Net Promoter Conference Miami 2008

Nurturing Customers by Living the Golden Rule

Four Seasons: Impeccable. Deluxe. Personal. In Touch.

Those are words that loyal guests use on a regular basis to describe the Four Seasons. All hotels experience glitches. The water gets turned off, the fire alarm accidentally goes off at 2:00 am, light bulbs burn out, shower curtains fall down. At Four Seasons, they are crazy devoted to glitches. Employees report each and every one and they are rigorously monitored to make sure they are resolved in a timely manner. Ahhhh... sounds lovely. 

Deborah Carlisle, Manager of Marketing Planning for 74 Four Seasons in 31 countries, has the best job. She sells experience. By listening to their loyal customers they are able to distinguish themselves among a very competitive market. Hotels are always in danger of becoming a commodity. Websites like Hotels.com perpetuate that. The Ritz Carlton, Hotel Intercontinental, and Four Seasons are all within $100 in their price range for a standard room. Word-of-mouth among the high end business traveler is especially valuable. And Four Seasons gets that.

Integrating VOC and NPS: Making Sense of One Million Customer Responses - Laurie Weisberg

In this session by John Griggs, Director of Customer Experience for H&R Block's Digital Tax Solutions Group, we learned that in July 2006, Net Promoter Score was mandated throughout business.

John opened up with the question: Why is Voice of the Customer (VOC) important? Consumers have many choices, so it's really important to understand what customers want. H&R Block believe it's not just about the score, it's also about finding out what's behind the score. They wanted to find out if customers were vested in their product and if they were willing to have a conversation with them. After all, he stated, its your chance to impress them and their perspective is better than yours.

Focusing Employees on Member Wow – Emilia Brad

How do you grow at double the rate of your industry with a $0 Marketing spend? Diana Dykstra, CEO of the San Francisco Fire Credit Union, shared her story of driving growth through a focus on customer loyalty and employee engagement. 

Boosting Return on Ad Spend and Consumer Engagement - Colin Brogan

Lee Boykoff, Director, Digital Media Analytics and Distribution for A&E Television Networks shared an exciting presentation on their experience identifying promoters, engaging them in the content development process, and incorporating NPS into powerful segmentation that targets specific influencers with one to one marketing efforts to amplify marketing spend and jumpstart Word of Mouth.

Focusing Employees on Member Wow - Denise Wymore

It’s not just a noise a dog might make, it’s a consumer ranking website of everything you’d find in your local yellow pages. In San Francisco, if you search for credit unions, you will find San Francisco Fire Credit Union’s loyal members. They are the highest rated financial institution in one of the noisiest markets in the US. This is not a ranking you can buy, you have to earn it. Every single day.

Diana Dykstra is the CEO of San Francisco Fire Credit Union and a self-proclaimed Net Promoter Score zealot. She HATES satisfaction surveys. Why? Because when she took over as CEO, her credit union had a 98% satisfaction rate. But she knew, just from interacting with employees and members that they were not “delighted.”

Building a Net Promoter Program Brick by Brick - Laurie Weisberg

In the session by Marina Hannaford, Consumer Insights Manager for LEGO, we learned the Net Promoter Score (NPS) fits with the core of LEGO, including the company's philosophy of focusing on consumer experience from top down and their “only the best is good enough” motto. The the goal is to produce only the best to ensure positive Word of Mouth (WOM) and lifelong loyalty.

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.

Investing in Customer Communities to Drive Loyalty - Aisling Hassell

Kip Knight, VP of Marketing at eBay, talked about how eBay built an online community and how they are using NPS. eBay started in 1995 and now has 248 million subscribers from 37 countries around the world. It is now "The World’s Online Marketplace." About 1.3M people make part or all of their living off eBay. eBay thinks of community as anyone who has a relationship with eBay Inc. Community is core to eBay. It is a strategic differentiator, a unique asset to eBay, builds loyalty and retention, and community members are more valuable.

Designing For Action - Paul Pakalnietis

Deb Eastman, Chief Marketing Officer of Satmetrix, covered how managers can design a Net Promoter Score (NPS) program for action Friday afternoon. The well attended session included B to B and B to C Net Promoter practitioners from a wide variety of industries, including Financial Services, Business Advisory Services, and Telecommunications. In her ebullient style, Deb captured the attention of this audience, focusing on the topic of driving action at all levels within an organization.

Driving Investments in NPS Improvements with a "Lean Six Sigma" Approach - Aisling Hassell

Vivian Blade, a Master Black Belt, shared her experiences in using NPS to drive loyalty at GE. Jeff Immelt, GE’s CEO, is driving NPS from the top down. It makes life a lot easier in terms of driving the program. A viable business needs organic growth …and NPS supports this by showing if you are growing your base of loyal customers. GE thinks of NPS and Lean Six Sigma complementary to driving growth.

NPS works across B2C and B2B as well as to provide product and process insights. Key point…NPS is not about managing the score…it IS about how we improve customers’ experiences. GE uses a simple framework for listening, acting and measuring in order to drive growth.