Net Promoter Community: Message List

Re: Survey return rate

info@netpromoter.com — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 14:42:10 GMT

HI Pat:

Your question is a good one. Too few response rates and you have an ongoing internal tussle on statistical validity especially if the results aren't going in the right direction.

Regarding your question on what is a good or great response rate, I'd instead use the response rate as your first indication of the robustness of your relationship with your customers. Use even that response to tell your company something about how seriously they take the relationship and your intent to do something with the data.

For example; let's say that you survey and get only a 3% response rate. Not great for your data, but it sends a message. At Lands' End, once we asked customers for their opinion on something and we got a 93% response rate - that said scores to us. I believe in using every bit of feedback that your customer sends you as a message.

Now to get more specifically to your question, I've seen 15-30% be accepted. This all depends on your starting volume which determines the final number of feedback results. Beyond relying on surveys and survey feedback, I would also urge you to ask your customers the Net Promoter question at the regular times when they are already contacting you. After a call, on the flap of a bill. This gives you a real-time feed of customer input and you don't have to be so consumed on getting to a response rate. An active flow of real-time feedback from customers is much more preferable in my book.

Hope this helps.

Jeanne Bliss

Re: Net Promoter implementation [Getting Executive Buy-In]

info@netpromoter.com — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 11:23:08 GMT

Shelley,

The appeal of Net Promoter to executives, it appears, is three things:

1. It connects the importance of caring for customers to an economic return. For example, knowing who your "Promoters" are can enable running the numbers and identifying the correlation between their being your promoter and the amount of goods and services they buy from you, their inclination to buy more, and how much they tell others about you and hence, bring in more business.

2. It identifies customers into categories that enable further outreach in order to a) hold â€œPromotersâ€� close and develop even closer, more important relationships with them, and b) to understand more clearly what is making "Detractors" detract from you â€“ so you can improve your operation.

3. Net Promoter is a simpler metric than customer satisfaction survey scores and some survey score methodologies.

However, Shelley, at the end of the day, like any other metric, itâ€™s what your execs will do with the information noted above that will matter. Therefore the biggest key when rolling out or discussing this system is not only to explain the pros and cons of this system compared with others, but also to gain the commitment to take the actions involved. Will there be a commitment to really understand needs and wants of "Promoters" and reach out to them? Will there be a commitment to find out more clearly what is bothering your "Detractors" and invest the time and resources to resolving those issues? And will there be the corporate patience to put the work into making the changes necessary ...and the patience to see the scores change when you have earned the right to an improvement, based on the work that has been done to improve the customersâ€™ experience?

Re: How are companies training their field to improve NPS scores?

info@netpromoter.com — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 10:05:32 GMT

Robert, rather than focusing on the scores, dig in and understand whatâ€™s important to your customers as they interact with you. Iâ€™m not a fan of imposing the score board on the frontline. Rather, work to elevate their work to a higher purpose of exactly what they are meant to be doing for and with the customers they come in contact with. For example, when a client first opens an account, what do they need? At the end of the first conversation, what is the emotion the customer should have and what should they walk away knowing about your company and how it fits their needs?

NPS is a tool to indicate the outcome of the experiences you are having with your customers. Improving the frontline performance or improving any other aspect of your business should be motivated by doing the right thing for customers. If you deliver a great experience for them â€“ the score will come!

Re: Profitably or Products per member

info@netpromoter.com — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 14:16:55 GMT

Hi Victor:

My sense of separating good profits from bad is two things:

1. What are the habits of revenue generation that you are used to receiving that are good for your companyâ€™s balance sheet but not necessarily good for customers? For example; as you know, the financial services/credit card verticals have become much more transparent over the past year about late fees, rolling balances, etc. because of a good deal of heat from Congress, local legislature and customers. Charges were being made to customers that created some healthy revenue streams for the business, but once customers found out â€“ those profits could be deemed as â€œbadâ€� profits. So in this column, perhaps you could consider if there are any fees, or other practices that have been instated over the years that are great for your business but not in the customersâ€™ best interest.

2. Customer profitability is the other topic you bring up. Iâ€™m a zealot about segmenting customers. That means, do you know by segment of customers what their profitability is, or how â€œvaluableâ€� they are to you? This may be in terms of the volume of products/services they buy and could also include some things such as recency/frequency of purchases â€“ which indicate their dependency on you or â€œstickinessâ€� to your brand. A great book to refer to on this topic is called â€œManaging Customers as Investments.â€�

Hope this helps,
Jeanne Bliss