Net Promoter News: Tip for First National: Bank on Net Promoter, Groundhog Day for Dutch telcos, Perkins, Online Tech compare NPS to Apple’s

Tip for First National: Bank on Net Promoter

According to a recent Bain survey, South Africa’s big four banks have an average NPS of +22, but specialist banks in the same market have an average of +70. Bain suggests that the high scores of specialist banks including Investec and Capitec may be because they have a narrower focus.

The most interesting comment in the article comes from First National Bank boss Michael Jordaan, who said, “Our biggest source of information to improve ourselves (are) customer complaints.”

First National is no stranger to innovation. In fact, it was just recognised as the most innovative bank in the world in the BAI-Finacle Global Banking Innovation Awards. Having said that, we’d still like to point out that learning from customer complaints is a reactive position that falls short of soliciting useful information from a cross-section of customers (and as an aside, Promoters can offer even more useful feedback than Detractors).

Bank on it: Net Promoter is a far more effective tool for insights than relying on customer complaints. Just ask our clients! Business Day Live

Groundhog Day for Dutch telcos

The last time we reported on the customer satisfaction levels for Dutch telcos, the headline read Dutch Telcos leaving customers underwhelmed. New research for Q3 2012 has just been released, and in a surprise twist, it appears there are no new twists.

Ben and Simyo once again have the highest satisfaction levels for mobile operators, and T-Mobile self, Simpel and Tele2 have the worst. Of the larger providers, Telfort, Tele2 and Ziggo have the “best” NPS in Q3 2012, though they are all well under zero. Telecom Paper

Perkins Accounting and Online Tech compare NPS to Apple’s (yes, that old chestnut)

Perkins Accounting and Online Tech are the latest two in a conga line of businesses attempting to show off their customer satisfaction levels by busting out the “our NPS is in Apple’s league” line in its press release.

According to Perkins’, a new website is one of the changes brought about by feedback. Online Tech notes that its score is around 20 above Rackspace – a competitor and company that is doing exciting things in the customer service space. It does not, however, mention samples sizes or methodology.  Perkins Accounting, Online Tech

In brief

• Cancer-fighting tech biz Varian has announced that according to independent research, its customer service division has been rated top among linear accelerator manufacturers in six out of nine KPIs, including Net Promoter, with a score 24 points higher than the industry average. WSJ
• Healthcare recruitment pundit Medical Doctor Associates has boasted its inclusion in Inavero’s “Best of Staffing” Talent List for 2012, thanks to an NPS nearly double the industry average.  PR Web
• Property company Field Asset Services (FAS), has announced it is implementing Net Promoter in order to boost loyalty and help implement new processes. Equities.com

Net Promoter Vacancy

CustomerGauge is hiring! German-speaking Client Operations Coordinator in Amsterdam

Manager of NPS Implementation, Melbourne, Australia.

Net Promoter News: Kaboom! Kabbage explodes into small business finance, BT introduces NetEasy, Credit unions: Time to lose your “seedy” image, Reichheld and Markey on survey best practices

Kaboom! Kabbage disrupts small business finance

Kabbage is an online lender that provides small businesses with capital after assessing their credit-worthiness on social media. At first blush, the concept sounds pretty…. adventurous. Clients like the business, though. It has a (self-reported) NPS of +75, and since launching its platform two years ago, over $800 million in annual sales. Investors are also keen, with the company raising $30 million in financing recently. Interestingly, Kabbage also looks at the way a potential client treats its customers as one of the criteria to assess its credit-worthiness. With this kind of disruptive thinking, we are fascinated to think how far the concept can go. Fox Business

BT unfashionably invests in customer service metric, sees shock bottom line benefits

BT has introduced a new score to complement Net Promoter. Called NetEasy, it uses a similar 10-point scale to ask customers to rate their experience in terms of how easy they found the interaction.

According to the telco, they are able to correlate scores with financial measures, and see the direct impact on the bottom line. Call Centre Focus

Credit unions: Time to lose your “seedy” image

A key challenge for credit unions is how to become the primary financial institution of its customers, and one point of opportunity is the woeful customer satisfaction (as reflected in Net Promoter Scores) of banks, compared to the relatively high scores of many credit unions.

But it’s not all clear sailing ahead for the unions, as they struggle with image perceptions and even “seedy” reputations. Research commissioned by a US credit union organisation has identified key areas in which credit unions are advised to direct their energies in order to move from a secondary to primary financial institution of choice for more customers. For the full list, check the link: Northwest Credit Union Association

Reichheld and Markey on customer survey best practices

In the second of their series of posts on Net Promoter best practices for Forbes, Fred Reichheld and Rob Markey discuss the principles of how to obtain accurate, reliable data from customers. Among the most interesting comments; “Anything less than a 40% response rate for business-to-consumer (B2C) and 60% for B2B enterprises is a red flag.” Forbes

In brief

• NetCom Learning has claimed an NPS of +78.81, and in a fit of unoriginality, noted that the score is higher than Apple’s. (Note to businesses, it’s not about the size of your score, it’s what you do with it that counts). PR  Web
• Texan credit union Amplify has released a case study on its experience with Net Promoter. Instant.ly
• Perennial customer service over-achiever and Net Promoter Jedi Master Rackspace has won a UK Customer Experience Award for IT & Telecoms. TopHost.com
• UK-based Wincanton Records Management claimed an NPS of +51.92 (TWO DECIMAL PLACES from “over 200 customer surveys”, stats fans!) SDB Magazine

Net Promoter Vacancies

• Customer Experience Analyst – Net Promoter Score, Alpharetta, GA, USA.
• Project Advisor, Suncorp Group, Brisbane, Australia.

Net Promoter News: Scottrade Invests in Loyalty, Reaps Windfall, Kohl’s and Macy’s are NPS Catwalk Queens; Walmart a Fashion Disaster, Dell makes Inspired Acquisition, Execs *Heart* Net Promoter

Scottrade profits from high customer service returns

Scottrade has announced to the world that it scored the highest in customer loyalty in the brokerage and investment category in the recent US Net Promoter Benchmark Study by Satmetrix.

This strong performance is definitely unusual for financial services brand, considering the robust criticisms and headwinds the sector has faced in the last few years.

And perhaps even more impressive, the self-puffer claims not only that the company’s growth from its beginning in 1980 has been entirely organic, but that it has never closed an office or had to lay off an associate. Bearing in mind recent crises and obstacles this would be a great achievement for a company with 50 branch offices. But for a company with over 500 branch offices such as Scottrade, I think we can safely call it exceptional.

For the record, Scottrade’s NPS was +54.  Eon

Women’s clothing: Kohl’s and Macy’s are the new black, Walmart the uninspiring beige

New Net Promoter research by BigInsight that analyzed the top five US retailers for Women’s Clothing (Kohl’s, Walmart, Macy’s, JC Penney, Target) throws up some interesting insights:

• Of the five, the most heavily advocated brands by a long shot are Kohl’s, Macy’s and JC Penney, all of which are department stores (as opposed to the discount options of Target and Walmart).
• For Kohl’s and JC Penney, price and selection were the key reasons that drive shoppers to make their purchases, but for Macy’s, it was quality and selection.
• Walmart was the only retailer of the five to calculate a negative score (-10.3).

There are several takeaway here for clothing retailers. But for shoppers there’s only one: If you want to pleasantly surprise your female friends and loved ones, visit discount retailers at your peril. The BIG Consumer Blog

Dell acquires AppAssure, based in part on Net Promoter Score

Dell has announced that it is acquiring software firm AppAssure, which it says will become the company’s primary backup offering targeted at small to medium-sized businesses.

According to Brett Roscoe, general manager and of data management solutions at Dell Storage, the key factors in the decision-making process were that it was going through a huge growth phase, and that this was complemented by Net Promoter Scores that were “off the charts.”

We’re always interested to read about high Net Promoter Scores that correlate with business growth, and it will be interesting to check in on this acquisition in a year or so to see if the momentum has continued. In the meantime, this appears to be an inspired move by Dell.  ARN

Austin Benn outperforms in advocacy, falls short in transparency

This week UK recruitment solutions firm Austin Benn trumpeted a Net Promoter Score of +72 on its website, and says its nearest competitor comes in at +56.

While both of these scores are exceptionally strong, details on the site are pretty light. In the interests of transparency, we’d love to know more details on who did the work and sample size. The usual basics. (Plus, a small #fail. They tell us “*Net Promoter methodology based around customers scoring given factors on a scale of 1 to 10″ – should have used standardised 0 – 10 for accurate results).

Austin Benn – if you’re reading this please feel free to add this to your NPS CV, and re-apply for the top Net Promoter spot!  Austin Benn

A third of execs claim to use Net Promoter

According to Acxiom and Loyalty 360, Net Promoter is one of the most popular metrics used by CXOs as part of their customer retention strategies. So popular, in fact, that approximately one third of those surveyed claiming they use it – a big number indeed and somewhat higher than we may have estimated.

Perhaps in a related matter, less than half agree that they know who their most loyal customers are. Marketing Charts

In Brief: Other Net Promoter news this week

• CustomerGauge’s Australian partner Genroe discusses the three critical elements of Customer Loyalty surveys
• The Motley Fool sings the praises of Net Promoter-using cloud computing specialists Rackspace
• Costco claims highest Net Promoter Score among major department, wholesale and specialty retailers in recent survey by Satmetrix
• CustomerGauge followed up the “Monday Effect” news in last weeks Net Promoter News by looking at some data in They Don’t Like Mondays. Or Do They? 

Brought to you weekly by CustomerGauge. Browse Net Promoter News, or check out the back issues. To get a copy in your inbox sign up here.

Net Promoter News: GOOG v AAPL, TW Tel- Tell NPS, The 10 Ways, Lawyers get the metric, E-ON Excellence

Google v Apple: Which is more innovative?

Google has a lot of fans, but according to a new book, it is arguably not at the cutting edge of innovation.

In What Matters Now, management expert Gary Hamel outlines four mental models found in organizations and advances a theory that only organizations that put innovation at the heart of what they do are true leaders in delighting their customers. Google doesn’t make the cut because instead of putting innovation at the centre of the business, it works on a model where only 20% of employee time is ostensibly used for innovation purposes. As supporting proof, he notes that after more than 10 years (several lifetimes in internet years) its original business model still generates 90% of its revenue.

In terms of true leaders, What Matters Now cites Amazon, Salesforce, and Apple as examples where the entire organization is devoted to continuous innovation and finding new ways of delighting customers. So what is Apple’s secret? Well if everyone knew that we’d be communicating telepathically with our machines by now. But we do know one thing. Apple is one of the leading exponents of Net Promoter Score. Source: Forbes

tw telecom talks up Net Promoter Score

If continuous innovation is indeed the key to delighting your customers and encouraging them to become advocates of your brand as Gary Hamel suggests above, he has some evidence here to support him. At their Q4 2011 earnings call on Feb 9^th, fiber-pullers tw telecom CEO Larissa Herda released an impressive set of financial results, which she put down to two things – strategically releasing new products and that the company recently increased its Net Promoter Score to its highest level ever.

“This key metric not only measures our customer satisfaction and loyalty, we believe it played a key role in propelling our revenue growth in 2011,” said Herda.

Also this week, the CEOs of Tucows and Rackspace Hosting both mentioned Net Promoter in their earnings calls. While both were upbeat, we are always left hanging for more when a senior executive in an earning call says something like “customer satisfaction, as mentioned by net promoter score, continues to increase,” (Tucows) or “we want to generate incredible customer outcomes, we measure this customer loyalty through the Net Promoter Score” (Rackspace).

Note to CEOs: The details always tell the story! Seeking Alpha

Ten ways to improve your Net Promoter Program

A couple of weeks back we talked about one smart cookie (David Mitzenmacher) who summarised the entire NPS process on the back of a napkin. NPS is a simple system – that’s a sign of its effectiveness and also a key point of its attraction. But there is more to the metric than simply “root cause analysis” and “closing the loop”.

With this in mind, Alain Thys, managing partner at Futurelab, has put together “ten ways to take your Net Promoter programme to the next level.” It’s well worth a look, and helps shed some light on the different ways Net Promoter can help businesses effect positive change in serving their customers. Futurelab

Net Promoter – It’s the law!

Adrian Dayton writing in the National Law Journal ponders the question “Which metrics matter most?” for lawyers. In a laundry list of measurements, Fordham University professor Silvia Hodges, suggests “a more client-focused approach, the Net Promoter Score, [...]  obtained by asking clients to report on a 0-10 scale whether he is extremely likely to hire you again or not at all likely. A high net promoter score means you’re keeping clients happy and earning referrals.” National Law Journal

Reputation Management and E.ON’s NPS Centre of Excellence

On January the 25^th in Munich, the Reputation Institute and Bain & Company hosted an event to share knowledge on, you guessed it, company reputation management.

A couple of the more interesting observations included that most people buy a product based on on what they think of the company rather than what they think of a product, and that reputation-based communications strategy only has a chance to work if it has management 100% behind it.

While these are valid points and worthy of further discussion, there was one other nugget of information that we would love to hear more about. Energy provider E.ON is a company that takes NPS a step further than most. Not content with just running the occasional survey, it has  “an entire NPS Center of Excellence.” Furthermore, it was noted by centre director Adam Elliott that “when you have your results you have to change the whole business.”

Innovation, it seems, is the thread that runs through all NPS news this week! The Financial

Upcoming Events

Diary note: Next Wednesday 22 February join the free Net Promoter webinar: Customer Service Fire-Fighting – Basic workflow for Customer Rescue (how to use Net Promoter with automation of customer responses to turn negative customer experiences into evangelist gold). Register here.