Folks can argue that if they want, but you simply do not expect the same level of customer service at McDonalds, a fast food chain as you do at Mortons, a high end steakhouse. The problem with focusing on increased Customer Service is, irrespective of your product price point, folks always expect a little more “service” than your product offering is designed to deliver. Trying to out service your competitors is a race to eroding profits. I am not suggesting that a company only deliver minimal customer service, but am pointing out there are differences.

However, companies that shift their thinking toward Enhancing the Customers Experience should have a much easier time, and really speaks to shifts in your behavior to align with your brand. This was an epiphany moment for us at Urbane, as once we started behaving, consistent with our Brand, things became much easier and more clear, all of which centered around Enhancing the Residents Experience at each of the touch points throughout the resident life cycle.

Ciao Eric

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Great Question. More and more companies are trying to understand their social media data in the context of Net Promoter. The fact is data collected through a Net Promoter program and social media data work hand in hand. Let me elaborate.

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is captured through a survey response from a customer or partner, this is solicited feedback and the wording of the question is consistent providing a standardized measurement. We recommend that the respondent data be maintained and companies build closed loop processes to follow-up with high value customers, address issues, mobilize Promoters, perform root cause analysis, etc. In this case you know who the customer is and you have a standardize way of properly identify Promoters, Passives and Detractors. The data captured also allows us to address both operational (1:1) and structural (1:many) issues that impact the customer experience.

Social media data on the other hand is unsolicited feedback. Often you don’t know if the person is a customer, and if so, whether they represent a high value customer segment. You can close the loop, address issues and turn Detractors into Passives or Promoters, however you can’t systematically categorize them into Promoters, Passives and Detractors since there is no structured way to ask a consistent question such as, “how likely are you to recommend”. While you can address individual issues using this approach, business processes and technology are needed to capture common themes that must be addressed from a structural prospective, limiting your impact to individual issues (1:1), rather than root cause (1:many). However, social media gives you a broad prospective on the conversation happening around you and how word of mouth is translated in the market.

So, the ideal strategy is both. Collect solicited feedback at critical touch points, monitor the social media conversation, build closed loop processes and as a result you will see high Net Promoter Scores resulting in improved retention, repurchase and referral.

Hope that helps.

Deborah Eastman
CMO,Satmetrix

It’s the name of the game:) Great article, worth waiting for.

Thanks for the great post. It would be interesting to know whether NetPromoter can integrate with social media tools and other forms of customer feedback? Nowadays, seems like there is a lot of reliance on social media for measuring customer experience. I think it would be valuable to incorporate feedback from all mediums.

Planning to write a post about NetPromoter Score on noHold’s Blog. Our customers use our tool to help achieve a better NPS.

Best Regards,

Francesco