Lutz RemmersIn the past few years, companies have been investing fortunes to determine how their customers perceive their brands, products, and services. When it comes to loyalty, Customer service has become the difference between staying with one firm or moving to another. How swift can your company adapt to the way customers want to interact? Do you have an omnichannel operation? The companies that will succeed are the ones that adapt to their customers and not the other way around.
Currently the most popular indicator out there to measure customer satisfaction is called the “Net Promoter Score” (NPS). Why is this indicator so popular? What are companies doing with this information? Part of its brilliance is its simplicity.
Net Promoter Score
Created in 2003 by Frederick Reichheld, Bain & Company and Satmetrix, NPS consists of a single question that figures out “How likely is it that you would recommend our company to a friend or colleague?”
Depending on the answers, rated on a 0-to-100 scale, customers are grouped into the following categories:
- Promoters: 10 – 9 Rating
- Passives: 8 – 7 Rating
- Detractors: 6 – 0 Rating
Subtracting the percentage of “detractors” from the percentage of “promoters” yields the Net Promoter Score. This indicator by itself doesn’t give the company sufficient information to improve areas of opportunity, but it’s an excellent thermometer to know how the company is being perceived.
Loyalty vs. Retention
Companies spend a lot of money in retention. This is a reactive action to avoid losing a customer that is currently unhappy with the company. But why wait until this happens?
Let’s use a telecom company as an example.
John Doe just purchased an unlimited voice/data plan with an iPhone 6S, and seven days after the purchase John receives a call from the telecom company to welcome him. The agent asks about his first impressions with the phone and service. He also lets him know some vital information, such as how he can consult his bills, which payment methods are available, what apps are recommended to download, and how to properly set up the device. Before closing the call, the phone rep transfers John, with his consent, to a short survey where he is asked, from a scale from 1 to 10,“How satisfied were you with the service received during the purchase at the store?” and “How likely is it that you would recommend our company to a friend or colleague?”
Welcome calls are something all companies should do to generate a relationship with their customers. This contact makes them feel unique and appreciated. During the call, if they have any issues, the phone rep can assist before it gets out of hand. It also provides very valuable information since you’ll have their first impressions with the NPS & CSAT surveys. Later on, these results can be crossed with the company’s early-stage churn levels and compared with churn before these actions were taken.
The Customer Satisfaction Lifecycle
A welcome call is just the beginning, however. There should be a call during the different stages of the customers with the company, creating a customer satisfaction lifecycle, and these calls should all have a purpose. That can be to generate a positive impact (like churn reduction), provide useful information for the company, and make a smooth renewal process that will help avoid the retention factor.
Having a happy customer base will allow your company to be promoted by word-of-mouth recommendations, which is the best way to market your brand. This is why “network marketing” companies take extra care of their customers. Imagine if one of the top leaders has a bad experience. That would generate a bad perception for hundreds — or even thousands — of people in that network because of word of mouth.
With technology and social media changing every day, it’s a great challenge and rewarding experience to exceed customer expectations, many companies are achieving this so don’t stay behind on the current trends and start taking care of your most valuable asset: Customers.
Investing in an outbound operation that does these calls will cost only a fraction of what the company would spend if you lose these customers and even worse if they talk negatively about your brand with friends, family and colleagues.
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