Net Promoter Score - Is that the ONE Number you need to Know?

Unless we're in a churn and burn business, customer retention is critical to achieve long term profitability. But how do we know what drives customer retention? We may have lots of anecdotal data, but can we be scientific to identify those customers are very likely to return and to give good word of mouth?  Dr. Fred Van Bennekom of the Northeastern University's Executive MBA Program, joins us shed some light on those questions!

Recently, several key metrics have arisen to measure customer sentiment. The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is the best known, but the Customer Effort Score (CES) is a new entrant in the field. Both are controversial. In this first presentation of two we will discuss NPS. Specifically, we will look at the research basis behind NPS and ask whether there are other metrics that might better indicate a loyal customer. Or, perhaps more importantly, might identify a customer in need of some service recovery event to move them toward loyalty.

Dr. Fred Van Bennekom founded Great Brook to help organizations collect and apply customer and employee feedback. Great Brook conducts workshops on survey practices along with advising clients on their surveying practices. Fred authored Customer Surveying: A Guidebook for Service Managers and he teaches operations management in Northeastern University’s Executive MBA program. He served as an information systems consultant for Digital Equipment’s field service organization before earning his doctorate.