- Many successful leaders establish an overall measure
of customer satisfaction to gauge progress.
I concur that's a wise move, but it's important to do so
with some cautions in mind.
Let's turn to that topic here.
There are three common survey methods you can choose from
when establishing an overall customer satisfaction score
including customer satisfaction, Net Promoter Score,
and customer effort.
The idea is to have an easy way for anyone to see
how things are going.
To use a sports metaphor, the actions that your team takes
represents what's happening on the field.
The metric provides the score.
Surveys that measure customer satisfaction, or CSAT,
as it's often abbreviated, are one common approach.
They're based on variations of the question
how satisfied are you?
Or how would you rate your experience?
CSAT's not a measure of customer loyalty,
which is what we'd really love to know.
In fact, only behavior can truly gauge loyalty.
But a big advantage of CSAT is that it's so common
you may already have years' worth of data
that serves as a baseline.
Net Promoter Score is another popular approach
and it's based on the survey question,
how likely is it that you will recommend us to others?
Input is provided on a 10 point scale,
with 10 being very likely to recommend.
In calculating the score, nines and 10s
are considered to be promoters,
sevens and eights are neutral,
and sixes and below are detractors.
The overall Net Promoter Score expresses an absolute number
between minus 100 and plus 100
which is the difference between the percentage
of promoters and detractors.
So let's say you have 75% promoters and 20% detractors.
The Net Promoter Score would be 55.
Net Promoter Scores above zero are considered good.
I love to see scores above 50 which are excellent.
Nordstrom, Apple, and USAA all had scores higher than 60
in one recent comparison.
In fact in one study, Tesla recently came in at over 90.
It probably doesn't hurt that the founder and CEO
keeps a sleeping bag in the customer service area
just in case issues come up.
Since Net Promoter Score is based
on well defined methodology,
you can readily benchmark results with others.
Customer effort is emerging as an alternative to CSAT
and Net Promoter Score.
Research shows it to be a great predictor of loyalty.
Scores are based on the question
how easy was it to resolve the issue?
Responses are captured generally on a seven point scale
with seven being very easy.
An advantage of customer effort is that it's based
on a characteristic of service that's important to all of us
as customers, was it easy?
And that's probably why it's so strongly tied to loyalty.
Let me offer three cautions when using any
of these alternatives as a metric.
First, measures of customer satisfaction don't have
much value unless you know what's driving them,
so they're best viewed along with other measures.
Lyft, for example, provides drivers with a weekly summary
of overall passenger ratings as well as scores and feedback
in four detailed areas that make sense for them,
navigation, safety, cleanliness, and friendliness.
Second, ensure that overall scores are not the only things
senior executives look at.
Be sure to also follow customer behavior.
Do they continue to buy?
Do they try new products?
What are they saying about you in social channels?
Customers weren't dissatisfied with Kodak
when they stopped buying film for their cameras.
They just moved to digital alternatives
which ironically Kodak did help to invent.
Finally, if your organization does a great job
of preventing problems, customer service will be handling
only the most difficult issues.
Scores on service can actually go down,
and you need to know that, hey, that reflects
our most difficult challenges.
It's important to understand the sample behind the score.
The right leadership approach is so important here.
You're not trying to produce scores.
That's not the end game.
You want results.
You can really bring metrics to life when you use them
to help make real improvements.