Keeping Score: What Net Promoter Tells Us

Each year, I learn the most about our clients, and our company, by asking our clients to answer 6-7 simple questions. It’s called Net Promoter™ – and it’s a survey that identifies how likely (on a scale of 0 to 10) our clients are to recommend us. But more interesting than whether we score a 9 or 10 is what our clients’ tell us – both in why they’re scoring us a certain way, and the one thing we can do to improve.

In the five years we’ve been using Net Promoter, we’ve seen our scores go up. This year, they went down, which is a huge disappointment. We can reason it away, of course, but the truth is, after three years of enormous gains, we had a reversal.

When you’re small, like we are, two or three low scores can swing the numbers, and one really bad one can kill you. That’s what happened to us. One client thought we got off to a slow start; happily, we fixed that, and are on track for a stronger partnership in 2012. Another client just wasn’t happy, largely because we couldn’t deliver enough business press, and after nearly three years, we’re no longer working with them.

It’s uncanny: Get a score of less than 6, and the odds of continuing to work with a ‘detractor’ are next to nil. The bright side, though, is that this survey-driven feedback is the ideal door-opener to a really important conversation. In fact, the follow-on conversations are critical. Even the most vocal detractors want you to improve – often because they chose you in the first place, and sometimes, because changing PR partners is too big of an investment. If you get honest, listen carefully, commit to change, and deliver on it…they become promoters. Really.

We have certainly found a tight correlation in growth, too: Our promoters consistently recommend us, and are indirectly responsible for a significant amount of new business. That’s exactly what companies like GE, Amazon, Apple, EBay, and Cisco find, and why they’ve made Net Promoter a core element of their culture, and presumably, executive compensation. Those of us who have Net Promoter scores much higher than our competition – we outgrow them by 4:1, and earn the right to a much larger share of our clients’ spending, too.

We’ll continue to survey our clients every year, and our employees, too. This year, our employees are happier than ever. Next year, we’ll aim for both to grow – because even a 10 doesn’t last forever if you don’t stay committed to earning it.