Wonka-istas vs. Inclusionists: Finding the Golden Tickets
I guess with Easter around the corner, I have chocolate on the brain, and I was reminded of how one of the World’s most famous chocolate makers carried out his research. I refer of course to Mr Willy Wonka, and his rather unique model “Golden Ticket” model of customer research (and succession planning). For those not familiar, the premise is that the lucky individuals that find one of the five golden tickets hidden amongst millions of chocolate bars will get a special tour of the famous factory.
My experience in the business improvement area (whether as employee or an outside consultant) has been a continual search for a “Golden Ticket”, a lucky “Ah Ha” moment where one realizes one has found the root cause of the problem. Once found, we set about fixing the issues, testing to see if it is getting better, sign it off and look for the next issue to solve – a simple procedure, a sort of “Process Improvement 101”.
The real question is “How do we find that most important issues to fix?” in the first place. Well, you ask people, do in-depth research on a few select customers, do some focus groups, ask lots of questions, but of financial or logistic necessity, to just a few individuals. This is a “Wonka-ista” method of hoping the best people get the Golden Tickets and give you the right information, probably once a year. In Wonka’s case, he was relaxed enough to do it just once in his lifetime.
Net Promoter News: NPS Now Goes to 11 – “One More Likelier”
Following hot on the heels (clogs?) of our Dutch Effect post yesterday, we were immediately contacted by a local Amsterdam enterprise, who are determined to show that the Dutch are not low markers when it comes to Net Promoter® Score.
Local businessmen Hertz van Rental, is the owner of the “Stoot Je Hoofd Niet” Snack-Restaurant [trans: "Don't Hit Your Head"], slap-bang in the centre of the old Jordaan, Amsterdam’s former working-class-gone-hip neighbourhood, and represents a collective of bars and cafes in the area. The venues sell the well known Dutch delicacy, the tasty “Kroket” (or “Kroketje” to the cognescenti), a filling food which is the ideal complement to a beer, while enjoying the bar singers belting out sentimental Johnny Jordaan or Tante Leen numbers. The organisation goes by the name of the Jordan Organisation for Kroketje Excellence, and is dedicated to high standards of quality and service for this important part of the experience.
“Our Net Promoter Scores are so high” says Mr van Rental, “that our members regularly get an NPS of more than 90″. He concedes that booze and singing might help push up the scoring a little, but showed us verbatim comments from customers along the lines of “I would give you 11 out of 10 for this Kroket”. He challenged us to help his organisation take better feedback from their customers.
I am proud to say the CustomerGauge organisation rose to the challenge.
