April 19, 2017
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a powerful tool for companies because it measures customer experience in one simple metric.
It asks one question: “How likely is it that you would recommend us to a friend or colleague?” Scores range from 1 to 10, with 10 being the best score possible.
Companies with a good NPS achieve more sales and profits. While a company's internal NPS is not typically shared, research organizations have conducted and published external NPS surveys. Other organizations have evolved the concept of NPS to create their own customer experience rankings.
Here are 3 companies that have used the concept of NPS to drive their success.
Enterprise Rent-A-Car
Enterprise Rent-A-Car is a global car rental brand, and is a major part of Enterprise Holdings Inc. Their car rental enterprise is rapidly growing, and they reported earning $24 billion, and opening a milestone 10,000th location in 2018.
Enterprise uses a variation of NPS, called ESQi, which they implemented back in the 1990s. Interestingly, it was the use of ESQi that inspired the creation of NPS. ESQi asked two questions that are very similar to the NPS question.
- How would you rate your last Enterprise experience?
- Would you rent from Enterprise again?
Enterprise uses ESQi in all their evaluations and will not promote location managers unless their ESQi scores are in the top 50%.
Since implementing ESQi, Enterprise has become the largest rental car company in the United States, and has left competitors in the dust.
Apple
Apple was founded on having quality products, but they didn’t have a retail presence. Some argue that the introduction of their retail stores was to improve their customer service via the Genius bar (help desk), rather than sell more products.
This has allowed Apple to increase their NPS from 57 to 72 since 2007. Apple uses NPS to gauge how effectively each of their 500+ stores are performing. Store managers personally call each detractor – someone who gave a 6 or less on the NPS survey. Research showed that each detractor who was successfully contacted could bring in on average an additional $1,000 in business within a year.
By using NPS, Apple has been able to change disgruntled consumers into loyal customers.
USAA
USAA is an insurance holding company that was started by military veterans who were unable to get insurance from traditional carriers. All three of USAA's business groups have been top performers in NPS rankings for the past decade.
The company is holistically focused on the needs of the customer – both addressing current needs and anticipating future needs.
They also strive to ensure employees feel valued, too.
USAA has an "Innovation Community for Enterprise" which encourages employees to submit ideas to improve the company. Last year, 94% of the employees submitted over 10,000 ideas and a record-breaking 1,206 initiatives were launched. USAA revenue for 2016 was $27B, a 42% increase over the past 5 years. In 2017, they reported $30.02B.
Conclusion
These companies were already customer-service oriented before the implementation of a NPS-metric and founded on servicing targeted markets. As they expanded into new markets, the NPS metric and variations on the concept have helped them maintain a quality customer experience.
In addition to consistently evaluating customer feedback, you must also follow consumer trends. Check out our Consumer Behavior research to learn what customers expect from you.
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