Note: We normally advise organisations against being spooked by customer feedback, but in the spirit of the season, each section in this week's Net Promoter News is brought to you as a Halloween tale.
Sincerely,
The CustomerGore Team
Charles Schwab Slays Customer Service Demons
In 2004, the once-great American brokerage and banking company Charles Schwab was struggling. With an NPS of -35, and a 26 percent decline in revenue from customer stock trading, the organisation appeared heading for an untimely grave.
The story of its customer service resurrection is well-known to many Net Promoter fans, but a post in Forbes goes into some detail of how it happened. In the post, CEO Walt Bettinger nominates a renewed focus on employee engagement and nurturing a culture where every customer interaction is critical as keys to the company's turnaround.
On employees, he notes: “As leaders, it is our responsibility to build an environment where employees thrive on delighting clients and live for putting client interests at the forefront. Engaged employees are nearly five-times (our emphasis) more likely to be customer oriented and more likely to create an outstanding customer experience than a disengaged employee.”
On customer interactions, he says: "With our Client Reviews section of our web site, we were the first investment firm to create unfiltered client feedback about our performance on our web site – good, bad or indifferent. In today’s interconnected and socially aware world, transparency is a winning strategy. We leave all comments up for prospects to see as we strive to further the use of social media as a way for prospects to engage.”
This dual focus on employee engagement and customer interactions eventually drove a stake through the heart of the demons plaguing the company, and propelled the organisation’s NPS to the mid 50s. “This was cited as among the greatest turnarounds in net promoter history,” according to the post. Forbes
Delivering Happiness Unleashes Employee Engagement Magic
Delivering Happiness started as a best-selling book by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, and evolved into a movement with teams spread out across San Francisco, Sydney, Atlanta, Barcelona and Geneva. But even in a movement focused on happiness, keeping a common purpose and culture across offices is a challenge.
To do this, the organisation measures the heartbeat of employee engagement quarterly with an eNPS (employee Net Promoter) survey, that comes with one additional question: “What could we be doing better?”, and goes to considerable effort to effect internal change on this feedback.
Besides the eNPS program, the post has a number of tips on how to engage employees across different offices. One of these is an all-hands meeting every quarter somewhere in the world, which the organisation calls a 'workcation.' "It's time off, but time together," says Chief Happiness Officer Jenn Lim. Huffington Post
Extracts From the Net Promoter Book of Horrors
The druids at consultancy Engaged Marketing have released research showing that Subaru is the most recommended car brand in Australia with an NPS of +38, followed by Toyota and Mazda on +28 and +26 respectively. Nine of the biggest car brands were assessed, including Ford, Holden, Honda, Nissan, Mitsubishi and Hyundai. PR Leap
At its ritual earnings seance, Lloyds Banking Group announced its Net Promoter Score has increased by 13% in the first 9 months of the year. Investors like the bank too, with a banshee-like headline from Interactive Investor screeching Why I Think Lloyds Banking Group PLC Screams Value Post: Seeking Alpha
Financial software warlocks C2FO have announced the company's NPS has risen to 55, a three-point increase over last quarter. Press release
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