From Denial to DNA: How to Operationalize Net Promoter across an Organization

For the opening session on day 2, Enrique Salem, COO of Symantec, joined Richard Owen, CEO of Satmetrix, for a candid one-on-one chat on how Symantec is using Net Promoter to measure customer loyalty, drive operational improvements, and empower employees throughout the company. When introducing Enrique, Richard noted that Symantec, a global leader in infrastructure software, is an early adopter of Net Promoter and has focused on the discipline to guide strategy through tremendous growth periods, including the largest software acquisition in history.

For Enrique and all of Symantec, creating customer loyalty is a top priority. Enrique pointed out that to be successful with Net Promoter, you must put in place the processes to drive or change internal behaviors that center on the customer. Therefore, every employee has to understand their role to deliver a great experience and increase customer loyalty.

Enrique said that Symantec takes Net Promoter and customer loyalty very seriously. At the executive level the team is very involved with Net Promoter. The CEO gets together with his leadership team to review customer loyalty metrics and look for ways to improve on the processes that drive loyalty. The leadership team continues this by meeting regularly to review the Net Promoter dashboard that monitors key customer loyalty drivers. For Enrique and Symantec, Net Promoter is not just a score, it’s about taking action across the enterprise, looking at driving behavior, and linking it to the economics of the business.

Symantec implements its Net Promoter practice on a global scale and segments across product lines and versions.  And they’ve learned some key things in the process. For worldwide implementation they segment by regions because different cultures rate loyalty scores differently. For example, in general Latin America tends to give high scores where Japan tends to give the lowest scores. To keep the results as meaningful as possible scores are looked at by region. For products, Net Promoter scores are looked at for each product release so they can see specifically how each release is doing relative to expectations.

At the end of the session Enrique said that he believes Net Promoter is a clear indicator of how the business will perform in the future because it measures long-term customer value. He also reminded the audience that to be successful you need to create a closed–loop feedback system where you listen to the voice of the customer and take action.