All Posts Tagged With: "customer relationships"
Recommendability Boosts Revenues
Net promoter score (NPS) is a measure of customer loyalty that many companies are using instead of customer satisfaction surveys. You determine your NPS by asking customers a single question: “How likely is it that you would recommend our company to a friend or colleague?” Customers use a 0 to 10 rating scale, and their responses are categorized as Promoters (9-10 rating), Passives (7-8 rating), and Detractors (0-6 rating).
You determine your NPS by subtracting the percent of Detractors from the percent of Promoters. Scores of 75% or higher are considered very good.
Church of the Customer Blog recently reported on the 2010 NPS Industry Benchmark reports released by Satmetrix. The NPS leaders by industry are:
- Airlines: Jet Blue (64%)
- Auto Insurance: USAA (78%)
- Banking: USAA (81%)
- Brokerage & Investments: Charles Schwab (46%)
- Cable & Satellite TV: DIRECTV (27%)
- Cellular Phone Service: Verizon (41%)
- Computer Hardware: Apple (78%)
- Consumer Software: Adobe Systems (37%)
- Credit Cards: American Express (27%)
- Department, Wholesale & Specialty Stores: Costco (66%)
- Grocery & Supermarkets: Trader Joe’s (69%)
- Health Insurance: BlueCross BlueShield of Illinois (5%)
- Homeowners Insurance: USAA (69%)
- Internet Service: Road Runner/Time Warner (21%)
- Life Insurance: State Farm (34%)
- Online Search & Information: Facebook (65%)
- Online Shopping: Amazon.com (71%)
A few things jump out of this list. First, health insurance companies stink. If 5% is the best NPS score, this is indeed a sorry bunch. Second, being the best in credit cards, internet service, life insurance, and consumer software is no great accomplishment. Third, USAA is really good.
Church of the Customer blog…
14Apr2010 | Steve George | 0 comments | ContinuedWhen “Very Satisfied” Is Impossible
The reverse side of the bill that hotel staff slid under my door this week pleaded with me to be VERY SATISFIED with my stay. I may be receiving an email satisfaction survey. According to the front office manager, “We ask that if for any reason you do not feel that you are able to rate us a VERY SATISFIED with your Overall Satisfaction that you contact a Guest Services Manager prior to your departure.”
Somebody’s bonus is tied to satisfaction scores.
It’s hard to judge whether or not I was “very satisfied” with the hotel. The check-in went smoothly. The TV worked. The room was comfortable and quiet. The wake-up call came on time. The bed was a little hard for my taste. The price was reasonable. If those are the criteria, I was “very satisfied,” but how satisfied can you be when you’re tired from travelling and away from home and bored? That’s what makes such satisfaction surveys problematic.
On the other hand, if I compare my hotel visit with my airline experience, I would give the hotel a “6” on a 5-point scale. You won’t see an airline begging for a “very satisfied” rating because who in their right mind would be “very satisfied” with flying?
You wait in line to go through security. You practically disrobe (we are very lucky the shoe bomber didn’t decide to line his underwear with explosives) and then have to reassemble on…
18Dec2009 | Steve George | 2 comments | Continued10 Critical Questions: Your Customers
In the Baldrige Criteria, “customer” is broadly defined as “actual and potential users of your organization’s products, programs, or services.” No matter what your organization does, it has customers: consumers, purchasers, patients, physicians, students, parents, constituents, etc.
In previous articles we listed 10 critical questions you can ask about leadership, strategic planning, and key strengths and opportunities for improvement. As we noted, the best way to evaluate your management system is through a Baldrige assessment using the Baldrige Criteria. You can find out how to do that here.
The Criteria consist of powerful questions, rarely asked, about how an organization functions. If you cannot do a full assessment but want insight into how to improve your customer focus, here are 10 critical questions to ask and answer:
- What are your key customer groups or market segments and what does each group/segment require of your organization?
- How do you determine which groups/segments to serve?
- How do you determine the requirements of each group/segment?
- How do you identify and innovate products, programs, and/or services to meet these requirements and exceed expectations?
- How do you support your products, programs, and/or services and enable your customers to seek information and utilize them?
- How do you create an organizational culture that ensures a consistently positive customer experience and contributes to customer engagement?
- How do you build and manage relationships with your customers?
- How do you listen to your customers to get feedback on your products, programs, services, and support, including…
Creating a Positive Customer Experience
Few companies face the levels of customer dissatisfaction that Comcast confronts every day. Web sites have been created solely to document the horror stories of aggrieved customers. In June, Comcast ranked second in MSN Money’s Customer Service Hall of Shame, and it ranks second to last among cable and satellite TV companies on the American Customer Satisfaction Index.
After years of poor performance and faced with growing competition, Comcast decided to take customer satisfaction seriously. It started by monitoring blogs and Twitter to find and assist unhappy customers. Next, as a StarTribune article documents, it developed a new Customer Care program that features:
- Giving Comcast technicians handheld devices that can test a home’s entire network
- Expanding technicians’ hours to include working on Sundays
- Giving employees “Make It Right” cards to a hand out to anyone with a complaint; the cards have a phone number to call for priority assistance
- Training technicians and call-center agents to listen and be respectful and to help solve problems the first time
- Promoting a new customer guarantee that promises to handle problems quickly, respect the customer’s time, and offer a 30-day money-back guarantee on all services
Listening to the Voice of the Customer is the first step to improving satisfaction and building loyalty. The first Area to Address in Item 3.2 of the Baldrige Criteria focuses solely on customer listening, while Item 3.1 asks how you determine and deploy customer support requirements and how you exceed customer expectations…
26Aug2009 | Steve George | 0 comments | Continued
