Net Promoter Conference Europe 2008

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Net Promoter Team

The Insider's View: What your Employees Have to Say about Recommending You (Dr. Laura Brooks)

Holcim may not be a well known company on first pass, but after hearing the facts, you will wonder why you never heard of them.  A couple of interesting things:  They’ve grown in the last 4 years from having 44,000 to over 100,000 employees.  Their strong growth, just like Symantec’s, was fueled through acquisitions plus organic growth. 

Delighting Employees, Business Partners, and Customers with a Personal Touch (Dr. Laura Brooks)

Travel Counsellors is a company comprised of 900 travel counsellors in 7 countries with 20 years of experience.  They have experienced rapid growth in a very interesting marketplace – counsellors providing travel guidance out of their home offices.  Most of the motivation in being a travel counsellor is a) being well paid, but more importantly, b) getting recognition for helping and giving their customers successful, enjoyable trips. 

Transforming Employee Behavior: An Integrated View of Loyalty (Dr. Laura Brooks)

Alexsandra Alfonso, Senior Global Manager of Customer Experience Programs at Symantec, began her session by discussing the past 3 years of tracking Net Promoter at Symantec.  What was particularly interesting was the significant amount of change and transition that has happened in Symantec as a result of merger acquisitions, the largest of which was Veritas.  Alex compared and contrasted the before and after view of what this meant by revenue, acquisitions, employee portfolio, customer locations, and values.  Throughout these major transitions, Symantec was able to keep their core company values -- innovation, action, trust, and a customer driven philosophy -- intact. 

The NPS Conference Re-Charged My Batteries - Alan Woollam

There are times during the year when convincing folk to take their first loyalty steps can seem almost as tough as trying to solve world hunger. So I was delighted to see so many companies eating well at the Net Promoter Conference in London. I was particularly encouraged to see more focus on leveraging promotors this year. Some companies get so embroiled in identifying and acting upon the root causes of detraction that they forget about leveraging their promotors. Aon highlighted major wins from referrals, saying "we are never too shy to ask for referrals." Creating communities is also a growing tactic to tap into a wealth of information promotors are only too willing to share, and they feel more valued as a result.

A Fresh Perspective: How NPS Has Shaken Up the Status Quo and Delivered Results - Q&A with Fred Reichheld - Tom Kehler

Fred Reichheld has been thinking about the link between customer loyalty and a company’s financial performance for 30 years. Somehow recently Fred has sparked a negative response from the market research community. So there you have it, a picture of Fred as the devil. Fred makes the point that Net Promoter is not intended to be the world’s best predictor of future performance. Perhaps the best predictor of future performance is superior management based on intense focus on the customer. NPS is a tool for managers to drive a customer-centered strategy. That indeed is likely to lead to improved performance in the future.

A Fresh Perspective: How NPS Has Shaken Up the Status Quo and Delivered Results - Q&A with Fred Reichheld - Deborah Eastman

Fred Reichheld began his session by tackling the debate raised by the market research community. He referred to himself as the anti-christ of market research. While all three of his books have been best sellers, The Ultimate Question has stirred up major debate in the market research arena. The biggest criticism is that it’s over simplified. It’s just one question and nothing about why? Yet, if you read the book it’s all about the why. NPS is not intended to be a superior predictive analytic; it is intended to be a management tool. 

Designing for Action - Alison Davidge

Normally, I pity the final speaker on the final day of any conference. What a tough job to keep the interest of an exhausted, data-overloaded crowd…unless, of course, it's the Net Promoter Conference and your name is Fred Reichheld! So instead, I felt sorry for the presenters in penultimate slots, well, except for my colleague, Deborah Eastman, Satmetrix's CMO. I have to confess to the fact that I believe she is one of the most engaging and inspirational presenters I have ever had the pleasure of introducing (and working with!). She often gets picked to present in the penultimate/final slot because she knows how to engage even a tired and flagging audience. And on Thursday, she did not disappoint!

Measuring What Matters - Alison Davidge

Part of my role at the conference, as well as blogging, included introducing some of my Satmetrix colleagues who were presenting on the Programme Design track. This kicked off with Henry Jones, our UK Managing Director who was focusing on who, how and what you should measure in your NPS program.

Now, I'm not going to spend a lot of words in describing the presentation itself, but instead focus on some key points that came out in questions from the audience.

Investing in Community and NPS to Drive Customer Loyalty - Tom Kehler

Kip Knight, Vice President of Marketing at eBay, spoke about Investing in Community and NPS to Drive Customer Loyalty. 248 million people are registered on eBay creating a worldwide online marketplace.  Over 1.3 million people make all or part of their living on eBay. eBay defines community as everyone who has a relationship with eBay including buyers, sellers, employees, and users of Skype to select a few examples. eBay sees community as a strategic differentiator. Members actively engaged with eBay have a higher NPS, sell more, buy more and in general are more valuable customers.

The Promises You Keep: Making NPS Operational at Every Touch Point- Lenna Mariana

Virgin Media launched their Net Promoter Program in 2007. Sean Risebrow, Director of Customer Experience at Virgin Media, is at the helm of the program, and he was at the conference to share their experiences and how they operationalised NPS the Virgin way. To date, they have collected 250,000 responses and are still actively collecting and taking actions driven by their customers’ insights.

Building Trusted Partnerships that Drive Word of Mouth - Deborah Eastman

Dr. Laura Brooks from Satmetrix discussed the importance of building trusted relationships with customers and employees and how that results in the economics of word of mouth. 

She started with recent research in high tech, financial services and telecommunication industries that showed trusted relationships had a stronger correlation to recommend scores then product or service performance. This was true of vendors with both one-off point solutions as well as broader solutions. Product innovation is not sufficient, buyers want a trusted partnership. 

Driving Customer Led Growth through SMART Executive Sponsorship - Kip Knight

I really enjoyed hearing Jana Eggers, the CEO for Spreadshirt, share her thoughts and “lessons learned” about NPS. A lot of what she shared can be applied directly to other businesses considering NPS as a key part of how they listen and respond to their customers.

One of the first things I learned during Jana’s presentation was about Spreadshirt, the company she’s managing as CEO. Spreadshirt is an internet enabled company that’s a worldwide leader for creative, personalized apparel. It was started by a grad student in 2002 in Germany and has since grown to over 250 employees. 

The Logical Choice: Generating Buy-In with Real-Word Data - Kip Knight

Glenn Rogers, Director, Customer Experience, at Logitech presented a compelling business case based on his experience at Logitech on how NPS data can be used to prioritize and guide new product development as well as help transform a product focused culture into a consumer oriented one.

As background, Logitech is one of the leading providers of computer accessories (such as keyboards, mice, webcams, etc) in addition to a growing array of other popular consumer electronic products (such as Harmony, a no-brainer remote control that works with a wide variety of DVD players, TV’s, etc). 

The Voice You Can’t Ignore: Using NPS to Deepen the Conversation with Key Business Partners - Lenna Mariana

How did an organization with a complex business arrangement that spans 4 continents, 18 countries and 110 business areas capture the voices of their key business partners? This is the story of HSBC’s Net Promoter journey shared by Dr. Halina Miglus, Head of Customer Experience for HSBC Global Resourcing.

Word of Mouth: Show Me the Money!

Word of mouth is all about the money, the rest is just conversation (pun intended).  That’s the key takeout of this roundtable on Net Promoter and word of mouth – tell me how much a recommendation is worth, and then I’ll think about doing something about it.

Back to the Future: Driving Growth in One of London's Oldest Industries

Question: Why does the insurance industry use so many acronyms?

Peter Harmer, CEO at Aon UK suggests: "Could it be that insurance professionals are inarticulate, lazy or have bad memories?"

As designed, Peter's self-posed question and response ellicited a nice ripple of laughter from the audience but if Peter is indicative of other insurance professionals then I wouldn't believe a word of it. Serious, yes, but with a dry sense of humour. Confident, yes, but with a healthy streak of humility. Focused on the customer? Absolutely!

Using NPS to Drive Global Focus - Tom Kehler

Allianz is one of the world’s largest insurance and financial services company. Their Customer Focus program is dedicated to creating a superior customer experience that maximizes customer loyalty, resulting in increased referrals, retention and cross-selling, profitable growth, and increased value for shareholders. Andrew Clayton, VP and Operations Director for Allianz, discussed their program.

Investing in Community and NPS to Drive Customer Loyalty - Alison Davidge

Having completed the first day of the conference, it certainly feels that the subject of communities is a growing concept for developing deeper relationships with customers; and a customer community perspective is a perfect partner to a more established loyalty program. Communities and the relationship with NPS were also the focus of the start to Day 2, articulated by a great speaker and veteran of the community concept, Kip Knight from eBay.

Competitive and Cross-Cultural Benchmarking - Melanie Jugdev

So, you have measured Net Promoter. It's taken time to launch globally, and now the results are out.  What are some of the first questions you get from the CEO and regional teams? Do any of these sound familiar… “Is this a good score”, “what about the competitors” and “what are the results for the other regions”?

Don't Just Identify Promoters - Activate Them - Crispin Manners

One of the strengths of Net Promoter is its simplicity. It’s incredibly easy to ask the ultimate question and to use the answers as a helpful business benchmark. But this simplicity is also its weakness if organisations don’t use it as originally designed by Fred Reichheld and Satmetrix – to be an enabler for business improvement. A lot of people I spoke to yesterday are using NPS to identify detractors and to remove the sources of detraction. This makes a lot of sense because research shows that detractors can be more influential than promoters. Indeed work at the London School of Economics shows that one negative recommendation takes up to four positive ones to counter it http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/pressAndInformationOffice/PDF/AdvocacyDrivesGrowth_5-9-05.pdf

Building a Global Community of Enthusiasts - Tom Kehler

Conny Kalcher from LEGO Company addressed the topic of growing brand ambassadors.  The name LEGO comes from Danish words that mean “play well,” and most agree that LEGO makes that a driving passion for the company as well as for the customer/consumer.  Did you know that there are 52 LEGO bricks for every person on earth? In many cultures, when the idea of creative play is discussed, LEGO enters the conversation. 

Building a Global Community of Enthusiasts - Alison Davidge

From the presentation delivered by Conny Kalcher from LEGO Company, there were a number of points made from which you could choose a key takeaway such as...working for LEGO is so cool! to the importance of understanding your customer affinity groups and how to segment them.

However, for me there was one comment that stood out from all the others Conny made: "Listening to the customer is a commitment to taking action."

Using NPS as a Lever for Organisational Change - Deborah Eastman

The second presentation of the day was delivered by Dominique Soudais who is responsible for customer experience at Orange. Orange is an international company providing fixed line, mobile and Internet services. They have 170 million customers on 5 continents.

Orange uses Net Promoter as a lever for organisational change, referring to it as the “magic KPI.”  Their goal is to help customers be more empowered and achieve more where they live, work and play.  Their strategy for growth includes investing in new technologies, such as fiber, that deliver incremental value for customers.  This strategy requires increased focus on customer experience and word of mouth.

Putting the Customer at the Helm - Deborah Eastman

Satmetrix CEO Richard Owen discussed how companies respond in tough economic times. As we face a potential recession, how much money should companies spend on improving the customer experience?

Public company accounting standards make it difficult to optimize for growth as they reward profits. Short term profits may not be good for long term success. To illustrate this point he describes two examples from the financial services area, the subprime mortgage crisis and credit card introductory rate offers. In both cases, the customer is happy during the initial period when the “special offer” is in effect. However, when the introductory rate expires, customers become disappointed and promoters become detractors impacting the long term sustainable value of acquiring that customer. 

Putting the Customer at the Helm - Alison Davidge

For many practitioners of the Net Promoter discipline, the current climate of worsening recession usually heralds a period of budget cuts or constraints that directly impact the possibilities of getting full value from their customer loyalty programs. It's often an area that people don't want to face, so it was refreshing that the opening presentation at the 2008 London Net Promoter Conference from Satmetrix CEO, Richard Owen, attacked this subject head on.

Welcome

Couldn't make it to the European Net Promoter Conference, taking place in London, April 30 - May 1, 2008? Then check out this Conference blog. Postings were made live from the conference.

For more Net Promoter learnings, check out the Miami Conference 2008 blog, European Conference 2007 blog, and New York 2007 Conference blog.

For blogger bios, click link below.

Couldn't make it to the European Net Promoter Conference, taking place in London, April 30 - May 1, 2008? Then check out this Conference blog. Postings were made live from the conference.

For more Net Promoter learnings, check out the Miami Conference 2008 blog, European Conference 2007 blog, and New York 2007 Conference blog.

For blogger bios, click link below.