Like the desire to measure brand impact, the need to measure customer satisfaction has always been present in businesses – after all, 91% of customers will not buy a product from a business they’ve had a bad experience with in the past. But while many measurement tools have vied for the attention of the C-suite – surveys, customer satisfaction, customer effort score – one tool has cut through and now forms the basis of many business’s KPIs – Net Promoter Score (NPS).
Existing proprietary brand measurement systems
When looking at the NPS tool alongside the various brand measurement tools marketers currently have at their disposal, is it any wonder we struggle to engage the C-suite around the ROI a brand delivers?
Where NPS is simple to understand, the layers of complexity that sit inside these brand tools make it challenging for even the most advanced marketer to decipher.
Why NPS works in a business context
1) It measures what CEOs are most interested in knowing – how likely a customer is to recommend your offer can directly be tied to the future income of a business. NPS asks this explicitly.
2) It elicits a high rate of response – the robustness of the data is critical if you are looking to draw out quality insights. NPS is clearly expressed and takes seconds for customers to complete.
3) It is easily understood by everyone – the simplicity of the tool means that everyone, from the board to staff in a customer service role, understands the expectations placed on them, and so feels ownership over their ability to impact the result.
4) It allows a business to be proactive – NPS collects results immediately after an interaction has occurred. This means that a detractor can be addressed before its effects can be felt at the bottom line level.
5) It is easily integrated into existing processes – its integration into CX, marketing and sales processes mean that multiple areas of the business buy in to the impact they can have on the experience a customer has.
What can we learn from NPS?
Net Promoter Score (NPS) has been very successful in pushing customer experience to the top of CEOs’ priority lists. So what can marketers learn from NPS in a world where they are increasingly faced with the need to demonstrate a clear return on any investment made in brand?
If brand is to be taken seriously at a C-suite level, the impact of brand needs to be supported by compelling data.
This data needs to be collected via a model that:
• is universally accepted;
• measures what the C-suite is engaged by; and
• is simple to complete, implement and de-code.
Only then will brand make its way to the top of the C-suite agenda.
