Why And How To Make Measuring Count

By David Henzel, co-founder of TaskDrive—we support sales and marketing teams with personalized lead research and outbound campaigns.

It’s Business 101 that measuring helps you improve, which is why consistently tracking and making adjustments accordingly is one of the most vital factors for running a successful operation. Any business leader will also know how important it is to keep customers and employees happy. However, it may seem challenging to take the time out of daily operations to ask them how they feel your services stand. But knowing how successful you are in both of these areas is key to keeping your finger on the pulse and continually improving.

That’s where the net promoter score (NPS) and employer net promoter score (ENPS) come in. Both tools let you easily measure customer satisfaction and employee loyalty by asking one simple question: “Would you recommend us to a friend?” This is the basis for the NPS and ENPS system pioneered by Fred Reichheld of Bain & Co. and discussed in the book The Ultimate Question 2.0: How Net Promoter Companies Thrive in a Customer-Driven World.

Why Customer Centricity Is The Way

Being customer-centric and positioning customers to succeed rather than solely making a sale is always the driving force in my companies. The NPS method is an easy way to measure customer centricity and to improve upon services as well as invent new products and ways to better serve people based on the results. This effective way of measuring how successful operations are allows for constant improvement of customer service and the products offered. The bottom line is to provide the best value you can to people; it is better to find out what the customer actually needs and provide them with it rather than just giving the customer what you think they want. The ability to constantly measure and check in with customers and employees, which the NPS method provides, can serve as a strategic road map for advancing in a customer-centric direction.

How The Net Promoter Score Method Works

For both NPS and ENPS, the single simple question companies ask to measure the satisfaction and loyalty of customers and employees is “How likely is it that you would recommend this company to a friend or colleague?” Participants are then asked to choose a number from 0 to 10 in response. The number a respondent chooses determines what category they fall into. Those who choose a score between 9 and 10 are promoters, passives are people who scored you between a 7 and an 8, and anyone who scored you lower is a detractor. Surveys can also ask the question “Why?” to allow participants to further elaborate on their reasoning behind the score they gave.

While the net promoter score measures customer satisfaction and thus is a tool customers can use to rate products and employees’ success, it can also allow a company to create new products based on customer feedback. They can use the results to improve the customer experience by further training and rewarding outstanding employees. The employer net promoter score focuses on employee engagement and retention by serving as a valuable tool to better understand workplace dynamics, improve organizational communication and develop your employees’ skills in order to create a strong corporate culture. I’ve found that the system improves communication and transparency and creates a culture of continuous improvement within the company.

In practice, you can ask customers to fill out an NPS survey after every support request. An example of a way the data can be applied would be to understand who the top support agents are in your company and have them train the agents with lower ratings. With ENPS, companies can use the results to identify areas of the employee experience that are particularly strong or weak—and then work to improve or enhance those areas. For example, if a company has a high ENPS score, it may indicate that employees are generally satisfied with their job and the company as a whole, yet if the ENPS score is low, it may indicate that there are issues with the employee experience that need to be addressed. As they say, “happy employees make happy customers.” This is why measuring the two metrics of customer satisfaction and employee loyalty is just so important. That said, of course, these two metrics should also go hand in hand with measuring vitals such as leads and monthly recurring revenue.

Getting Any Job Done By Measuring

I am a firm believer that measuring is the way to improve whatever you want in any area of your life. If you want to lose weight, you need to know what you weigh to begin with so that you can measure your progress. I tend to measure everything from how often I work out to how frequently I hit “inbox zero” and how many hours of quality time I spend with my family. These are just some of the areas I want to constantly be on top of, and the only way I can conceive of doing that is by measuring, adjusting and advancing accordingly.