A Net Promoter Score of +91: Fact or Fiction?

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A Net Promoter Score of +91: Fact or Fiction?

Net Promoter Score - is +91 actually achievable?

Some time ago I wrote a blog entitled: Things That Never Happened: a Net Promoter Score of 91. The basic premise of the blog that really high NPS results are simply not achievable – at least not in Europe and definitely not in complex business-to-business (B2B) environments.
Theoretically, the upper limit to a Net Promoter Score is +100. To achieve that, 100% of people must score you 9 or 10 out of 10. In reality, that’s exceedingly difficult to achieve and in our 20 years of measuring NPS, no European B2B client of ours has ever exceeded +75. In fact, the average NPS result for a European B2B company is only slightly greater than zero.
All that said, I did consider amending the title of my blog after a conversation last week with Charles Letherwood. Charles is based in Portland, Oregon, read my blog. and emailed me to say that: “we maintain a NPS of 91 (or higher) at our auto shop. Your post says this is nigh-impossible… Maybe it IS impossible for larger firms, but smaller ones can actually deliver real, personal service that gets people talking.”

What makes us different? It’s our fanatical commitment to integrity.”

- Charles Letherwood, Tom Dwyer Automovive Services


Tom Dwyer Automotive Services

The auto shop in question is Tom Dwyer Automotive Services. I checked it out. It genuinely does get very good ‘recommend’ scores from its customers.
Actually, the scores are not just very good. They are outrageously good. So good that I simply had to contact Charles to find out what made Tom Dwyer different to other auto repair companies. We had a long telephone call last week where Charles explained the ‘secret sauce’ that delivers such good NPS scores for the company. Charles has a quick and simple answer:
“What makes us different? It’s our fanatical commitment to integrity.”
And when you read the customer comments – which are all available online – that focus on integrity and building trust comes through loud and clear.


Customer Lifetime Value

What’s even more interesting is this: their fanatical commitment to integrity translates directly into dollars. Many of Tom Dwyer’s clients have been with them for years and, in some cases, for decades. Clients will drive long distances to have their car serviced at Tom Dwyer’s auto shop, rather than go the car repair guy just around the corner.
The value of these long-standing trusted client relationships is worth reflecting on. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is a concept that most of us understand intuitively but very few of us – even accountants – bother to calculate it for our own customers. We really should – particularly in the B2B world.
The 15-20 people at Tom’s auto shop aren’t just mechanics. They are relationship builders. Charles explained to me how that are encouraged to understand the customer. They are told to take the time to explain to clients what they are planning to do, and why they are doing it.
Unlike most people in the industry, they are not paid commission. They get a better than average wage and are deliberately not incentivised to maximise that value of each transaction. It’s the reason why Tom Dwyer left his previous job – see insert below. Tom’s objective is to keep the customer for life.

Tom Dwyer Automotive Services was founded in 1981 by Tom Dwyer, who established the shop in Portland, Oregon, following his dissatisfaction with the unethical practices he witnessed in the automotive industry. A defining moment for the company’s philosophy occurred when Dwyer, then an employee at another shop, refused an employer’s order to sell an unnecessary and expensive brake job to an elderly customer whose car only required a simple cleaning and adjustment.


The Power of Customer Feedback

A fanatical commitment to integrity is not the only component of Tom Dwyer’s ‘secret sauce’. You also need to be able to measure whether than fanaticism is translating into good outcomes for customers.
Tom Dwyer invested in customer feedback very early. Way back in 1998 in fact. Since that time, Tom and the team have left a pre-stamped ‘Commend Card’ in each vehicle after service. With over 23,000 responses collected to date, the team has a pretty good view of how it is performing on some of the most important aspects of automobile service. 
That culture of customer feedback has shaped the company’s approach to the way it deals with customers. And that approach had paid dividends, both in terms of long client relationships and in terms of referrals. At least half of all new customers are referrals from existing clients.

Things that might have happened: a Net Promoter Score of 91

So would I change the title of my earlier blog?
Well, clearly Tom Dwyer and the team have proven that NPS scores of 91 are achievable. That said, I’m planning to leave that blog stand for at least four reasons:
  • The team at Tom Dwyer and the service they deliver, are quite exceptional. In fact, they are an aberration in an industry that generally strives for mediocrity. High NPS scores can only be achieved by delivering exceptional service, and by doing so consistently.
  • Charles says that “smaller firms can actually deliver real, personal service that gets people talking” but he also admits that exceptional service is something that can be difficult to scale. His company could have expanded into different locations in Portland or further afield in Oregon, but Tom said no. He wanted to “do one shop and do it well.”
  • There’s a third reason. Excellent service in the consumer world is different to excellent service in B2B. In general, large IT, construction or outsourcing projects are far more complex to deliver than a standard oil change or a tyre replacement.
  • Finally, we do need to consider that fact that Charles and Tom are based in Portland, Oregon and not in Europe. As I have mentioned many times in other blogs, Americans reward good service with much higher NPS scores that their European counterparts. It’s a culture thing – we Europeans are a dour bunch, particularly in northern Europe!

The Importance of Service Excellence

Let me finish with a final point about service.
Service excellence is the cornerstone of long-term client relationships. Over time, it builds high levels of trust. That in turn drives long-term commitment and loyalty. It also creates hugely positive word of word feedback and drives new business and sales opportunities from both existing clients and from referrals. Tom Dwyer has seen that happen. Many of its clients have been with the company for decades.
If you can get the basics of service delivery right, and right first time, you will achieve high net promoter scores. If you can’t, your business could be dead in the water. 
That’s the topic of my next blog.

Introducing: Employee Relationship Quality

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Introducing: Employee Relationship Quality

Employee Relationship Quality (ERQ)

New Product Launch: Employee Relationship Quality (ERQ)

Deep-Insight is delighted to launch a new Voice of the Employee service, specifically aimed at companies with 100-500 staff: Employee Relationship Quality (ERQ™).
Why 100-500 staff?
Our research shows that most companies with 1,000 or more employees have systems in place for capturing the voices of both employees and customers. That’s not the case for mid-market companies, specifically those with 100-500 employees, where many companies have no mechanism for understanding what their staff think of them.
This is a product launch that has been a couple of years in planning, and has involved a significant amount or research and discussion with HR professionals across Europe. We would specifically like to thank the following for their time and input:

Setting Up An Effective Employee Feedback Programme

So how do we set up and run an effective employee feedback programme?
Let’s start with a few basics:
  • Confidentiality. An effective employee feedback programme must be confidential so that employees can feel safe to speak openly and honestly. At the same time, it must deliver the level of detail and clarity required for leadership to drive meaningful change.
  • Methodology. We need to measure the right things for today’s employees. Today’s workplace is different – more remote working, less job security, greater tendency to ‘job hop’ and so on – and we need to reflect these changes in the work environment in the questions that we ask.
  • Frequency. All of our research suggests that the big annual employee survey is no longer enough. At a minimum, get feedback twice a year, or supplement an annual survey with more frequent pulse surveys on specific topics.
Deep-Insight has been capturing the voice of the employee for years but is now launching a new offering aimed specifically at this 100-500 employee market: Employee Relationship Quality (ERQ™).
ERQ is an independent and confidential way of getting employee insights that help you drive customer experience (CX) in your organisation. The ERQ model is based on eight drivers and takes into consideration the challenges of today’s world and aims to understand if your teams are set up for success. For example, it takes a close look at employees’ Wellbeing by measuring if they can maintain a sustainable work-life balance and if they feel a sense of job security. It also adds includes questions around Success and Support.
These eight drivers are all critical components of the current-day employee relationship.
 

The Eight Drivers of Employee Relationship Quality

Today’s employer-employee relationships can be complex, so we need to analyse how well we are doing on eight different dimensions:
  1. BENEFITS aims to understand if you as an organisation are meeting your employee’s basic needs. It looks at the following sub-drivers: Pay and Opportunities.
  2. SUPPORT aims to understand if you are offering your employees the required guidance and training to do their job. It looks at the following sub-drivers: Onboarding, Development and Environment.
  3. SUCCESS looks at if your employees have the tools required to do their job and if they feel a sense of agency over their role. Sub-drivers of success are: Agency and Satisfaction.
  4. WELLBEING aims to understand if your employees are satisfied with the work-life balance provided and if they feel a sense of teamwork and appreciation. It’s sub-drivers are: Work-Life Balance, Collaboration and Job-Security.
  5. CULTURE aims to understand if you provide your employees with a respectful and safe working environment. The sub-drivers of culture are: Safety, Respect and Inclusion.
  6. TRUST aims to understand if your employees feel a sense of trust and if they feel like they are being treated fairly, with honesty and integrity. The sub-drivers are: Honesty, Integrity and Fairness.
  7. COMMITMENT looks to understand if your employees feel proud to be a part of your organisation and a sense of loyalty to stay with you long-term. The sub-drivers are Pride and Loyalty.
  8. CUSTOMER FOCUS aims to understand if your employees see your organisation as one that puts its customers first. The sub-drivers are Customer Care, Reliability and Responsiveness.

Interested?

Contact Us

 

If you would like to set up an Employee Relationship Quality (ERQ) programme, we’d love to talk!

A Heartfelt Thank You to Our Clients

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We want to extend our deepest gratitude to all our clients who took the time to complete our CRQ assessment this year. Your participation provided us with invaluable feedback.

We are truly humbled and thrilled by the positive scores and detailed responses you’ve given us. Thank you once again for your continued trust and partnership!

In summary: we received feedback from 85% of our customers, who gave us a CRQ score of 6.0 and a Net Promoter Score of +55.

NPS AND CRQ Deep Insight

We are incredibly proud of these scores and all the positive messages we received about our team.

 

 

 

Our greatest strengths are our exceptional team members
and their remarkable skills in forging enduring relationships
as CX consultants with our clients. Their dedication and expertise
truly set us apart. Big thanks to Fabienne Falvay, Kate Casey,
Fiona Lynch and Jade Flynn!

 

 

 

 

Our Commitment to Continuous Improvement

While we received a lot of positive feedback on our Products/Services, we are currently on a journey to explore how we can enhance our services and offerings. Navigating this change journey is a complex but rewarding endeavour.

We’re dedicated to discovering new opportunities for improvement and are eager to learn how we can better serve our customers.

How are we planning to do so?

 

‘Closing the Loop’ with our own clients.

The feedback process is not finished yet. We need to ‘close the loop’ with all clients and discuss their specific feedback. We will be in touch shortly with each one of our clients. We will be asking for time to discuss each client’s specific results and feedback.

Increase CRQ impact

Our customers appreciate the work we do, but they also see opportunities for CRQ to make an even greater impact across their organizations. We share this vision and are committed to enhancing our contributions. Over the past few months, our leadership team has spent significant time reviewing and refining our strategy, vision, and values. More details to follow on this, but in essence, our focus remains clear:

Deep-Insight – Providing innovative CX consultancy to global B2B organisations underpinned by a strong and competitive technical and data foundation.

We’re eager to explore how we can ensure this strategy delivers the maximum impact for your organization. Expect us to dive deeper into this topic during our “Close the Loop” sessions with you.

Before I conclude, I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to Jade Flynn for planning, organizing, and running this year’s client assessment. Jade joined us earlier this year and has quickly become an invaluable asset to our small but highly dedicated team. We’re grateful for her hard work and excited to see the continued impact she’ll make!

Alexandra Calugarici
Operations Manager, Deep-Insight

You Said, We Listened

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Last month, we asked our clients what they thought of us. We do this every year and take our Customer Relationship Quality (CRQ) feedback seriously. We try to follow the advice we give to our own clients: give your customers the opportunity to tell you what they think. Listen to what they say. Then act on their feedback.

As we did last year, we cast the net for our 2022 CRQ assessment quite wide. We didn’t just limit the survey to a handful of key decision makers in current clients. We included many operational and administrative contacts. Their views are equally important. We also asked dormant customers what they thought of us.

Last year, you said…

The main message that you gave us last year – actually for the last two years – was that you needed more than just a survey provider. In practice, that meant providing more assistance AFTER your customers gave their feedback. You needed a partner that could help you deliver meaningful change across your whole organisation. You also wanted us to be more flexible and supportive.

We listened, and here are three of the things we did in response to your feedback.

1. Deliver more than just a survey

We have always strived to be more than just a survey company. Our mission is to help companies become truly customer-centric. Getting customer and employee feedback is part of that process, but there’s much more to it than launching a survey. That’s why we completely redesigned the way we work with clients, based on what you said to us.

Today we spend a lot more time with leadership teams and sales or account teams both BEFORE we think about asking our customer’s clients for their views as well as AFTER they give their feedback. The BEFORE piece is critical and must be done properly. If you don’t invest the time up-front, your CX (or EX) programme will not deliver the results that Management and the Board expect from it. More than likely, it will end in failure. It’s as simple as that.

2. Assist with Customer Relationship Quality ‘Healthchecks’

Last year we conducted CRQ ‘Healthchecks’ for clients in the UK and Ireland. The objective of a ‘Healthcheck’ is to benchmark how good a company’s Customer Experience or Customer Satisfaction programme is. That doesn’t just mean assessing if the right questions are being asked of the right people. It’s a more fundamental look at whether all the right components are in place to deliver genuine and meaningful benefits. We do this under four headings:

1. LEADERSHIP. The most important quadrant. Good Customer Excellence (CX) programmes are ALWAYS led from the top
2. STRATEGY. Good CX programmes link customer, product, operational and organisational strategy explicitly to customer needs
3. EXECUTION. Success requires properly resourced teams that are brilliant at executing the Strategy
4. CULTURE. Finally, Customer Excellence must become integral to the DNA of the organisation: “it’s how we do things around here”

All four quadrants are necessary for a successful CX programme. The ‘Hard Side’ quadrants of Strategy and Execution are all about metrics and processes. ‘Hard Side’ activities lend themselves to key performance indicators (KPIs) and while the activities in these two quadrants are important and easily measurable, the quadrants of Leadership and Culture are actually more critical.

In our experience, Leadership is the most important quadrant while Culture is the most challenging. And yet, here’s the strange thing: in most CX programmes the ‘Soft Side’ is often overlooked and almost always under-resourced.

3. Run Customer Centricity ‘Masterclasses’ for managers and leadership teams

One of the key ‘Soft Side’ challenges is making sure your entire organisation is on board with your CX (or CSat or NPS or Customer Relationship Quality) programme. Over the past 12 months, we have partnered with the world-leading HEC Business School in Paris.

That collaboration has helped us develop and deliver a ‘Masterclass’ to educate leadership teams, managers and partners about the importance and benefits of putting the customer at the heart of everything they do. The ‘Masterclass’ also helps employees understand the crucial role they play in making their companies customer-centric.

Already, these ‘Masterclasses’ have been delivered both virtually (for COVID reasons) and face-to-face to clients in Europe, Asia and the Americas.

How did we score this year?

Having made the investments over the past two years, we were very curious to get your reaction. In short, you were very generous in your responses this year.

This year we achieved a Net Promoter Score of +66 and a Customer Relationship Quality (CRQ) score of 6.1 out of 7.

This is the highest NPS result we have ever achieved to date and the third time we have scored over +50. Our CRQ score is also the highest we have ever achieved and we are honoured to be thought of so highly by you, our valued clients.

Result: new client wins

I honestly believe that it’s because of the trust that our clients place in Deep-Insight that we have been able to announce some great new wins in recent months.

We have a 10+ year relationship with Atos but primarily in the UK & Ireland. Earlier this year, we extended that relationship to Germany and over the next three years we will be partnering with Atos on one of their most important and strategic global accounts.

One of our largest accounts in Australia was the logistics company Toll Group. Last year our key contact at Toll moved to Scotts Refrigerated Logistics and we recently signed a new 3-year contract to help ScottsRL become one of the most customer-centric companies in Australia.

Vreugdenhil Dairy Foods is a Dutch milk powder manufacturer that operates in Barneveld, Scharsterbrug, Gorinchem and Madrid. Its 500 staff process 1.4 billion kilograms of milk each year. Over the next three years, we will be working with the Vreugdenhil leadership team to turn a company that creates great food products into a truly customer-centric organisation.

Agenda for 2022

While we’re really proud of these Customer Relationship Quality (CRQ) and NPS scores, there is more to do.

For starters, we got feedback from 48% of the people we asked to participate. While that’s not bad, we do see some room for improvement. Last year our response rate was 55%. We know that some of our clients achieve rates of 70% or more. We will be working hard to improve on this figure next year.

Second, the main feedback we received this year is that our new consulting services are great BUT not enough. Our clients are looking for Deep-Insight to provide even more support. The two customer quotes below confirm to me that we need to support clients on a year-round basis.

“Would like to see greater insight on how we can really make a difference for our customers. How do we truly address those recurring themes that come up each year? It would be great to get insight on how we can do this better – beyond the data”

“I would question to what degree on a continual basis Deep-Insight provides interaction and insight as a partner to the business. Also, to what extent there are follow-up meetings post results as you as experts help inform our response and strategy.”

 

Third, the feedback process is not finished yet. We need to ‘close the loop’ with all clients and discuss their specific feedback. We will be in touch shortly and will be looking specifically for more insights into any additional support needs they may have.

I need to finish off by thanking Fiona Lynch for planning, organising and running this year’s client assessment. Fiona joined us earlier this year from Atos where she was part of a global service delivery team. It’s great to have her on board.

So, well done Fiona, and thank you to all of our clients. We really do value your feedback.

John O’Connor
CEO, Deep-Insight

If Trust is so important, why do so few companies measure it?

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Most people understand implicitly that good Business to Business (B2B) relationships are built on a strong foundation of trust. But if Trust is so important, why do so few companies measure it? It’s a question that has always intrigued me. I must admit that I’m still struggling to find the answer.

The fact is that CEOs keep tabs on all sorts of KPIs. For operational performance, there are lots of service level agreements (SLAs) and other three letter acronyms (TLAs). Logistics companies even have five letter acronyms like DIFOT – Delivery In Full On Time. For financial performance, the CFO has an eye-watering array of metrics. For customer performance, there is customer satisfaction (CSat) and Net Promoter Score (NPS).

But rarely, if ever, is there a metric for Trust that is discussed by the leadership team or reported to shareholders.

How Important is Trust?

A couple of weeks ago, I ran a short poll on LinkedIn, asking people what they thought was the most important element of a strong B2B relationship. It wasn’t a trick question as we believe at Deep-Insight (based on pretty good academic research) that the three key pillars of a great B2B relationship are Trust, Commitment and Satisfaction.

I wasn’t surprised by the winner but I was intrigued by the margin. It appears that Trust really is seen as the cornerstone of a strong B2B relationship.

Trust Commitment Satisfaction

Trust, Commitment and Satisfaction

How are they all related? Here’s how we explain it.

If you take a purely commercial view of any business relationship – and you shouldn’t – it’s all about the revenues you can generate from that relationship over the long term. I know that’s a bit mercenary but that’s how some people view things. The greatest predictor of a long-term relationship is Commitment and it’s important that you measure your clients’ commitment to you. We ask that question quite bluntly to our clients’ customers: “Are you committed to a long-term relationship with [Name of Client]?”

It turns out that the answer to this question has the highest correlation with the likelihood of the company buying from our client again in the future. The opposite is also true. A poor score is the best predictor that the customer will defect to the competition.

But remember: commitment to a long-term relationship is only the outcome of other factors. Two of the most important factors are Trust and Satisfaction. Trust is all about fairness, honesty and acting with integrity. It’s a reflection on what clients think of your brand but, more important, it’s their perception of how trustworthy your people are as well.

Satisfaction, on the other hand, is a measure of how well you meet (or exceed) a client’s expectations. It’s more transactional than Trust, and also more volatile. For example, you can be satisfied with your IT service provider today, but deeply unhappy tomorrow when the network crashes and your factories or stores can’t operate. When the IT service provider pulls out all the stops and fixes the problem in double-quick time, you’re both relieved and satisfied again. Satisfaction scores can fluctuate wildly. Trust scores? Not so much.

Trust at Serco

One of our clients that takes Trust seriously is Serco. It’s one of Serco’s four stated values: Trust, Care, Innovation and Pride.

Trust at Serco

Serco is quite clear about both what Trust is, and what it is not. Here are the behaviours it expects from its people:

  • Do what they say they will, try their best and see things through
  • Consistently provide the highest standards of customer service
  • Have a can-do, will-do attitude
  • Are open and honest
  • Communicate truthfully, clearly and concisely
  • Aim to always do the right thing and never compromise our values
  • Think through the consequences of their decisions
  • Speak out when they see something wrong
  • Understand who our customers are, listen to them and act upon their feedback
  • Challenge assumptions in an appropriate way
  • Acknowledge when they make mistakes and take responsibility for correcting them

Similarly, Serco believes Trust is not demonstrated if employees or the leadership:

  • Make promises that we cannot keep
  • Rush to provide solutions before listening to others’ needs and opinions
  • Fail to keep customers and colleagues informed
  • Are not straightforward and transparent
  • Allow disrespectful or discriminatory behaviour
  • Knowingly use Serco’s resources for personal gain
  • Break our Code of Conduct or the law
  • Falsify or misrepresent information
  • Ignore and don’t speak up when we see something wrong
  • Choose to ignore adverse criticism
  • Blame others for mistakes we have made or things we have missed
  • Shift our responsibilities to others
Why do so few companies measure Trust?

How many companies measure have identified Trust as a core company value and measure it in a systematic way? The short answer is that very few B2B companies measure Trust at all. Serco is one of the few that even identifies it publicly as a core value. Isn’t that strange? Business magazines and articles are full of ideas and tips for becoming trusted advisors. A lot of CEOs and company boards talk about “trusted relationships” with clients in their annual reports to shareholders.

Trusted Relationships

Interestingly, the same CEOs and boards talk about trusted relationships but then quote the company’s Net Promoter Score (NPS). Now don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with NPS but it’s not a measure of Trust. It’s a measure of Advocacy. Yes, the two are related but it you’re going to talk to shareholders and clients about “Trusted Relationships” or “Acting as Trusted Advisors” then you really should go and measure your performance directly.

Sometimes NPS isn’t enough. It’s a good metric – simple and easy to understand. But it’s one-dimensional. If you really want to understand how trusted a relationship you have with your clients, you need to measure Trust as well as NPS of CSat (Customer Satisfaction). As a CEO or Sales Director, you need to understand if your key clients are Ambassadors who trust you implicitly, or Wobblers and Opponents who want to get out of the relationship because levels of Trust (and Commitment and Satisfaction) are so low.

If you want to know more about measuring Trust, have a read of this blog.

Alternatively, get in touch with us today.