Listen BEFORE Your Customers Broadcast Their Voice

There are many ways to measure what your customers are saying about you. Particularly with channels such as Twitter and tools such as Google Alerts, it is very easy to eavesdrop or find out what has been said about a given search term, such as your brand.

But both of these track conversations that have already happened in the past, and so whilst they may give you a sense of what customers and prospects might think of your company it’s only a snapshot, with certainly no real data behind it for you to work with.

Wouldn't it be great to find out what they are thinking before they broadcast online?

Fellow influencer Fred Reichheld is the original creator of Net Promoter Score (NPS), which basically enables you to get a very accurate reading about what your customers currently think of your product by asking only one very simple question. They are asked to grade on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest, “How likely are you to recommend our company to a friend or colleague”?

When the question has been asked either via email or text, the answers are all collated and a score is produced showing very clearly those that are not at all likely to recommend your company, called the Detractors, those are very likely to recommend your company, the Promoters, and those in the middle that are fairly neutral either way, the Passives.

The passives are the dangerous ones, those that really don’t care either way and could be swayed reasonably easily to take their business elsewhere, whilst the Promoters are exactly that. Promoters would walk over hot coals for you, are totally bought in to your company and have absolutely no qualms about recommending you, they are your cheerleaders. On the other side of the scale, are the detractors, those most likely to walk, they couldn’t care less about your company and will probably leave, probably soon.

Imagine what knowing this information could do for your business, and the really cool thing is, you can also use this software to measure your team engagement too. How happy are your staff that are currently working for your company? Can those Detractors be saved before they leave, and do you even have any Promoters? Imagine how that information could impact on your staff retention and moral, seeing possible problems that might not have otherwise been visible.

Access to this type of information is easy, in fact you can get the software from Fred’s company and another choice is here so if you really are wanting to know what your customers think about you, don’t wait until the conversation has already taken place, find out what they are thinking right now before they get vocal. Then act upon it. Rinse and repeat in 6 months.

For comments: How you you know what your customers really think about your product or service? What are you currently using?

I do hope you follow my posts in the future.

My next book “Start with Hello” (Wiley) will be out in September but is available for pre-order on Amazon. You can get a complimentary sample of a chapter from here. You might also be interested in The Say Hello Project taking place in October.

Full disclosure: I have nothing to do with Fred’s company, but I have an interest in MetricJet, either way, both very cool products that work.