Net Promoter or Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a management tool that can be used to gauge the loyalty of an organisation’s customer relationships. It serves as an alternative to traditional customer satisfaction research and is often assumed to be correlated with revenue growth. While the monitoring of Net Promoter Score (NPS) is becoming an increasingly valuable way to monitor your customers experience of your product or service many organisations are struggling with the next step.  How do we make it better?  Measuring NPS is the easy part but it creates a few challenges.

1. It tells you the ‘what’ i.e. what is my score?  It does not help you much with the ‘So What?’ and ‘Now What?’ steps of the continuous improvement cycle.
2. NPS cuts out the middle of the road, those customers who had an OK experience but could be moved up the scale with a few small changes.

The first problem The KONA Group sees across many organisations is that they often stop at the point of collecting the Net Promoter Score. Their score may be solid and an improvement on the last year so they say to themselves ‘we’re doing great, we have a higher percentage of promoters and attractors than last year! What they miss is the WHY?  Why has their score changed or stayed the same?  Why has it dropped 8 points and what do we need to do about it?  It seems to us that missing the chance to gather customer stories and details to create context around a customer’s response is a lost opportunity.  Even knowing that your customer enjoyed their experience and is a promoter but not knowing why creates an issue.  It means that you are flying blind. Can your NPS provider ask a series of follow-up questions.

• “Why is it that you’re giving us this score?” or
• “We notice that you gave us a 9, why is this?’
• “What would we need to do for you to give us an 8?

The second question is about the numbers and theory of NPS. The final NPS scpore is supposed to work like this…

‘We add the scores those customers that rate you a 9 or 10 out of 10, and then we subtract the combined scores of those that rate you between a 0 and a 6 out of 10.’

What about the 7s and 8s?  Those customers who are ‘OK’ with their experience are not part of the measurement. We see this as pretty dangerous, once again why have they scored you at this level?  What do you need to do differently to change their score. The KONA Group Customer Insights team have a very clear focus on both the Quantitative and Qualitative data needed to look after your customers.  They look to link the feedback from your customers to an action register that ensures identified issues are recorded and resolved, not lost in the clutter of the NPS scores of 8 and below. KONA, Australia’s Leading Sales and Sales Management Training and Coaching company, provides customised training programs that include:  Sales Training & Coaching, Call Centre Training & Coaching, Negotiation Skills Training & Coaching, Motivational Speakers  and more.  KONA is also a leading provider of Customer Satisfaction Surveys and research services. Alternatively contact KONA today on 1300 611 288 or email info@kona.com.au to discuss how we can help you to improve your business results.