Improving Public Service with NPS

Many would cringe at the thought of going to a government department. It is because of the lousy customer service they expect to receive when they are there. The customer service in almost any government departments is far from desired. In a study by McKinsey in 2016, found customer service in government offices, both state and federal levels had the lowest customer satisfaction when compared to all other industries. Such findings should not come as a surprise to most of us as many would have perceived poor customer service in government departments, even if you have never visited such offices. 

What gets measured gets done!

But not really in a government department. Though the leadership of a public service department wants to improve customer service, they often fail in their well-intended initiatives because they tend to take a simplistic solution to a deeply rooted problem ingrained for a very long time. Due to the hierarchical structure in government departments, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) often face difficulties in creating clear ownership, resulting in poor accountability to drive and improve the KPIs. For example, to improve customer service, the government would usually implement a customer satisfaction survey program. Such programs are often poorly designed and badly executed that it is very susceptible to gaming, resulting in un-reliable survey results to drive any meaningful actions.

Also, improvement initiatives centered around customer service are difficult to implement in public service because often, it is not the lack of skills or knowledge among the employees that results in a poor customer service outcome. Government employees get good and regular training on improving customer service and productivity, but the skills learned in the training is usually not put to use at the workplace. Employees lack the interest and drive to provide better customer service because there is no clear accountability in improving customer service in government offices.

What gets measured and DISPLAYED, gets done!

Suppose every government office has an automated process of seeking your satisfaction rating using the Netpromoter System (NPS) and asking just two questions upon completing your transaction.

Question 1: On a scale of zero to ten, how likely are you to recommend your friend or family to engage the service with this government office?

Question 2: Tell us why you give us the above rating?

 And your rating is displayed in real-time on a big TV screen where everyone in that office can see. Imagine the immediate behavioral change this will have on the employees handling their customers. We should be able to see a marked improvement in customer service because now their action will directly impact the survey rating that is transparent. To avoid the gaming of the customer survey, the office where its results are displayed should not have a hand in the execution of the survey and the display of the survey results. A truly independent office should be accountable in managing an unbiased NPS survey for all government offices and display the results to the appropriate office without any interference or influence from anyone.

Employees will try to be more courteous in their interaction with their customers and that act in itself is half the battle won in improving public service. While such actions may be sound superficial in the beginning and not sustainable in the long run, the transparent improvement in the NPS score will motivate other employees within a government office to also take accountability in improving interaction with their customers by proactively taking small improvement actions. With the easy to understand NPS results, management of that office can supplement these small actions by individual employees with more structured actions such as specific training to improve the employees’ skills in customer service. 

In addition, these results could be rolled up at department or state level and monitored by government performance improvement bodies in real-time for horizontal improvement initiatives. The results could also be displayed at headquarters where the government senior leaders could view. When this happens, every employee and their supervisors on the ground will take serious efforts to improve their NPS score and will consciously create a positive experience on every customer they serve.

Netpromoter System (NPS) is a groundbreaking Customer Experience tool used by many companies, big and small across the world. The system was first coined by Frederick Reichheld of Bain in 2003. It is based on asking one question that is – On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend a service or product to a family or friend. Customer quantitative feedback can be collated into three distinct groups. Those who rate 9 and 10 are promoters, 7 and 8 are passives while those who rate 6 and below are detractors. The NPS score is the percentage of promoters minus percentage of detractors which means the score would have a range of -100 to +100.

Greatness!

You must check the post  written by Fred Reichheld, the creator of NPS on the recent announcement of Apple Inc. for making the historical $1 trillion in market cap. This is a huge achievement of a company by any measure! However, market cap or any other financial metrics are at best a lagging indicator which is a result due to something remarkably done by a company. Apple continue to be the leader in NPS on many fronts which strongly indicates that the company is touching many people's life, resulting in a positive experience. Such consistent positive experiences makes people feel good and that usually convert to continued purchase, widely known as customer retention. Hopeful to see more companies such as Apple make history in creating true value to its customers that makes a company Great!

Uber and Netpromoter

Uber is gaining traction fast across the globe. This is yet again another example of how the advancement of technology have made it possible for a provider to connect with a consumer DIRECTLY. Uber, a ride sharing platform allows a rider who is the consumer to connect with a uber drive who is the provider. It facilitates a seamless process in connecting between the rider and driver and takes a commission out of this service.

What is intriguing is it is a self regulated user experience system where rider and driver get to rate each other after every completed ride. Uber demands a minimum average rating level for its drivers and riders failing which, they will be taken out of the system. Such rating has ensured that the service quality is maintained not just by the provider that is the driver, but also by the consumer.

The reliability of the platform via smartphone apps is excellent that has made more and more individuals getting into this system. So how is this related to Netpromoter? We know netpromoter discipline is about understanding customers satisfaction level and expand the proportion of happy customers versus the not so happy ones. The happy customers will continue to use the service and bring more of their friends to use the service.

And Uber is just doing that! With its reliable apps and self regulated service quality level, the happy riders continue to increase their share of wallet on Uber versus conventional Taxi service and by word of mouth, bringing more of their friends to be part of the Uber family. Similarly on the driver end, they find the system to be reliable with prompt and consistent payment for the services rendered, drivers spend more time on providing rides and bring more of their friends to be drivers of this system.

While there are some regulatory issue in each country that appear to be hindering this revolution, ultimately in a consumer driven world today, I am sure Uber is here to say!

Suggestion Box!

We find suggestion box in many places asking for feedback. These boxes are located in areas customers could easily spot them and hopeful that they will throw in, of course their feedback.

The last time I helped a client open up the Pandora box, we found everything but feedback. Thus I conclude it is either mistaken as a dustbin or people are just too fed up that nothing happens with their feedback.

When customers lack the confidence that feedback is acted upon quickly and thoroughly, they will stay away from investing their valuable time on such task. This reminds me of a Tamil movie that I watched not so long ago. This is about a young news reporter who was challenged by the incumbent Chief Minister (CM) of Tamilnadu, a state in India, to take over his (CM) job. Obviously he took the challenge and won through public polls.

One of his immediate key initiatives after taking over as the CM office was to place suggestion boxes all over the state. He assured the people that every feedback would be reviewed and acted upon promptly. He explained that only when these boxes become empty over time, he could claim success in managing the country well.  And that is because people don’t have any issues to report to him anymore as that is a sign that the administration of the state is managed well. He appointed a team of trusted comrades to collect these feedbacks from all over the state and review them thoroughly.

Of course this movie is not short of all the melodramatic actions and love songs. But it points out an important message across. When the top management commits to an initiative, employees and customers tend to demonstrate a behaviour that truly support such initiatives. The managers need to walk the talk by first communicating their commitment to an initiative clearly. Next, they must be able to act on issues raised through initiatives. The actions must be firm and effective in making the change.

Back to the suggestion boxes, when companies put up such initiatives, how sincere are they in such initiatives? How much do they care about such feedback? What process have they established in managing those feedbacks? Many a time we see a severe lacking in the companies to be motivated in hearing from their customers or prospects.

Some companies put it up as a part of the ISO9000 requirement to solicit feedback from customers. Today most companies acquiring such standards (ISO) are as nothing more than to have a certification emblem on all their products, letter heads, envelope, name cards and so on. Therefore one can imagine the kind of importance such feedback have on these companies.

Similar suggestion box are now available electronically on some high tech companies, but the effect is still the same. My mobile operator uses an electronic tablet on each helpdesk counters. The display on the tablet asks a simple question: “Are you satisfied with our service?” with a radial button of “Yes” and “No”. I observed many customers don’t bother participating to that question. I even saw an agent flipped the tablet and clicked on her own. It only goes to say how much the company emphasizes on improving their customer service!

In conclusion, when a company is not serious in improving through customer feedback, don’t bother asking them – it is enormously counterproductive and many times degrade their reputation.

Satya Narayanan

BAD Profits

The basics – Bad Profits

By now, most of you following this blog would have known what NPS or net promoter is. To refresh, it is based on one question – on a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend my company, my service or my product to you friend or a colleague? Customers rating 9 to 10 are Promoters while the ratings of zero through 6 are Detractors. NPS is % Promoters minus % Detractors.

While thousands of companies have jumped the bandwagon to try the latest and the greatest initiatives like NPS, sadly not many have truly benefitted the real value of implementing the system. Many companies are merely measuring NPS and do nothing about it. NPS is a management gauge to tell how a company is doing. It is like a speedometer that tells the speed of your vehicle and as the driver you will need to act if you want to change that speed.

When understood well, management will be able to identify key drivers that affect the loyalty of customers and develop plans to improve that. Additionally for quick learning and recovery, companies need to use the dynamic customer feedback to coach the front line employees and take this as an opportunity to engage customer that is disgruntled.

The other less known benefit of NPS, perhaps the fuel to generate more promoters and lesser detractors is in a company with NPS implemented effectively identifies and eliminate “bad profits”.  Bad profits are gained by extracting value from a customer. Profits that are acquired unethically but by legal means such as contract fine-prints, long term and confusing contracts that traps customers are bad profits. In short, whenever customer feels they are coerced, misled or cheated, the product is a bad profit.

Bad profits create more detractors who diminish the value of a company by increasing the cost of serving them such as complains, false claims and generate negative word of mouth that increases the acquisition cost of new customers. Some of the examples of bad profits are exorbitant late payment charges, unbelievable hotel phone or internet charges, (extra) baggage charges and trapping customers on long term contract with poor service.

On the other hand, “good profits” are profits delivered by creating value to customers. These are profits that made by making customers feel good and they would want to come back again, on their own. Many profits are usually good profits where a fee is paid in an exchange of a product or a service. The issue is when companies take advantage of customer by over-charging, dubiously add extra fee to mislead customer.

Though it is not possible to know what composition of a profit is good profit and bad profit from the accounting system, it is not difficult to know them. The guiding principle to know the difference between the good and bad profit is the Golden Rule – Treat others as you would want them to treat you. Use your conscience to ask if you would want someone do what you are doing to your customer. If your answer is a resounding “no”, then you would want to eliminate such fee or task, gradually if not immediately.

Can you identify “bad profits” in your organization?

Satya Narayanan

Loyal Customer ... do anyone care?

101 of Netprmoter video

This four minute video will be able to provide you with a clear and concise explanation of the not very well understood Netpromoter. Rob did a wonderful job in explaining this clearly. He explains how the NPS is measured using the one question and followed by a diagnosis on the score as well.