Net Promoter News: Ameriprise’s LinkedIn surprise, DHL’s express growth, No love for “Friends and Family”, Telmore taps staff empowerment

Ameriprise’s LinkedIn surprise

Wealth management is an industry built on referrals, so it should comes as no surprise that financial planner Ameriprise stressed the importance of nurturing referrals for its bottom line at its Q3 earnings call.

Since many businesses in the industry say similar things, we did a quick search for “Ameriprise referrals” to test how the company may (or may not) be innovating in its approach to attracting potential leads, and in the process, uncovered at least one interesting initiative.

Based on the referral principal that people trust the word of their friends and colleagues, on the AmeriPrise site visitors can search for financial advisors by location and name (naturally), but also through mutual LinkedIn connections. At first glance, this may seem a rather cosmetic innovation – something the company does to ‘prove’ they understand social, but with over 16,000 employees on LinkedIn, the AmeriPrise LinkedIn social graph undoubtedly has some considerable referring power. I decided to give it a test run myself, and despite never having lived in the US and having very few connections in financial services, the search result showed up one second degree connection through a former colleague – complete with contact details, location, and link to the advisor’s site and LinkedIn profile.

While this is an anecdotal example, what is really interesting is how the overall approach to growing the business through referrals has has paid off. Without going too much into the stats, it has translated into solid growth in client assets, which has in turn driven a significant growth in mass affluent and affluent client segments.  This is reflected in client retention and satisfaction above 90%, and an NPS of +62.

In related news, the business beat market estimates and raised dividends in its Q3 earnings. We’d love to see some results of its LinkedIn activity, but at the moment this case study is as close as we could find.  Seeking Alpha

DHL delivers express growth with Net Promoter

In a discussion about DHL in the UAE, country manager Frank-Uwe Ungerer talked about how the company implemented Net Promoter two years ago, and that DHL reached double-digit growth in the market in 2011.

In terms of the company’s approach to Net Promoter, each employee has ownership of their own score (though somewhat confusingly Net Promoter is referred to as “NPA”). This drives an atmosphere in which staff members have a personal commitment to improving customer satisfaction. Arabian Supply Chain

Survey  boffin has no love for “Friends and Family” 

The Net Promoter-based “Friends and Family” test has proven controversial since its inception to measure customer advocacy among UK National Health Service (NHS) patients, but unlike much of the professional punditocracy, the latest person to sink the boot in knows what he is talking about. Peter Lynn, professor of survey methodology at the University of Essex, told the HSJ that “Such a low response rate (due to some trusts receiving responses from only 15% of patients) would seriously call into question whether the results have any meaning at all.” HSJ (paywall with free trial)

Telmore taps staff empowerment for increased NPS

Danish virtual mobile operator Telmore has announced lower than average churn rates and a higher NPS.  It puts the reason for this squarely on its focus on the customer experience, including nurturing an environment in which (hold your breath) staff are actively encouraged to sell the right plan, rather than the more expensive plan (and release). Sounds like a case of statin’ the bleedin’ obvious, but apparently not obvious enough for many telcos. 1to1 Media

In brief

• Home Depot has announced its NPS for both Pro and consumer sections are now consistently over +70. Seeking Alpha
• Vodafone has claimed its NPS still leads the market in India, and that its service revenue growth was up 11%. Seeking Alpha
• ValueVision Media announced and 11-point increase in its NPS between last year and this year, from +36 to +47. Seeking Alpha
• Boston-based unified communications provider DataMart has announced an NPS of +94. PR Web

Vacancies

Head of Audit Methodology Excellence, Philips, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Net Promoter Score / Quantitative Research Manager, Bristol, the UK

Associate Net Promoter Score Specialist, Jacksonville, Florida

Net Promoter News: Safelite breaks NPS glass ceiling, Overstocks over 60, Android losing NPS battle, B2B Comp in the swingin’ 60s

Safelite Solutions smashes automotive glass ceiling.

The automotive glass repair and replacement industry may not immediately spring to mind when one thinks of industries that attract high Net Promoter Scores, as these are normally reserved for those that elicit strong emotional bonds from consumers – such as some food products or glamorous consumer tech.

But this week in the US, Tom Reid of Safelite Solutions proved the “glass ceiling” could be broken when he announced that his company not only has a Net Promoter Score in the mid-80s, but that they are continually striving for improvement.

We liked the fact that Reid also honoured five franchisees with scores of 90 and above. And we were equally impressed by the company’s survey response rate – approximately 40%. (CustomerGauge Factfans: Mr Reid went on to say the survey was done by email from the 60% of customers that leave an email address, with a 40% response rate, so they have an NPS score based on a total 24% response of ALL customers. Pretty much in line with CustomerGauge stats – Ed)

Some industries may be predisposed to getting higher average Net Promoter Scores than others, it’s always great to hear about a company that doesn’t just buck the trend, but breaks preconceptions as well. Congratulations Safelite! Source: The splendidly named GlassBytes

Overstock.com stocks up on customer satisfaction

Over five years ago, technology-based retail company Overstock.com aimed to increase customer satisfaction levels and put a brake on contact centre costs. As part of that effort, the company turned to cloud-based contact center solution Echopass for a new cloud-based solution.

Since then, Overstock.com’s post-incident Net Promoter Score has improved to over +60. The company attributes this particularly to enhanced agent training, monitoring, and compliance, which it says are capabilities provided by a fully capable quality management and call recording solution.

But we found two things particularly interesting about this story – the first that the collaboration between Overstock.com and Echopass seems to have been instrumental in Overstock.com’s customer service improvement, and the second that the companies reported on this successful collaboration only after five years of (presumably) hard work.

The message here is that there is no silver bullet to continually delighting customers. Even with (or maybe because of) today’s dizzying array of tech tools that all seem to promise more and better results, pleasing customers is more often the result of putting in consistent, concerted effort over a considerable period of time. MarketWatch

Datamart scores sky-high NPS, but we have no idea why

Net Promoter is a metric designed to measure customer advocacy and give businesses the insights to become truly customer-centric. Of itself, it does not predict business performance, though there is often a correlation between Net Promoter Scores and business momentum.

So when a business reports that it has a Net Promoter Score of +93, our first reaction is “Wow, that’s phenomenal!”. Our second reaction is to ask questions:

• How is the business performing?
• If Net Promoter has been used over some time, how do the latest scores compare with previous scores?
• What customer service insights and innovations can you share?
• What is the average NPS for your industry?
• Who did the research?
• How many people were surveyed?

This week, Datamart, a New England company that designs, installs, and supports communications systems, featuring call centers, video conferencing, and VOIP (voice-over-internet protocol) announced a phenomenal score of +93. The self-puffer says that the company is “using the data collected to guide Datamart into a promising second half to their fiscal year,” (gosh, I hope so).

But absent from the release is any information about the above questions. Instead, there is simply an explanation about what NPS is and an announcement of this amazing score.

Datamart: We wanted to talk about your fantastic service. We wanted to quote your delighted customers. We wanted to share information about your customer service innovations. But instead, we’re left with a blank space where that information should be. Your riposte is welcomed.  PR Web

Windows in, Android out?

Last week, we talked about the Nokia Lumia 800 and the fact its Net Promoter Score is the highest recorded for any Nokia mobile device. We speculated that based on reviews and the fact the company does not appear to have actually publicized the mobile’s score, it may be somewhat less than the iPhone and leading Android phones.

Analyst Ben Bajarin weighed into the debate this week with some bold predictions of his own. Based partly on Nokia Lumia’s high Net Promoter Score and his analysis of Android, he believes there is an operating system shift taking place – with “iOS for sure and potentially Windows Phone are the longer term winners.” Tech.pinions

B2B Computer Products: Expanding fast, with NPS to match

B2B Computer Products is a provider of technology products and services. This week, ShorTel, a provider of IP unified communications solutions, announced that B2B Computer Products scored an NPS of +67 for the 9-month period spanning July 2011 – March 2012.

According to the company, B2B Computer is consistently identified by Inc. magazine as one of the fastest growing companies in the U.S. and by Crain’s as one of the fastest growing privately held companies in the Chicago metro area.

We mentioned above that there is often a correlation between Net Promoter Scores and business momentum – and in the case of B2B Computer Products, that correlation certainly appears strong! San Francisco Chronicle

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