Net Promoter Score vs. Customer Effort Score

ZANNA VAN DER AA, MIND THEM@ MINDTHEMNL


Around 2007/2008 I noticed that the Net Promoter Score (NPS) has now become a good hype. Virtually all organizations who took part in my research asked me: do you know the NPS score? Could you also can take in your research? It is now 2012 and the NPS management and Board level in many organizations seeped through. That in itself is good (and finally support for the customer at the highest level), but the NPS has not been superseded by the Customer Effort Score (CES)? In this blog an attempt to both metrics in perspective. 

 Predicting loyalty
Research was already clear that customer satisfaction is a poor predictor of loyalty. There was a need for another metric. The NPS, in 2003, invented by Frederick Reichheld, showed a much stronger predictor when it comes to loyalty and many organizations, it started working. But now we are 9 years on and there is also much criticism of the NPS (see eg, disadvantages below). From a search for the impact of customer service on customer loyalty, has recently created a new metric, the Customer Effort Score (how much difficulty have you personally need to do ...). This metric appears to be a better predictor of loyalty than the NPS.

Sources:Customer Contact Council andHarvard Business Review 

End in itself
What I notice most is that the NPS has become an end in itself seems. It is for many organizations to become KPIs for management. And what I see happening is that periodically measured what the NPS score, but that they really do not know what to do to improve the NPS. And it would still have to deal. No metric is an end in itself. The crux is that you know what "buttons" when it comes to improving the service, so you can realize maximum returns. 

CES application
When I look at concrete improvement actions and the difficulty companies have mainly to continuously improve their service, then I am inclined at this moment to prefer the Customer Effort Score. You can draw each client process in this way to evaluate how much trouble you personally took to answer your question, to becoming a customer, an offer to receive a complaint, to product x to purchase; to change your information, etc. But this is true, that the primary concern is to know what matters now determine that the customer experience as easy. You're not only by this question, but you must identify the drivers.
NPS of CES?

I think a combination of both metrics at this time is best. The NPS metric as total extent to which all customers are willing to recommend your organization. And not so much the calculated final grade, but rather the distribution over the 0-10 scale. The NPS in the sense may be regarded as a result of a good CES score. As you work on optimal CES score for all of your client processes and therefore you actually also going to work with all improvements, ultimately increases your total NPS score for your organization.

Soon the pros and cons at a glance:

NET PROMOTER SCORE

BENEFITS The metric has breathed new life into board level to measure the customer experience. For customer satisfaction it was not hot; It is very easy to explain, because it is a practical question; You can use it as a metric to measure overall organizational level.

DISADVANTAGES The score varies greatly measurement (Q1 Q2 -18 and +10 to -3 to score again in Q3); It is a calculated score: an NPS of -10 promoters may be 40%, 10% and 50% Passives detractors, but may also be promoters 1%, 88% and 11% Passives detractors. These are substantially different results, while the final score is identical. You should be a body so very well understand how the NPS works you want to be able to work well.

CUSTOMER EFFORT SCORE
BENEFITS It would be less volatile than the NPS score; It is not a calculated variable, just a 5-point scale; It is applicable to all client processes in your organization; So you can very specifically with improvements to work per client process; It is a better predictor of loyalty than NPS.	DISADVANTAGES You can not total organization level 1 customer effort score measure (unless you go means, but that is a very difficult story in terms of weighting).

Source : Marketingfacts Jan 2012