Richard's and Laura's Blog
2 Posts tagged with the logitech tag
It’s often the conclusion amongst product companies – and Silicon Valley companies doubly so – that Net Promoter is a soft science that engineers don’t align with. So it was pretty interesting to see Logitech use NPS as a significant part of their product development and improvement culture. Take heed product – centric companies, these guys know how to make this work.
Logitech is the $2+bn company whose products are right in front of you every day. I’m typing on a Logitech keyboard but it was the mouse that roared for Logitech – they dominate the computer mouse market and split hairs around segmentation. I counted 30 mice on their website alone, and that doesn’t include OEM product. Perhaps less well known are their totally cool products around home audio and video under the Harmony and Squeezebox brands – of which my home is littered. A strategy of selective technology acquisition has broadened the product line and reach of the company and, notwithstanding the recent bumps we are all feeling – has resulted in a story of near unmitigated success.
From an NPS standpoint, two approaches stood out for me. First, they look at product line NPS and can stack rank the performance of their products. This has the benefit, especially in the mouse line, of being able to quickly identify which products are gaining market acceptance and which are not connecting with customers (excuse the subtle pun). Engineers and product managers responsible for lower performing products move quickly to identify root cause, but the ultimate action might be to cut the product completely.
The second innovation for them was the creation of a customer experience gate through which any new product release must pass. Before any product goes out to market the customer experience team must sign off on it, with prior NPS root cause data as a good basis for predicting its acceptance. And of course, they have blocked product from launch in the past as a proof point that they take the process seriously.
Seeing products through a promoter creation lens helps engineers think differently about creating the best possible overall experience. The company has invested in software technology for their webcam products as they realized that, to create a great webcam experience, you needed to have more than just a good hardware device. Logitech has learnt those lessons quicker than most now they are in close dialog with their customers.
Net Promoter, NPS, and Net Promoter Score are trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company, and Fred Reichheld.
