Answering the Ultimate Question

Fred Reichheld's 2006 book The Ultimate Question, that question being, "How likely is it that you would recommend this company to a friend or colleague?"-challenged the conventional wisdom of customer satisfaction programs. It coined the terms 'bad profits' and 'good profits' and pointed to a faster, much more accurate way of gauging customers' real loyalty to a company, introducing a quantitative measure (the Net Promoter Score) for establishing a baseline and effectively tracking changes going forward. Richard Owen and Laura Brooks are co-developers, along with Reichheld, of the methodology behind answering the question. In this book, Owen and Brooks tell how based on a variety of real case studies' to actually embed Net Promoter discipline in organizations of all types.

Introduction ix 1 Net Promoter Fundamentals and Operating Model 1 A Net Promoter Primer 1 Why Traditional Approaches Fail 3 Net Promoter: Key Tenets 10 The Net Promoter Operating Model 17 Putting It Together: Implementing the Operating Model 23 2 Using Customer Economics and Segmentation to Maximize Loyalty 25 Quest for Customer Intimacy 26 Segmenting for Optimal Results 27 Calculating Return on Promoters 34 Estimating the Impact of Word of Mouth 44 Conclusion 56 3 Driving Change: Instill Customer-Centric DNA 57 Why Discuss Change Management? 57 Aligning the Organization 61 Getting Senior Leadership Committed 62 Getting the Front Line Aligned 66 Goal Setting in the Context of Change Management 71 Program Governance Model 77 Conclusion 88 4 Designing an Enterprise Roadmap 89 Customer Solutions 90 Relationship Versus Transactional Survey Processes 94 The Customer Corridor and Its Touch Points 97 Employee Solutions 103 Phased Versus Big Bang Approach 109 Sequencing Your Roadmap 111 Conclusion 118 5 Building Trustworthy Data 119 What is Trustworthy Data? 120 Creating the Strategy: Three Key Elements 121 The Right Customers: Measuring Who Matters 122 The Right Question: Choosing the Right Metric 128 The Right Questions: Fitting Survey Strategy to the Business 131 Determining the Right Time to Measure 143 Other Considerations 149 Conclusion 159 6 Determining the Root Cause of Promoters and Detractors 161 Common Analytical Approaches 162 Stated Driver Analysis 162 Inferential Driver Analysis 178 Comparison of the Tools 187 Conclusion 189 7 The Closed-Loop Process 191 Defining Closed-Loop Excellence 192 Action at All Levels 202 Closing the Loop at the Front Line 204 Case Study: BearingPoint Closes the Loop at the Account Level 214 Closing the Loop at the Management Level 218 Closing the Loop at the Executive Level 223 Accountability at All Three Levels 226 Conclusion 228 8 Setting Realistic Targets and Improvement Strategies 229 Relative Performance 229 Cultural Differences 234 Compensation 241 Improvement Time Frames and Rhythm 247 The Methodology for Setting Targets 248 Conclusion 250 9 Innovation Drives Transformation 253 Technology Enables Transformation 254 Operational Improvements and Innovation 258 Developing Brand-Focused Communities 264 Identifying NetWorked Promoters 274 Conclusion 281 Resources: Interviews Conducted 283 References 291 Acknowledgments 295 The Authors 297 Index 299