NPS: the magic predictor of company performance. Apple’s is high and they are rich. It follows then that you want to be high too, right?

Actually, yes.

if you actually employ good UX techniques; user study and UX design to change the experience of detractors then you very likely have made an actual change in the way you and your customers view and work with each other

When NPS data is gathered well, it really is almost a magic number and the reason is because it links strongly to customer emotion. We can measure client retention with high objectivity. But that may not say anything about customer satisfaction with the business. Government services are a perfect example. In the US people of a certain age (mine) will know immediately what I mean when I bring up the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). We all had to go there to get a driver’s license and occasionally to renew it or to transfer ownership when buying or selling a car. It SUCKED. But it had a 100% monopoly and so enjoyed 100% customer retention. OK, they were government but the case still applies. Where I live now there is an internet provider which enjoys a more or less monopoly if you happen to want real broadband. I was a client for years for this reason alone. Their customers service is terrible. Finally I had had enough, I switched and I swore “Never again!”. The customer service of my new provider was passable, but the basic service was crap. So I switched again and then once more. Now with teeth grinding and blood pressure rising I am preparing to go back to the hated one. By most objective measures they would look great. I was a client for years, I left to try the competition and after trying a couple alternatives, returned. But the reality is that I am not happy about it one bit. And the only measure I know of that can capture that is NPS because I will never recommend them. And if I had any reasonable choice I would NOT go back.

So, if you are in a profitable business and for some reason enjoy a total lack of competition then NPS might be unimportant to your bottom line. For the rest of us it’s key for one simple reason. I most businesses, if it’s profitable for one player it’s probably profitable for more very similar ones. They compete on price until the basic service or product becomes a commodity and what’s left is the experience they create. You could say that mature industry is populated by Experience Providers funding their competing experiences buy peddling some commodity or another.

User Experience is best seen as the formal discipline of studying and designing customers (potential and actual) emotional reactions, experiences. “Experience Design is the craft of turning a casual visitor into a happy repeat, recommending customer.” If the recommending customer is the goal the goal, NPS is the measurement used to judge success and UX, the method used to do it (and to improve the doing itself). For instance, I love measuring the NPS when the numbers are expected to be good. It’s great to hear happy clients talk about it when our servicing makes them feel so good. But it’s really important to find and talk to the most vehement detractors (like I wish my internet provider would) and learn what it would take to turn them into promoters. Then actually do it if at all possible. What happens next is interesting. On one hand it looks a bit like opening a spreadsheet to the centerfold and pretending it’s reality. But it really IS reality as long as you do it for real, take the lessons to heart, then do it again and again with as many clients as possible.

Here’s how it works:

Let’s say you have 10 responses from your NPS research: 2, 1, 4, 6, 3, 10, 8, 9, 3 & 2. Your NPS is -50 - a horrible score (how to calculate NPS). Now take the 2 and make it a 10. Our NPS is now -30. With the lesson learned, let’s say in the following month you shift 4 more from Detractors to Promoters. Your new NPS is a very nice +67 (Apple is consistently over +70). If all you have done is play with your numbers it really is just a sort of numerical masturbation leaving messy spreadsheets. But if you actually employ good UX techniques; user study and UX design to change the experience of those people then you very likely have made an actual change in the way you and your customers view and work with each other - and the number of actual recommendations you will enjoy from them in the future.

Sure, the example oversimplifies many things. You’re probably not going to change half of your respondents from Ds to Ps so simply. That takes a major effort, genuine executive commitment, risks (some of which will fail and will be called “learning experiences” thereafter), and probably a couple years to do. It probably will take fanatical focus on the NPS and simultaneously an ability to reach into every client interaction from the most seemingly trivial to the strategic. But most of all, in my completely unbiased view as a UX evangelist and NPS nut, strong UX understanding, methodology, and people. Otherwise you're probably just playing alone between those spreadsheets.

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