They say that fashions come around again roughly every thirty years. I can hardly believe it, but it has been that many years since the great Poet of Upminster Ian Dury released "Reasons to be Cheerful" in 1979. In its 4'43" length, Dury checks an eccentric laundry list of what makes him happy:

Some of Buddy Holly, the working follyGood Golly Miss Molly and boatsHammersmith Palais, the Bolshoi BalletJump back in the alley, and nanny goats Dury's sunny outlook is appropriate for the times we're living in now, and I was struck by its positive tone when I started work last week on a new CustomerGauge client project to measure their Net Promoter Score.Let me explain. Most of our projects involve analysis of customer feedback with the aim of understanding what an organisation should do to improve. We help businesses listen to the "Voice of the Customer" by categorising and "tagging" comments. Analysing the results show which areas should be improved, in order of priority.Post-Sales Customer Service comes up a lot. Especially "You promised to return my call..."

Something Nice to Study

Acting on what customer Detractors are telling organisations to improve is at the heart of the Net Promoter Score system.  CustomerGauge helps our clients by presenting  useful charts and tables, plus other analytic tools to understand impact. Managers can find negative feedback quite distressing - and may ignore it Ostrich-like, or rush to fix trivial (but noisy) issues.But often the simple approach is best. A simple bar chart of top issues. A print out of customer comments.And rather than just  focusing on the negatives, CustomerGauge can help understand the positives too. What customers like about the experience is just as valuable too. By understanding the areas of the business that customers like can be surprising. I've found that Marketing people can suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder, and forget that their messages take a while to be generally adopted by customers - they have moved on, while customers are just catching up. Around half of the customer comments in our clients are strongly positive.Even in one of our worst performing clients, some customers still loved their products.And flagging positive experiences has a doubly useful effect if the good news is delivered to front line teams. Often we find that customers will pick out and congratulate staff members by name. Delivering this sentiment can be a real morale booster.

A Bit of "Come and Share It"...

Display it on a plasma screen for all to see. Print out and pin up a selection on the notice board. Add them to your website. That's the "CG" part. CustomerGauge can do all that for you.Whether or not you use CustomerGauge, my tip is to channel Ian Dury. Find your organisation's positive feedback and share your customers "Reasons to be Cheerful".

Ian Dury, 1942 - 2000