Paul Simon sang there's 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.
Andrew Chen writes there's 25 Reasons Users Stop Using Your Service.
I'm not sure what it says about...life, love and romance... that there are twice as many reasons to leave your lover as there are reasons your customers stop loving you....but the song is a clever singalong and the post is excellent for understanding where are the breakdown points in their relationship with you.
One company listens, generates passionate word-of-mouth, more referrals, is a success.
One company...what...is deaf to not only their customers, but their own experiences...and they're closed.
From Brad Shorr, Word Sell, Inc. a Tale of Two Companies.
The best customer-loyalty metric is the Net Promoter Score. Fred Reichheld, its creator, asks if your NPS, or Net Promoter Scores, should drive your compensation.
I'm in the pro camp, obviously, especially with Net Promoter Score. Of course.
( Ultimately, every business uses customer loyalty to drive compensation. Really? Without customer loyalty, returning customers with repeat purchases, your business is either a ponzi-scam, an investment scam or out of business before you can reply to this post if you've even had time to read this post. )
Building on customer loyalty is the only foundation for a sustainable business. Your business grows to the extent you build on customer loyalty. NPS is one of the most, if not the most, accurate means to measure customer loyalty in a way that everyone in a company, from CFO's to customer service reps, can understand. So, yes, NPS should drive compensation.
The big concerns of the con camp Mr. Reichheld shares seems centered around the fear that employees would game the system. They would manipulate it somehow. Brow beat customers, beg 'em for a high score, threaten retribution unless...
If that's the concern, then it's not the fault of the Net Promoter Score's implementation. NPS won't change the corporate culture from one of trust and openness, to one of deceit and manipulation. If you have a corporate culture where gaming the system is a standard procedure...that's the issue, not the system you use to score customer loyalty. And for those who worry about employees gaming the system...I'd encourage you to look at the source of that fear and ask yourself why you think that or why your employees would be motivated for that.
Here's some notes from my BlogTalk Radio show with Jackie Huba from The Swom and Church of the Customer.
• Word-of-mouth vs word-of-mouth marketing. Word-of-mouth is a strategy; word-of-mouth marketing is a tactic. The first is a mission; the 2nd is an after-thought.
• DNA. Word of mouth is generated from the DNA of a company, when they give a reason or inspire their customers to talk about them, to volunteer to be their loyal sales force.
• Kudos to the person asking it. That's what Jackie answered when I asked her what’s so important about the Net Promoter Score from the Ultimate Question Survey. Ok, now what. You've found out the customer will/won't recommend you. Now what?
Exactly. Kudos to the person daring to ask a customer their opinion. Neither one of us are being facetious. Jackie pointed out so many companies are scared to even talk to their customers, so let’s give kudos to the person asking it. That’s such a huge step. And once taken, you can’t really go back to ignoring the customer.
• Badge of Courage. Employees at Enterprise Rental wear their Net Promoter Score as a badge at company events. That shows how important it is. It’s measured and celebrated and heroes are made from that score. Heroes and careers.
• Customer Service is pro-active now. Using examples from Salesforce.com and their use of Yahoo Pipes (link and link) and comcastcares at Twitter and Dell’s Ideastorm and blog response team, she points out that companies (the smart ones) are pro-actively seeking customer experience opportunities by engaging the customers where the customers live on social media.
• 4400 Tweets. Frank Aliason at Comcast began using Twitter (comcastcares ) to reach out to their customers. In less than 3 months he’s posted about 4400 tweets to Comcast customers in response to their needs for service. That’s roughly over 1500 per month direct responses. Happy customers tend to tell 3-5 people about their experience. Now, multiply that message spread rate by the power of Twitter. And multiply it again by proactively reaching out to solve their issues before they become a dell hell-like firestorm.
• We are not an airline with great customer service. We are a great customer service organization that happens to be in the airline businessWe’re a customer service organization who just happens to fly airlines. - Colleen Barrett, CEO of Southwest Airlines. Church of the Customer Link
• Social networks’ growth comes from niche-markets, niche or specialized communities. Ning has over 250,000 communities. The most popular are very niche-oriented: firefighters, Lisa Nova (youtube), alumna, scrapbook makers.
• Employee Engagement Comes First. Dell built an EmployeeStorm internal community site to enlist their employees in creating solutions and understanding the need to reach out to their customers with the Ideastorm site. Very smart. See 2nd point about corporate DNA and its role in creating word-of-mouth.
• TheSWOM. Their current project. 835 members, great conversations from the members, great solutions for generating word-of-mouth from the members. And these solutions are happening nearly every day. And it's free. And it's helpful. Get over there. Become a member.
Thanks, Jackie.
What if everyone in your company handled customer service calls? What if everyone one in your company handled their calls and complaints and requests for help? What if their results, including email text, was shared with everyone else in the company?
Me thinks there would be alignment between customers and the company, employees and the customers, company and the employees. A fairly seamless alignment, in fact.
Ok. That feels good. Alignment...
I bet this feels even better for the company, Kayak.com, that actually does it. Their revenues are on track for $140 million this year. In 2005 they posted $3 million in revenues.
"We fix customer problems in real-time," [their CEO] says. "Paying an engineer to do that for 20 minutes is cheaper than outsourcing the problem." - Link
Yes. Yes it is.
And a lot better for growth, too.
the city attorney sues you for causing major havoc and distress and says in the complaint that your service was so intermittent and inferior in quality that it was not much better than no service at all.
( That's a body shot. OH! )
LA's city attorney, City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo, plans to sue Time-Warner Cable in a 25-page lawsuit, claiming the company violated its franchise agreement with the city by having subscribers spend hours on hold with customer service representatives and allowing excessive repair work delays.
(I wish he was my city attorney. That sounds pretty standard for MediaCom. They once refused to pull their cable off the sidewalk for 3 days, even when the police called them. That's why we have DirectTV, now. )
Conversation. Conversion. Cash-flow.
Conversations > Conversions > Cash-flow
Change. It might be the 4th C.
Change in conversation (quality or quantity) > Change in Conversions > Change in Cash-flow.
You can't control the conversation. You can influence it. You can feed it material.
You use your cash to do that. You can commit cash to create a product, an experience, a company, a day-to-day experience, that will fuel an inspiring conversation.
Change in uses of cash > Change in conversation> Change in conversions > Change in Cash-flow.
Or you cannot.
Either way, the cycle is perpetual.
Conversations > Conversions > Cash-flow...> Conversations > Conversions > Cash-flow...
The Three-C's of Word-of-Mouth.
UPDATE: Angela's not able to do the show. She's on the way to the hospital. Not life-threatening, but it needs her attention. We'll reschedule. You can leave your get well wishes here or on her blog at Angela Maiers.
My weekly BlogTalk Radio show has a special guest this morning: Angela Maiers
Angela has a passion for creating engaged teachers and creating an engaged learning environment. And THAT's the foundation for our future: engaged teachers creating engaged students.
And not just for our school years, but for life. Her vision is we create a habit, a lifestyle for learning. And more than vision, she has skills and programs that will bring her mission to life for many.
And, she's grown her business solely through Word-of-mouth.
I'm looking forward to our talk, this morning.
Our conversation is live at 9:30 AM, Central time, here in the US. You can listen streaming at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/zane-safrit.
And you can call in and ask questions at:
US: 646-915-9212
Code: 19978#.
And a link will be up later so you can listen at another time in streaming mode.
Begging your customers never work.
Bribing your customers never work.
Paying...them...to...use...your...product...each n' every time...isn't...a customer-acquisition plan. It's just the noise you create to muffle your death rattle from the ears of your customers and employees.
That's not my quote.
Leopard Dog wrote that comment at TechCrunch's debate over Microsoft's decision to pay users of its search engine. It's a great quote.
And he's right. The noise of the announcement and the ensuing hype and debate at TechCrunch is just that: mere noise to hide the death rattle of Microsoft.
Microsoft? You're one of the world's largest companies, with one of the largest collections of smart people. The market is $16 billion and will double by 2010. You currently have 9.1% of this market and you're losing even that small slice.
And you've engaged your corporate brain trust, incentivized them with an understanding of this opportunity...and this is what is spit out. We'll pay our customers to use our product....!
Microsoft, let me suggest another idea. Here's Seth Godin talking to your competitor, Google. Listen to his description of Google's plan. It's complicated. But it's boiled down to this: Google gave their audience something worth talking about. And they did it...for free.
It's had some success.
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