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What if your customer loyalty score is telling you only half the story? In this Doing Customer Experience Right revival, host Stacy Sherman and Rob Markey, Bain & Company partner and Net Promoter System (NPS) pioneer, explore how NPS has evolved from a simple score to a comprehensive system. You’ll learn actionable strategies to boost loyalty and employee engagement while tackling common NPS pitfalls. Whether you’re new to customer experience (CX) or a seasoned pro, this deep dive offers fresh insights into using customer feedback to drive growth and strengthen company culture.
Customer Experience Questions & Answers To Boost Business Results
Q: When should a company use a customer effort metric instead of NPS, and when is a survey not needed at all?
A: Customer effort measurement is most useful at specific interactions where reducing difficulty is the primary goal and where the company cannot easily observe customer behavior through its own data. Logging into a website or navigating a checkout process are examples where effort is the barrier, and a survey helps identify whether customers are having difficulty. However, companies frequently ask customers for information the company already holds. If customers are attempting to log in multiple times before succeeding, the company’s web server records show that directly. If customers are abandoning an online application two thirds of the way through, the drop-off point is visible in the platform data. In those situations, surveying customers to confirm what the data already shows adds burden to the customer without adding information to the company. The standard Rob Markey outlined is straightforward: only ask a customer how effortful something was when you have no other way of knowing.
Q: Why should senior executives, not only frontline supervisors, make follow-up calls to customers in a Net Promoter System?
A: When only frontline supervisors make follow-up calls, the customer feedback loop stays close to the point of service and does not reach the people in the organization who make decisions about pricing, policy, product design, or operations. When any people manager across the organization, including senior executives, takes one or two follow-up calls per week, those managers hear directly from customers about what is working and what is not. This creates two results. First, it gives senior leaders accurate, firsthand information about the customer experience rather than information filtered through layers of reporting. Second, it gives those leaders a specific, customer-grounded reason to recognize frontline employees by name for the behaviors customers praised, or to have a precise coaching conversation about the gaps customers identified. Generic praise does not change employee behavior in a lasting way. Specific feedback tied directly to what a named customer said does.
About Rob Markey
Has been called “the Vince Lombardi of customer loyalty.” He founded Bain & Company’s Customer Strategy & Marketing practice. Based in the firm’s New York office, and has been with Bain for over 30 years.
Best known as the co-author of The Ultimate Question 2.0, Rob has led many of the world’s most dramatic customer experience transformations. He publishes a popular podcast about customer experience and leadership, and his articles appear regularly in the Harvard Business Review as well as other publications.
Rob’s most recent work focuses on helping large companies measure, manage, and grow the value of their customer relationships. His January 2020 article, “Are You Undervaluing Your Customers,” has helped elevate customer lifetime value to its rightful place in the boardroom. His advocacy for stronger rules for customer metrics disclosure led to projects by FASB and other accounting governance bodies.
He also leads the NPS Loyalty Forum, and is a regular keynote speaker at large conferences and corporate events.
Read more articles about NPS and measuring customer satisfaction
About Stacy Sherman: Founder of Doing CX Right℠
An award-winning certified marketing and customer experience (CX) corporate executive, speaker, author, and podcaster, known for Doing CX Right℠. She created a Heart & Science℠ framework that accelerates customer loyalty, referrals, and revenue, fueled by engaged employees and customer service representatives. Stacy’s been in the trenches improving experiences as a brand differentiator for 20+ years, working at companies of all sizes and industries, like Liveops, Schindler elevator, Verizon, Martha Steward Craft, AT&T++. Stacy is on a mission to help people DOING, not just TALKING about CX, so real human connections & happiness exist. Continue reading bio >here.
