Is your business model based around great customer service? If so, do you measure how good your service is, and whether it is improving? If not, then Net Promoter Score might be the tool that makes all the difference to your business. We chat with Dominic Monkhouse, who has used net promoter score to transform service delivery in a number of different organisations.


Net Promoter Score
Dominic lives near Salisbury and works with a company called Shirlaws Group, helps companies between £2 and £12m growth fund or exit. His background is IT services. He is a sales and marketer. His secret sauce in his career was staff engagement and customer experience, he has experience in:

Hiring the best people;
How do you keep the best people?
How do you engage them?

Then, how does that manifest itself to produce great customer experience? Then, how do they buy more stuff off you and tell everybody about you.

Net Promoter Score with Dominic Monkhouse
So what is Net Promoter Score or NPS?
We should note that NPS now stands for NET PROMOTER SYSTEM – it’s not all about the score. Net promoter score originates with a Fred Reichheld article in Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2003/12/the-one-number-you-need-to-grow

Net promoter score gives a very simple measure of customer satisfaction.

ONE QUESTION: Would you recommend The Next 100 Days Podcast to a friend or colleague?

This question is scored on a 1 -10 scale

9-10:                        are satisfied enough to recommend you. - these are promoters

7-8:                           are neutral, they won’t act, they won’t hurt you, but they won’t recommend you.

6 and below            are detractors, they are likely to get away from you, and potentially are customer terrorists and may well tell everybody that you are rubbish.

Add up the number of people who give you a 9 or 10, then take away those who gave you 6 and below. 7-8 are neutral. That gives you the NET PROMOTER SCORE

NET PROMOTER SCORE =  # Promoters - # Detractors

Ideally you are looking for a positive score. Most organisations will have a single digit net promoter score. A world class net promoter score will be is in the 80s.
Ask a supplementary question: Why did you give that score?
Once your customers have provided their score, you would follow them up and ask them WHY they gave that score today. This gives free text thinking help to understand how customers are thinking about your business.

You can measure across touchpoints in an organisation. Finance team sending bills etc. CEO could have a relationship score. Its not just about the external customer, many teams serve internal customers so its a great way of measuring performance of e.g. an IT help desk.

There is often a 10-20% difference between a transaction and relationship score.
Is this an easy thing for someone to set up?
At one level, it is simple. Send an email. Get replies. But Dom advises you to build a system around this. SAAS platforms are available. https://www.livechatinc.com/blog/what-is-net-promoter-score/

Transaction score of 4, you’d want to call and say that’s terrible how can we alter what we do in future to get you to a 9?
Tips and tricks.

Make the first communication about NPS from you as the CEO. This is important to me. If at any time you have a problem, this is my email address, this is my telephone number – give me a call. (in 20 years, Dom has done that, and only 5 people called him out of hours).
It’s not a department thing. It’s a company thing.
After the results come in, send them feedback and tell them what you have done. So many surveys don’t let people know the results of the survey.

Net promoter score and driving more referrals
Dom’s experience is that 9s and 10s SPEND MORE MONEY. A 9 and 10, they ring them up and say who have you referred us to? I haven’t, they’ll give you a name or two and you have business development ammunition.

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