develop expertise with the Net Promoter discipline, the results speak for themselves, inspiring the advocates of the methodology to embrace it further.

If Net Promoter didn't achieve results, the industry would not stick with the approach. Of course there is always the risk of failure in implementation - we know from experience that learning curves vary considerably. But we are not talking about good practice right now, we are talking about Net Promoter adoption. And, in general, companies are voting with their feet by lining up to become part of the Net Promoter community.

From a PR perspective, this movement provides good word-of-mouth, but very little propaganda value. Large enterprises are not in the business of issuing press releases touting the success of their methodologies (although some do), and they certainly are not joining a hot debate in the blogosphere on Net Promoter as a topic. For them, the issue is not a religious quarrel that they are interested in joining. Instead, the PR debate is fueled almost exclusively by vendors who have commercial interests in the success or failure of Net Promoter.

Some market research firms regard their proprietary methodologies as a significant competitive advantage and a layer of insulation (due to the costs their clients must incur to switch to a different methodology). An open standard like Net Promoter supplies existential angst for these firms, and their anxiety has been heightened by growing interest in NPS among their client base. If clients question the value of complex, closed methodologies, these firms face an erosion of competitive power and a potential backlash. They certainly don't want their clients asking hard questions about how their results compare with the results Net Promoter advocates seem to enjoy. These vendors must fight back!

We will examine their arguments in a moment. First, there is another group of NPS naysayers we must address. This group is best characterized by practitioners who see a marketing opportunity in a contrarian position. Publish a book that claims "Net Promoter is all nonsense!" and watch sales grow. Cross your fingers and hope that nobody will actually read the book, since the claims are not well substantiated. Basically, the logic goes like this: if NPS is a tidal wave, let's find a way to capitalize on it as a marketing weapon. Once you get past the headlines, however, the arguments are not quite as compelling as the ad copy would suggest.

Both of these groups focus almost exclusively on one element of the Net Promoter discipline—the correlation between NPS and growth. Read their work--I dare you. They're page-turners, to be sure. Even after commissioning their own research the data does not refute NPS at all. In fact, pretty much all the research shows that NPS correlates to growth just fine. The argument they make in light of this fact is that that's no longer the point - THEIR methodology is better, even if only marginally so.

I would certainly hope that a complex, closed, 10-to-20 question model delivers superior results to a one-question, easy-to-understand, open approach. The problem is, if the results are only marginally better, are these complex methodologies worth the effort? Do they justify the confusion they generate among clients? If so, at what cost? Shall I sacrifice the benefits of organizational alignment that Net Promoter delivers, with its cohesive strategy and easy to understand metric? Should I endure low response rates and confused customers? Do I really need to pay your fees so you can explain my own data to me?

If so, your methodology had better have a spectacular advantage. It had better blow NPS away and not simply finish in a dead heat.