The New Year brings a new start, and as the customer experience champion in your organisation, we want 2014 to be the year that you transform your business into one that is relentlessly focused on customer delight.
To help you achieve this goal, here are five suggestions to strengthen your Net Promoter System in 2014.
1. Implement a 360-degree Feedback System
A 360-degree feedback system is one in which feedback is collected from all company stakeholders. In a B2C organisation, this includes staff and customers. In a B2B organisation, it includes staff, clients, and even end customers who make purchases from intermediaries.
With such as system in place, organisations are well-placed to:
- Increase customer retention and organic growth through word-of-mouth.
- Increase staff retention and decrease costs associated with staff turnover.
- Build a comprehensive picture of the needs of all key stakeholders in the organisation, including end users.
2. Make a KPI of Closing the Loop within a Set Time Frame
In 2013, we found an 11-point average difference in score between organisations that follow up and those that do not. But rather than simply make sure they follow up, an emerging trend among leading CustomerGauge users from 2013 and in to 2014 is to use length of time to close the loop with customers as a KPI. (See examples from Nlifisk-Advance and Kuoni).
The reason is simple: Rescuing Detractors (or, for that matter, Passives or Promoters) can completely transform a relationship to turn a Detractor or Passive directly into a Promoter. (Hint: Tools such as One-Touch Firefighting can help organisations stick to a strict time limit on closing the loop.)
3. Tie Net Promoter Score to Revenue
In 2013, internet provider iiNet claimed that a 1-point increase in NPS equalled an A$1.6 million increase in net profit after tax. Now that is a compelling case to make sure customers are delighted with the organisation's service. Is your organisation tracking the correlation between score and revenue?
4. Make Customer Feedback the Business of Everyone in the Organisation
One of the worst things that can happen to customer feedback is that it gets left in the bottom of a digital drawer. Organisations need to ensure that customer feedback becomes the business of everyone in the organisation, from the CEO to the newest frontline employee. Sharing feedback nurtures innovation, bolsters teamwork, and puts organisations one step further on the path from being an [insert product here] company to being a customer delight company that happens to sell [insert product here], a la Zappos, the legendary service company that just happens to sell shoes.
5. Incentivise Promoters to Share Positive Feedback
The likelihood to recommend is the question at the heart of the Net Promoter System, but a little incentive to promote your company to friends and family can do wonders for generating new customers and increased revenue.
To do this, organisations need to:
- Segment high value customers manually or, if they have a suitable solution, with software tools.(Hint: The CustomerGauge system's Revenue Accelerator, automatically identifies Promoters, Passives and Detractors and slices them by revenue),
- Create compelling incentives to activate new customers. Leading CustomerGauge users are giving targeted incentives in the form of shareable vouchers to high-value Promoters, and seeing significant, measurable return on investment in increased sales and new customers.
Transform your business into a customer delight organisation in 2014
Whether large or small, just starting out or already Net Promoter veterans, this list should offer some ideas to organisations on how to drive more value from their Net Promoter programs in 2014. If you have anything to add, please let us know in the comments below!
