Net Promoter News: Jet Blue does NPS b2e, NPS holds up in HBR, Nokia claims high NPS…. again – and have you been “Phliked” on Facebook?

Jet Blue uses Net Promoter to measure employee engagement

Net Promoter is generally considered as a metric to measure customer advocacy and satisfaction, but in fact, it is also a valuable metric  to survey employee satisfaction.

Jet Blue (in collaboration with consultants HCMI) is one recent company that has done just this – using Net Promoter to test how likely employees are to recommend working for the airline.

The logic is simple. Highly-engaged employees translates into higher Net Promoter scores by customers, so in order to improve engagement across its workforce, Net Promoter was adopted in combination with other metrics to identify areas where employee engagement was lagging and implement HR initiatives to improve it.

Following successful results, the airline surveys its employees continuously on their employee anniversaries. This gives the company an ongoing insight into employee advocacy and helps leadership develop and implement strategic solutions to improving training and other management decisions that ultimately have a positive impact on the bottom line.

We have discussed elsewhere that too often employees are a forgotten cornerstone of customer advocacy, so it’s fantastic to see a business of the caliber of Jet Blue use Net Promoter to proactively address employee satisfaction.  Workforce

[NB. We at CustomerGauge also measure this business-to-employee metric. We give it the snappy acronym B2e.]

Harvard Business Review validates Net Promoter 

In order to assess which is the single best customer satisfaction question between Customer Satisfaction (sometimes called CSAT), Net Promoter Score (NPS), and Customer Effort Score, researchers Matthew Dixon, Karen Freeman, and Nicholas Toman analysed 10,000 responses from 100 companies to see how results predicted customer loyalty levels, with results published in Harvard Business Review.

The results were widely different – the authors attribute this to survey bias – but they did conclude that Customer Satisfaction is not the best predictor of expenditure, while NPS is “clearly a good predictor of the individual customer’s attitudes”.

One more tidbit to note from the post – in the comments below the article Customer Effort Score co-founder Nick Toman states “CES was developed purely as a post-service transactional loyalty metric. In no way, shape or form would we advise this be used to examine broader relationship loyalty.” Harvard Business Review

Nokia Lumia 900: Hot or not?

It’s a case of “another product release, another high Net Promoter score” for Nokia. According to the company, a survey in conjunction with Nielsen has given the new Lumia 900 a Net Promoter score of +63. This follows on from Nokia reporting its Asha range and Lumia 800 both scored extremely highly with Net Promoter.

But according to another source, users do not have such a rosy view of the new handset. A survey by Yankee Group with a sample size of 111 returned an NPS of -50.

This massive difference has us scratching our heads, so we did a quick scan of reviews to see what professional opinion-givers say. Crave Online, CNet, and techradar all give the thumbs up, leaving us to wonder – why were the respondents in the Yankee Group survey so low?

If you have used the Lumia 900, please let us know how you’d rate it! Conversations by Nokia, Yankee Group

In brief: NextUC and PEER 1 claim growth, strong NPSs

• Cloud-based communications provider NextUC claimed a Net Promoter Score of +30 which it says is tracking up from the month earlier.
• Web hoster PEER 1 has claimed an NPS of +36 after growing nearly 100% in the last year.

And Finally… Have you been “Phliked”on Facebook?

Measuring customer advocacy across social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter is an emerging trend in our industry, but one that has yet to convince us as being equal in value to surveying customers with Net Promoter.

Among other things, sentiment on social media platforms is unstructured and unrepresentative, and while monitoring social conversations is definitely important, it is a reactive rather than proactive way of listening to customer feedback. We could go on, but you get the picture.

Now another story emerged to muddy the waters of hyped “social media measuring” products. Earlier this year Facebook itself announced that 5-6% of its 900 million users may be fake – that’s around 50 million profiles. And this week the BBC ran a story on scam profiles set up by robot computer programs or low-paid spammers in developing countries that inflate the number of “Likes” on Facebook.

For those in the know, the phrase du jour is “Phoney-Like” hence “Phlike”  – as in “How many “Phlikes” have you got?”

Do you think Facebook “Phlikes” are an issue? Let us know! Source: BBC

Net Promoter News: Advanced Technology Services tightens screws, Darwinian Survival of the Fittest CE Brands in India, Weebly high NPS, MycroBurst in 70s, UK PM in NHS NPS push

Here we go gathering NPS in May – eyes down for the first Net Promoter Newsletter of the month… Brought to you weekly by CustomerGauge. Browse Net Promoter News, search by company tag or check out the back issues. To get a copy in your inbox sign up here.

Advanced Technology Services advances B2B Customer Satisfaction

High-end spanner twisters Advanced Technology Services (ATS) is the US-based provider of maintenance services to large manufacturing companies. Originally part of Caterpillar Inc, ATS became an independent privately-owned firm in 1996, and its revenues have been growing by an impressive 18 percent annually. According to CEO Jeff Owens, growth is due to relationship-building with its customers – small, but incrementally built up over time. ATS works to consistently delight their customers until the relationship eventually develops into something broad and long-term. The company uses Net Promoter to keep its finger on the pulse of these relationships, but has a strategic approach that seeks to improve on these scores year-on-year rather than a shorter timeframe.

Also of interest to customer loyalty junkies, Owens noted that “Before NPS, we did surveys on a scale of 1 – 10, and our guys really enjoyed getting 9’s and 10’s.  The reason we moved from that is that we were trying to raise the bar, and say, “It’s not just that everyone is satisfied. It’s whether our customers would, unsolicited, recommend us to a friend or colleague.” That “unsolicited” part is really important.” Forbes

Sony, LG, and Panasonic most responsive to change in Indian business jungle

New research from Market Xcel that used Net Promoter to uncover purchase intent among Indian consumers has revealed that Sony, LG and Panasonic lead the pack as the most advocated brands in the consumer durables category.

The article goes into some detail about which brands are winning across different product types, but what caught our eye was an easily-forgotten pearl of wisdom offered by Charles Darwin that remains very relevant in today’s business jungle. According to quote in the article, “Darwin theorised that it is neither the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

It’s a great quote, and we’d add that proactively seeking feedback from your customers is the first step toward a building a change-responsive business – not just in terms of new products or offerings, but also in terms of building strong relationships and continuing to maintain your relevance.

For NPS fans, there is an excellent table of results featuring the brands and categories. PitchOnNet

PEER 1 Hosting aims for peerless satisfaction, not quite there yet

Online IT hosting provider PEER 1 Hosting this week announced the appointment of Gaye Andrews as its Head of Customer Service in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). The reason for the appointment appears to be closely tied to Andrews’ experience in rolling out an extensive Net Promoter program at RBS.

Regarding the appointment, UK MD Dominic Monkhouse, noted that “Passion and customer service are at the heart of what we do. Gaye’s experience of using NPS will be significant in driving forward our customer service and loyalty programs across EMEA, and ensuring we continually improve as a business.”

All sounds pretty straightforward, until you visit the PEER 1 website, where the company claims it has improved its Net Promoter Score “by 76% last year alone” – a somewhat confusing as it does not outline a benchmark, initiatives that may have contributed to the improvement, or who conducted the research. However, we do know that in 2010, the company claimed an NPS of +36. There is probably a mathematical formula in there somewhere to figure out, but we’ll let that go for now. The Hosting News

Profits, Net Promoter Scores are ‘Weebly’ high

MycroBurst is a crowdsourcing site for companies and individuals who want custom logos and designs. It has a community of over 35,000 designers, who compete to offer clients designs for projects ranging from website logos to postcards. According to co-founder Joe Witte, the company’s NPS is above +70. And in related information, the company doubled its revenue in the last year. Reuters

And finally, Cameron gets NPS idea for NHS

It seems that David Cameron gets the “Net Promoter” bug, applying it to Britain’s National Health Service.  Money quote: “Visiting NHS hospitals today, Mr Cameron will announce the “friends and  family” assessment.  “It’s very simple. It just asks whether patients, carers and staff would  recommend their hospital to their families and friends in their hour of  need,” Mr Cameron will say”. Daily Telegraph

Net Promoter News: Labor Finders work 63, JUNK clears 80, Schwab long on 46, NPS Comes out of Closet at 80

News that the  world of market research seems to be coming to its senses. This item caught our attention:  Not Part of the Future: Long Surveys. Money quote: “One current element of market research that is not probable or preferred is the LONG survey.” (source). Another from the superbly named Bad Research; No Biscuit asked “What in the world can you learn from a sixty minute survey that you can’t learn from a 5-minute one?” (Just Say No Already).  Finally in this group: “Customer Sat. studies used to be overtly long and terrifying – until Bain, McKinsey and BCG told all the CEO’s of the world that the only thing they should care about is the single question on “How likely are you to recommend?”” (source).

Our stand on this: The survey of the future will be a Net Promoter survey and like have Two Questions, tops. Oh wait – the future is here today! Best example: “pure Net Promoter implementation: two questions using simple, clean interface and minimal hassle for the customer!” Source: Vivmag, Survey hall of fame and shame)

Satmetrix publishes Net Promoter Leaders

Satmetrix released 2010 Net Promoter Industry Benchmarks for the insurance, financial services, airlines, telecommunications, technology, retail and online services industries. Some highlights: USAA 81, Apple 78, Amazon.com 71, Trader Joe’s 68, Wegmans 67, Costco 66, eBay 65, Facebook 65, Jet Blue 64, Google 63. Other notables: Insurance: Geico 41. Health insurance: Cigna -28.

Retail drill down: Amazon’s score drooped from 74% to 71%, eBay improved from 61% to 65% and Barnes & Noble pushed from 58% to 59%.  eBay and Amazon had just 5% of their customers categorized as detractors. Among multichannel retailers, both Best Buy Co. Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s online stores had higher NPS scores than the bricks-and-mortar stores with scores of 45% and 46%, respectively, compared to in-store scores of 29% and 41%. Conversely, Target Corp.’s in-store score was 52%, compared to its online score of 44%. Widely covered here (RW), here (own) and here (IR)

Company Results

Labor Finders at 63.

200 branches Labor Finders International, largest privately held industrial labor staffer in US beat all-comers in Inavero/CareerBuilder Best of Staffing 2010 NPS smackdown. Inavero claim staffing industry averages Net Promoter score of 40%. Labor Finders clocked in a score of 63%. Source – self puff

PrintAudit impress at 76.

The Canadian print management outfit PrintAudit self-scores NPS 76. Run o’the mill self puff with zero details on methods, but a quite impressive page with 250 testimonials on (some looked like they might have been politely persuaded. No matter, still some achievement).  Source: Horse’s mouth.

Any Old Iron?

Brian Scudamore’s 1-800-GOT-JUNK junk removal business with 250 franchises is a word-of-mouth driven business. He explains NPS-led philosophy and posts a score of 80. Company drills down NPS to franchise, even to the truck level. Source

Schwab brokers 46

Charles Schwab go long on NPS with a new high of 46, leading the Brokerage and Investment sector. Source

Fight! PEER1 vs Allcomers

Hoster PEER1 says its NPS is 36, trouncing the rest of the IT services industry’s lowly 7. In a confrontational statement MD Dominic Monkhouse calls out his rivals: “To improve transparency over service quality PEER 1 Hosting believes all serious hosting service providers should measure and publish their Net Promoter Score“. No mention of sample size or details, natch, but we like the way this one is going. source

Out of the Closet at 80

Wardrobe-sters California Closets (New England Franchise) have been measuring their Net Promoter Score. Striving to make a difference in their customers homes and lives, they have found a convenient tie rack to tidily hang their NPS of 79.9. Source: CupboardLove

ABB Engineers Customer Experience via NPS

Bill Black, Group Senior Qual and Ops Excellence Veep at ABB yaks about customer confidence best practices for maintaining and improving customer confidence in a podcast, highlighting how they use Net Promoter Score as a key customer sat. measure. Advice on external/internal satisfaction, plus how to turn around a drop in confidence.  Source

Award for best use of decimal points in an NPS Press Release

Ski Butlers (seen around this parish before) got a new NPS score. 86.39 percent. Loving the precision! Source: BadMathbyPRpeople

And finally… Zappos sues Disney

We racked our brains for another suitable April Fool on Net Promoter but struck out this year due to lack of creativity.  But I was taken in for a few seconds by the “Zappos Sues Disney” article. The meat:  “Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, says it’s just one battle in his efforts to prevent companies from making misleading claims. The lawsuit alleges that Disneyland’s tagline of being “The Happiest Place on Earth” is “clearly false, deceptive, and confusing to the marketplace”,and cites internal Net Promoter Score (NPS) metrics that suggest that the designation should be given to Zappos.com, Inc“. ‘Nuff respec for this prank, Hsieh, but we’ll beat you next April 1!