Book Summary: Answering the Ultimate Question

Thousands of firms across the world have implemented Net Promoter programs. Some have seen the beneficial outcomes that should come with the technique, while others have not.

What accounts for the disparity in the results?

The authors of Answering the Ultimate Question provide the answer by describing the six factors that must be present to implement Net Promoter properly.

Before moving on, you might want to brush up on Net Promoter by reading our overview of The Ultimate Question 2.0.

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Element #1: Creating Customer-Centric DNA and Driving Change

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Net Promoter is a program that forces you to alter your company practices. Without executive support and organizational alignment, no successful change initiative can thrive.

Executive Sponsorship

Without executive backing, you won't be able to make the financial investments, human resource investments, or customer-focused adjustments required to achieve significant changes.

Simply put, total buy-in from the top is necessary to guarantee that this does not become simply another to-do item to be ticked off. Don't begin until you've done so.

Organizational Alignment

It would help if you thought about reward schemes, corporate culture, and communication tactics to get the organization on board with Net Promoter.

You'll also need to create a program structure that ensures workers understand their roles and responsibilities in putting the client first.

You'll also need to know how to persuade the organization to adopt NPS. The best place to start is with financial statistics that demonstrate the program's financial worth.

Segmenting for Optimal Results

You'll need customer segmentation data for the software to operate.

Consumer segmentation in B2C firms generally focuses on customer behaviors, such as the frequency and recency of purchases and demographics. You could concentrate on account size, account type, location, or business unit in B2B firms, as well as specific client attributes such as work role or purchasing impact.

Because you can't please all of your consumers all of the time, pick segments where your business will gain the most from improved loyalty.

Remember, you're searching for clients that generate a lot of revenue, as well as customers who are both lucrative and loyal.

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Element #2: Develop an Enterprise Roadmap

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Like any other change endeavor, NPS programs that aren't implemented with a well-defined plan generally die a slow and painful death.

Here are some key aspects that your strategy must address to be effective.

Planning for Different Types of Change

Business improvements may be divided into two categories: operational and structural.

Operational improvements are quick wins that are found and handled quickly, generally including tactical possibilities to improve the customer experience at the point of contact.

Customer loyalty is generally increased one customer at a time through operational improvements.

Longer-term structural improvements may have a more substantial influence on consumer loyalty.

Because these enhancements generally necessitate modifications to the product, business model, or services, they take longer, demand more cross-functional participation, and require more resources.

A plan for both should be included in your NPS program.

There are two sorts of surveys you'll utilize to drive these improvements, just as there are two types of changes you may expect on your NPS journey.

Relationship versus Transactional Survey Processes

Transactional surveys are used to track an event that involves direct consumer contact, such as a support call.

Relationship measurements capture the entire impression of your company and aren't tied to any one contact. They are usually gathered regularly.

Your relationship NPS should be based on your NPS ratings in your most significant transactions.

The Customer Corridor

Understanding the lifetime of your client and the touchpoints your firm has with them is essential when considering how to increase your NPS rankings. So, sketch out the complete client journey.

You must figure out which touchpoints influence the entire customer experience, which ones have the most impact on loyalty, and which ones should be handled in what order.

Phased versus Big Bang Approach

Finally, it would be best if you determined how the software will be launched.

Programs have been effectively rolled out throughout an entire company in phases over time and all at once. The bulk of cases, however, appear to favor the phased approach.

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Element #3: Build Trustworthy Data

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Because of low data quality, many NPS initiatives fail.

When data is acquired to ensure it is an accurate and dependable reflection of your consumers' opinions and actions, it is considered trustworthy.

The Right Customers

You need to measure the appropriate consumers to get reliable statistics. Your sampling techniques should place a premium on incorporating feedback from your most valuable clients - "voice according to value."

The Right Questions

Your main survey question will be determined by your loyalty metric (NPS or otherwise). But what else should you inquire about? If you have to add more questions, make sure they:

• offer consumers and workers with valuable, actionable data on problems that are important to them;
• provide a positive experience for both consumers and staff;
• ensure that every potential responder interprets survey questions in the same way;
• succeed in ensuring that survey questions generate a correct response; and
• deliver a steady stream of replies over time

Determining the Right Time to Measure

The ideal time to collect information on individual transactional events is just after they happen.

The optimum time to gather relationship experience is after or before a customer experience point, such that no one experience point skews the findings in one direction or the other.

Element #4: Identify Root Causes

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The Operating Model relies heavily on data analysis to uncover the fundamental reasons for consumer behavior.

Employees may address the actual and meaningful loyalty drivers for their consumers by using a combination of analysis tools to uncover fundamental reasons.

To understand loyalty drivers, there are two ways: stated driver analysis and inferential driver analysis.

Root cause interviews and comment classification are the core of stated driver analysis.

Correlation analysis and associated statistical approaches like regression and relative effect analysis focus on inferential driver analysis.

Root Cause Interviews—the Five Whys

To be successful in root cause interviews, several components must be incorporated into the procedure.

• Train the interviewer. They need to be familiar with the technique.
• Before you begin the interview, ask for permission.
• Double-check that the client's problem has been resolved.
• Set a time limit.
• Schedule internal team meetings to talk about the problems and possible solutions.
• Find a means to inform your consumers about the activities you've done in response to their comments.

Comment Analysis and Categorization

The most popular approach for structuring open-ended comments is to aggregate them and then group them by subject. Then, look at the relative frequency of different themes to see which could be significant loyalty drivers.

Assigning internal teams to read what consumers say is an excellent old-fashioned approach to investigate these remarks.

Inferential Driver Analysis

Beyond the open-ended comment, several organizations employ additional diagnostic inquiries. They include a wide range of topics, including reputation, value, and ease of doing business.

You may use statistical approaches to deduce, based on aggregated customer ratings rather than assertions, which parts of the customer experience drive overall customer loyalty when these questions are posed in the survey.

And suppose you have a mechanism in place for gathering Promoters for a chat about your business (either online or offline). In that case, you're well on your way to figuring out exactly what you need to do to generate Promoters and increase your score.

Element 5: Drive Action and Accountability

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It's not enough to calculate your NPS score and do a root cause analysis; you also need to put what you've learned into practice.

In a Net Promoter program, a closed-loop approach is a crucial difference. It's the procedure for bringing employees and consumers together in a direct manner.

It's critical to finish the loop with every client, and your workers at all levels must be accountable for doing so.

The most desirable qualities discovered in the finest software are balanced with practical implementation in an effective closed-loop procedure.

The following are the key points of a closed-loop system:

1. The consumer completes a survey.
2. Based on business rules, a follow-up alert is created. Depending on your program's architecture, the alert may be event-driven or planned.
3. A follow-up owner contacts the consumer.
4. The problem has been recorded and will either be addressed or escalated.
5. To acquire any learning, the result is tracked.

Here are the sections where you can succeed in closing the loop:

1. Speed. Customers are anticipating your response from the time they offer comments. To have an effective Net Promoter campaign, you must be able to respond rapidly.
2. Coverage. If a consumer takes the time to provide feedback, they are entitled to an answer. A simple thank you note at the end of the survey is a fine start, but you should also indicate what steps you'll take in response to their comments. One-on-one visits at the customer's workplace to broad-based communications via e-mail or newsletter are all examples of follow-up.
3. Analyze the source of the problem. As we discussed in the last section, following up is a wonderful way to get to the heart of the problem.
4. Take the first step. In an ideal world, the follow-up owner would fix the customer's concerns during the initial discussion, but you could be OK with simply beginning a response. "We hear you and understand your worries," for example, may suffice.
5. Governance. The closed-loop procedure needs monitoring to guarantee that those who must act do so quickly and appropriately.

Element 6: Innovation and Transformation

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A Net Promoter program's objective is to alter the company's culture as well as the marketplace.

Net Promoter Leaders experience product innovation and improvements through an iterative process of listening to consumer input and making enhancements.

They employ more complex tools for strategic planning, overall go-to-market tactics, product strategy, and customer concretion of goods, services, and business processes, such as Net Promoter segmentation, community input, and root cause probing.

The capacity to make the appropriate strategic decisions and nurture innovations that eventually increase your market position is the reward of a successful Net Promoter program. The benefits of greater Net Promoter implementation become a competitive advantage at this point.

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