Once you know your “Promoters,” the goal should be to bring them into the fold of your business. Think of this group of zealots as your internal advisors and the most important marketing arm of your company.
If they truly do “love” you…their words will mean much more to other perspective customers than any declaration you can make about how good you are.
But how do you achieve this? Please don’t think this is about turning to them to get quotes and case studies about how great you are. Naturally this is something you might do with a few, but this action isn’t what strengthens the relationship.
There are three things that will help to engender a strong, lasting bond with this group of customers who should be considered a most valuable asset of your company—to be nurtured and cared for.
- Involvement
Consider your “Promoters” as the most important, credible source of feedback for the development of new products, improvement of services and for prioritizing where to spend your resources and time.Bring them in for design sessions. Reach out to them and ask their opinion. Establish an advisory group. Have executives call several each quarter to have the voices of this very important group in your ear.
Involve them in meetings and presentations when it is appropriate to give their side of the story about how it is to work with you. It is always important to keep this genuine, not to make it smack of promotion or self-interest.
- Genuine Recognition
Let “Promoters” know you are aware of their devotion to your products and services. And thank them, profusely, acknowledging how important they are to you.When products come out, give “Promoters” an early-bird chance to receive them. Give them special features just for them. Involve them in the beta testing process and then gift the final product to them.
Create special touches for them, such as a special hotline or service center. When you put on events, perhaps there’s a reception for them. You get the picture.
Human nature prevails in relationships born from commerce, just as in our personal relationships. And genuine recognition will never fail you.
But please put the time into making this recognition personalized. An impersonal “blast” letter or email will have little impact. - Communication
Engage in the lively debate and conversation with “Promoters” that is usually reserved for close acquaintances and family.These are people who are actively engaged and involved in your products and services and will likely respond with passion and commitment.
Perhaps there is a blog site that is open only to them where you toss out ideas and questions and issues and ask for their feedback. Or establish webinar forums for these discussions. The options are endless.
When new products and services are in the pipeline, let them know. And be a zealot about telling these “Promoters” when you have made some changes that they have recommended, or solve a problem they were passionate about having resolved.
By first knowing who your “Promoters” are, and then returning the favor of their passion and commitment to you with these actions, your bond with them will continue to grow. These customers who are so passionate about your brand, your company and services should not be taken for granted. Now that you know who they are, do something about it!
Jeanne
Your posting raises some interesting points which I believe need answering.
1. Are Net Promoters the Best Sources of Feedback?
You suggest that Net Promoters are the best source of feedback about how well you are doing, what other things you should be doing and so forth. Most of the work on lead-users, such as that of von Hippel, does not suggest that there is a strong relatoinship between being a customer advocate and having particularly useful insights. The best ideas often come from customers who are pushing your products way beyond what they were originally intended for. Hardly a reason to promote a product to others. And Christensen warns us that following customer advocates too slavishly often leads to expensive feature-creep and opens the way for disruptive innovations from outside the company.
2. Should You Treat Net Promoters as Special Customers?
Whilst it is part of our human makeup to want to treat people who like us (and our products in this case) in special ways, this is not always a wise move. I agree that you want to thank them for their custom, but the decision to treat then consistently better than other customers should be based upon economic analysis, not their Net Promoter score. There is ample evidence that it is often the customers who are neither the best nor the worst, but those in the middle with significant growth potential, who offer the biggest returns on customer management investments. That probably means focussing initially on the Passives or the high-score Detractors rather than on the Net Promoters.
3. Should Net Promoters Receive Special Communications?
You suggest that Net Promoters should receive special communications so that they can pass them on to others. The implication is that being Net Promoters makes them better connected, better informed and better influencers than other customers. Most of the work on social influence, such as that of Watts, Barabisi and Newman, does not find any relationship between being a customer advocate and being more influential. And Kumar in recent research finds only a weak relationship between intention to recommend and actual recommendation; only 30% who intended to recommend actually did so in two studies with financial services and telecoms customers.
The Net Promoter score is a great idea in principle that is all too easy to mis-apply in practice. Significant econometric analysis is required before we will really know whether Net Promoters are really worth all the extra attention they are getting at the moment.
Graham Hill
Independent CRM Consultant
Interim CRM Manager