If you don’t cannibalize yourself, someone else will. – Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs believed cannibalizing your own company was a necessary business practice. Jobs used cannibalizing to offer Apple customer with a better product and greater customer experience. In business today, fear of decreasing sales often limits organizational leaders from adding products or services designed to enhance the customer experience.
Luckily, we live in a world of technology, giving organizations of any size the ability to track the customer's perception of quality experiences using KPIs. There are 2 KPIs you can use to improve the quality aspect of the customers experiences: Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) and Net Promoter Score (NPS).
1. Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) measures how well an organizations products or services are meeting the needs and expectations of the customers. Organizations need to develop a ranking system, so clients can express their satisfaction. Suggested rankings are “very satisfied”, “satisfied”, “neutral”, “dissatisfied”, and “very dissatisfied”. After establishing a ranking system, use it to calculate satisfaction with products, services, departments and more. A Customer Satisfaction Survey uses the ranking system. Inexpensive programs such as Survey Monkey, create and send the survey to the clients. After receiving the feedback from clients, the survey is tracked and weighted. Recommended weights are 0 percent for very dissatisfied, 25 percent for dissatisfied, 50 percent for neutral, 75 percent for satisfied, and 100 percent for very satisfied. Compare your organization’s CSI to the national average by reviewing the ACSI (American Customer Satisfaction Index). ACSI gives the national average for each industry and company.
2. Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures the loyalty between an organization and consumer. The most common question asked is “How likely is it that you would recommend our company/product/service to a friend or colleague?” Recommended scale is 0 to 10. Clients are then put into 3 categories based upon their response: “Promoters (9 or 10)” encourage friends and keep purchasing from the company. “Passives (7 or 8)” are satisfied but not loyal and are capable of being wooed by competitors. And “Detractors (0 to 6)” are the unhappy customers. Calculate the NPS by subtracting the percentage of promoters from the percentage of detractors.
Leaders of all organizations need to wake up and realize customer perception is important. Color outside the lines today by measuring and refining the customers experience with your organization.