I read a fascinating book recently called The Big Moo by Seth Godin. This book is a follow up to The Purple Cow also by Seth Godin which, as everyone knows, is a massive best seller. The Big Moo is a collection of articles by 30 + business leaders including Guy Kawasaki, Tom Peters, Alan Webber and Malcolm Gladwell among others. Interestingly, you are not told who the author is for each individual article. All the articles in the book though are interesting and thought provoking.

One of the articles is titled “Great Ideas in Bed”. Apparently, a celebrated American pop psychologist inadvertently gave out the secret to being a ‘great lover’ on live TV. Read on if you need some tips or if you need confirmation that you are indeed a great lover.

What was the big secret?

1) First, ask your lover what they like

2) Then you give it to them

3) Then you ask them if they liked it

4) If they say yes, do it again

Simple but effective!

In essence, this is what the Net Promoter Score® is all about. First, ask your customers how likely they are to recommend you to their friends or colleagues on a scale from 0 (not at all likely) to 10 (extremely likely). Then ask them the reason for the score OR how you can improve. This will tell you what your customers like and don’t like about you. This valuable information allows you to take systematic action to improve your value proposition and customer experience. Logically this then results in increased recommendation, loyalty and growth.

Keep in mind that this is a continuous improvement process just like the secret to being a great lover. It’s not about conducting an annual survey and taking action once a year and doing very little for the other 11 months. If that’s what you’re currently doing your partner and customers probably think you’re mediocre. If you want to be a great business you need to continuously look at ways of getting better. Apple with all its recent successes has not stopped conducting its NPS® surveys.

Note the pop psychologist outlined the secret to being a great lover, not just merely being a ‘satisfactory’ lover. In a business sense the Net Promoter Score® is about increasing the number of customers recommending you to others not just satisfying them. Obviously in order to recommend your product or service customers need to be much more than satisfied. Imagine if you asked your lover if they were ‘satisfied’ and they said yes. Would that give you sufficient clues as to what you must do to be a great ‘lover’? Probably not!

I think the term ‘customer satisfaction’ is an absolute blight on business. But that’s a topic in itself which I will cover in future posts.

Net Promoter and NPS are registered trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company and Fred Reichheld.