Net Promoter News: Shoretel ranks partners by NPS, Zingerman’s tasty survey email contains 0% spam, Edge Web nudges 70

Shoretel rates partners with Net Promoter, fo’ sho’

As a company that relies on resellers and systems integrators to deliver its solutions, choosing partners carefully is an integral part of business success claims VoIP-pushers Shoretel.

So it was interesting for us to see (tucked away in a self-puffer about its Asia expansion plans) that Shoretel has four tiers to its partner programme – Authorised, Silver, Gold, and Platinum – which are measured against each partner’s NPS.

And it seems that these partner categories are more than simply a way to classify the depth of the relationship – in related news, systems integrator and Shoretel partner Black Box announced in a separate self-puffer that it has received the ShoreTel Champion Partner Circle of Excellence Award - a recognition that is also based on partner Net Promoter Scores.  PR Urgent 

Zingerman’s tasty survey email

Blogger Jason Fried has picked up on a warm and personal Net Promoter survey he received from the food company Zingerman’s, and compared it favourably with an overcomplicated, impersonal satisfaction survey he received from Audi a week earlier.

If you are looking to strike a personal tone with your survey emails, we’d “highly recommend” taking a look at Zingerman’s use of language. By paying so much attention to communicating how much it values feedback, this is one business that may be nurturing advocacy for more than just its core product. 37 Signals 

In brief

• After surveying almost 24,000 customers, BDRC Continental’s VenueVerdict Awards have recognised a number of hospitality venues that scored over +70 with a Gold Standard. Visit the link for the complete list: BDRC Continental
• Sensibly named hosting service Edge Web Hosting has announced an NPS of 69.9. Edgewebhosting
• US LTL carrier Standard Forwarding has received the second-highest NPS nationally out of 2,000 shippers, and received a gong as Great Lakes/Midwest Carrier Of The Year. Logistics Online 

Net Promoter News: nib prescribes NPS, DNA art and promoters, Whistler Blackcomb whistles past rivals, Surety1 goes from -6 to +52, Gold for Forest Pines

nib prescribes Net Promoter Scores

Australian health insurer nib has announced it is about six months away from launching its own mobile app. Called ‘White Coat,’ the app will help patients make informed decisions when choosing a healthcare professional.

According to boss Mark Fitzgibbon, Net Promoter is a conspicuous element of the app. “You’ll be able to go online via your phone or iPad or PC or laptop, search for a medical provider in your area – a doctor or hospital or dentist – and go and see their Net Promoter Score,” he told the Australian Financial Review.

This is an interesting development for a couple of reasons.

The first is that nib is a client of CustomerGauge and Genroe, our Australian partner. In fact, we recently posted a case study on how nib is using Net Promoter to ensure that its rapid growth does not come at the expense of customer service. It is particularly heartening to see that the metric we advocate and work with has made such a positive difference to our clients that they are recommending it to their own customers!

The second reason is that this news comes hot on the heels of the rollout of the Net Promoter-based   “friends and family” patient satisfaction measure in the UK. Is Net Promoter an emerging trend in the healthcare sector? It may be too early to call at this stage, but we’ll be keeping a close eye on developments! Australian Financial Review

DNA art and the importance of Promoters

From the quirkier end of the online retail business world, DNA11 is a site that creates works of art from its customers’ DNA or lip imprints. (And yes, it’s a real business).

According to co-founder Adrian Salamunovic, in the age of social media the company’s Net Promoter Score is more important than ever. The reason he gives is that social networks offer Promoters a potentially powerful platform from which to make unsolicited recommendations. To which we’d add, this would be particularly true for an unconventional, conversation-worthy topic such as your new DNA Ancestry Portrait (yes, they apparently exist too). Las Vegas Business Press

Whistler Blackcomb whistles past rivals

Canadian ski resort Whistler Blackcomb has been named best resort in Canada in terms of satisfaction, customer loyalty and commitment to promoting and growing skiing and snowboarding by the Canadian Ski Council (CSC). The resort also achieved the highest Net Promoter Score in Canada for the season. Pique News Magazine

Surety1 goes from -6 to +52

According to a self-puffer, insurance provider Surety1’s first score was returned two years ago, and was a miserable -6. However, in the time since then, the company has invested in bettering its customer satisfaction levels to such an extent that its NPS for June this year was a dramatically-improved +52. PR Web

The verdict is in: Gold for Forest Pines

In the UK Forest Pines Hotel & Golf Resort has been awarded a VenueVerdict Gold award for delivering exceptional service. The recognition is awarded to hotels with a Net Promoter Score of +70 and above. At this point in time, only 31 hotels in the country are recognised with the status. Hotel Industry UK

In brief

• At its most recent earnings call, car rental company Hertz announced that its average Net Promoter Score for the Rental Car division improved by 40 basis points. (Non-bankers note, = 0.4% improvement). Hertz consistently call out NPS along with other excellent metrics in their presentations.  Seeking Alpha
• ShoreTel closed the second half of 2012 with an NPS of +62 for the business and NPS of +64 for Resellers.  Shoretel Blog

Net Promoter Vacancy

Are you a customer satisfaction buff itching to get your hands on a new role?

An iconic Australian company is now seeking a Customer Community Lead. The successful applicant will be able to build and lead an NPS community across the operations of a large organisation. If this sounds like it may be you, please visit the ad for more details.

Net Promoter News: Oooh Matron! UK Gov’s NHS rollout, Everything Everywhere go NPS, Net Promoter in Mad-Men land, Shoretel +63

Carry On Rating… UK Gov’s Hospitals Scoring Rolls Out

A few weeks ago we mentioned that UK Prime Minister David Cameron has announced Net Promoter will be used to rank NHS hospitals by patient satisfaction across England.

According to an article this week, the surveys have collected around 21,000 responses in the initial phase, with the first league table set to be published within two months. But there has been some resistance to the move, with some leaders within the health system finding it distracting and time consuming for staff, and some patients feeling that they did not like the question because they are wary of giving a “black and white” answer.

These complaints notwithstanding, the rollout is gathering steam – good news for patients and families fed up with a lack of care and accountability in the health system. Indeed, according to the opinion piece below, “few would argue NHS patients would not be happier if more attention was paid to improving the experience of care.”

With regards to patients wary of giving a “black and white” answer, it is also important to note that the basic Net Promoter question of whether or not a person would recommend a service to their friends and family is just a starting point – follow up questions need to be asked to uncover insights which can enable an organisation to implement change for the benefit of its customers. We are very interested to see how this turns out – stay tuned for more in the coming months! Health Service Journal Health Service Journal (Opinion)

Everything Everywhere puts money where its customers are

Everything Everywhere – the company that runs both Orange and T-Mobile in the UK – has announced it is investing GBP 50 million in an effort to provide customers with specialized staff who will be experts on individual handsets and operating systems.  The new approach follows trials which showed dramatic improvements in the resolution of issues at first point of contact and “double digit” increases in Net Promoter Scores (no word on scores, samples, or if the research was internal or third party however).

This is of particular interest to us here at CustomerGauge as it follows a number of companies we’ve reported on this year which have experienced significant improvements in Net Promoter Scores after making investments in customer service training (as opposed to outsourcing or cutting costs). Among them are American Express, EdgeWave, Enterasys, and Overstock.com

In related news, Everything Everywhere claimed it is ahead in 4G plans because its rivals “are too busy focusing on cost efficiencies, instead of innovation.” Are you an Everything Everywhere customer? Let us know your experiences below! ComputerWorldUK

Net Promoter in Mad-Men Ad Agency Land

In B2B Net Promoter News, Steve Parker, MD of MediaVest said the agency uses Net Promoter as a key measure of its relationships with media owners. Twice a year, MediaVest holds an event where they invite 150 media owners into the agency in order to tell them their story – with the price of entry being that the guests need to give MediaVest a Net Promoter score. The reason? “So we can start measuring the strength, depth, variety of our relationships,” he said. “We do the same with client service – we use Net Promoter as a key measurement of our relationships with our client service.”

The interview followed a presentation at Media360 by managing director of brand and customer experience at British Airways Frank van der Post, who discussed the challenges and importance of trying to track the value of marketing activity in the age of big data. MediaWeek

Intuit builds game plan on free advice

A few months back financial software provider Intuit announced that its customers were returning higher-than-expected Net Promoter Scores, due in part to free tax advice they were receiving from the company.

In its latest earnings call, the company claims that there are 40 million US taxpayers who currently prepare their taxes with assistance, but would be prepared to do it themselves digitally if they had the right tool. With this insight in mind, the company created a strategy built around attracting more of these taxpayers by providing free assistance. The company believes that this has helped improve its overall Net Promoter Score for its TurboTax product offering – and also helped increase its acquisition of first-time tax-filers, which grew by 34% this year. Seeking Alpha

Shoretel moves to Net Promoter

According to Peter Blackmore, CEO of unified communications provider Shoretel, the company has ranked above its competitors for eight years in a row in customer satisfaction. But in an effort to continue to improve its service offering, in the last 12 months the company has adopted Net Promoter – for which he claims the company has averaged a score of +63 for the past 6 months.

This is a high score in any industry, and it appears to be backed up by business performance. According to the same transcript, Shoretel is one of the few companies to gain market share in the last quarter, and is looking at a “very good” performance for the current quarter. Seeking Alpha

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