The Sound of Silence: Part 1 - Detecting the Signs

Many of our customers ask me how they should treat non-respondents from their customer experience management (CEM) solutions. I call this the sound of silence. But how do you identify if that silence is meaningful to your business?

In the research world we often refer to this phenomenon as non-response bias. Some researchers have reported that people who respond to surveys answer questions differently than people who do not. All that is well and good, but we need to dive a little deeper. Classifying people in the business world (particularly within B2B businesses) as respondents vs. non-respondents is not quite granular enough because different types of individuals have different roles to play within your sales process. Clearly, Net Promoter Scores help you gauge your success and ultimately drive growth for your firm. But before you can make sense of the difference between Promoters and Detractors, you need to know who’s who and what type of influence they have on your business.

To understand why this is so important, I’d like to suggest a scenario, in three easy steps.