Accenture’s Net Promoter Score Hits Lowest Level

In this year’s Tech Vendor NPS Benchmark, Accenture has received the lowest Net Promoter Score (NPS), raising concern over customers’ loyalty to one of the largest technology vendors in North America.

HP and IBM have received the highest scores in the benchmark analyzed by Temkin Group. With less than NPS of 10, Accenture shared the bottom slot along with CA Technologies, Hitachi, Wipro and Deloitte.

Moreover, there is a wide difference between Accenture and the companies at the top end of the index.

With an NPS of 57, SAS Institute came out with the top score, with HP Outsourcing, IBM Global Services, Oracle Outsourcing and Dell Outsourcing also joining in with scores well above the average.

Other tech vendors received NPS of 45 or more: Microsoft desktop software, Microsoft servers and VMware. Many IT service providers, including Unisys, Capgemini, CSC, Cognizant, Infosys, ACS and Tata Consultancy Services, ended up on the bottom half of the list, according to Temkin.

Companies often use a metric called NPS as a measure of loyalty, as it calculates the likelihood that customers will recommend a company to friends and colleagues. Temkin Group said it analyzed NPS of 62 tech vendors based on feedback from 800 IT decision makers within large North American companies.

In addition to benchmarking NPS, the research examines several areas of loyalty that large companies have for their tech vendors. “The IT decision makers are the most likely to purchase more from SAS Institute and Cognizant outsourcing, most likely to try new offerings from IBM SPSS and Intel, and most likely to forgive HP outsourcing and Intel,” the research firm stated.

In the survey, the research firm asks respondents to rank these vendors. Respondents are asked to rank the likelihood they would recommend a brand to a friend or colleague on a scale of 1-10. Those who answer 9 or 10 are considered promoters and respondents who answer 7 or 8 are considered passive customers: satisfied, but unenthusiastic and vulnerable to competitive offerings.

The research shows a very high correlation between NPS and these areas of loyalty. “We found a wide range of Net Promoter Scores across tech vendors, but it was great to see the industry showing overall improvement after the previous two years of decline,” states Bruce Temkin, Managing Partner of Temkin Group.