We were also supported by Satmetrix, another early collaborator in the development of NPS metrics and tools, in creating public conferences. The conferences have taken place twice a year, one in the United States and one in Europe, and in the first few years attracted more than 3,200 managers. In addition, we developed a three-day certification course, which at this writing has already been taught around the world and has graduated more than 1,000 executives. The course is now available online.
Participating in these forums, conferences, and training programs helped me understand the evolution of NPS from score to system and beyond. Indeed, one of the fundamental lessons that these practitioners have learned is that the power of NPS extends far beyond the theme implied by the original book title. The score provided a starting point, but it is the system that has helped leaders create cultures that inspire employees to become more customer focused.
The ultimate question of the book’s title was the “how likely is it that you would recommend” question mentioned earlier. That phrasing was a shorthand wording of a more basic question, which is, Have we treated you right, in a manner that is worthy of your loyalty? The shorthand form seemed to work best for most businesses—that is, it produced a score that correlated reliably with customer behaviors—though some companies found that slightly different wordings worked even better. But the question itself wasn’t really the heart of things. After all, no company can expect to increase its growth or profitability merely by conducting surveys, however the question or questions might be phrased.
Rather, the question has led to the development of a management system with three central components. One is categorizing customers into promoters, passives, and detractors through a simple survey. Another is creating an easy-to-understand score based on that categorization. Those are the elements that produce the Net Promoter score. But then comes a third essential component: framing progress and success in these terms, thereby motivating everyone in the organization to take the actions required to produce more promoters and fewer detractors—in other words, systematically and regularly learning to use scores and related feedback to drive improvements. That’s how a company can better its results and strive toward greatness. That’s what turns NPS from a score into a system.
Because so many noteworthy companies have adopted the Net Promoter system, awareness of the term has grown to the point where this revised and expanded version can finally include the words Net Promoter in the title. The core ideas in the original book remain valid, but with five years of experience, we can now position and characterize them more accurately. Since this edition also contains so much second-generation material and insights, we decided to call it The Ultimate Question 2.0: How Net Promoter Companies Thrive in a Customer-Driven World.
What You’ll Find in This Book
What will you find in this revised and expanded version of The Ultimate Question?
Part I of the book describes the fundamental idea. It begins with the depressing proliferation of customer-unfriendly practices and the “bad profits” they generate. It relates the origin of NPS and describes in detail what our research showed. It also explains and quantifies the logical connection between NPS and a company’s growth. This connection is becoming even more relevant and immediate as Web-based communication tools proliferate. Customers get real-time access to information about company practices and performance and so have moved ever more firmly into the driver’s seat. Part I also looks at some of the practicalities of measuring customer attitudes. It tells the inspiring story of Enterprise Rent-A-Car, developer of the system I used as the initial model for NPS, and it outlines the rules for timely, accurate, and reliable measurement of something as slippery as how customers feel.
Part II—nearly all of it new in this edition—focuses on how leaders have achieved remarkable successes with the Net Promoter system. It recounts some of the best practices of leading companies and summarizes the key lessons. It highlights the fundamental changes these leaders had to make in order to drive the cultural shift toward building an army of promoters. Just as a movie trailer hits the highlights of a film, I will preview some of those lessons here.
NPS is a flexible, adaptable, open-source system. There’s as little orthodoxy as possible in the system. Most companies have found that the zero-to-ten scale works best, but it’s not the only one possible. (Enterprise uses a one-to-five scale.) Most companies prefer the “how likely” question the way I phrased it here, but some find a different question works better. Plenty of companies have unique names for their system. Schwab calls it Client Promoter Score. Thermo Fisher Scientific calls it Customer Loyalty Score. Chick-fil-A uses the phrase Raving Fan Index.
But there are three fundamental elements that you can’t do without. Flexible