Customer Confidential: Untold Stories of Earned Growth

USAA, which primarily serves members of the US military and their families, has some of the most loyal customers in business. How does the company do it? USAA has organized itself around customer episodes—all the steps required to meet a customer's need—instead of products and services. The company has gone beyond identifying and tracking these crucial moments to assigning leaders to manage and en...

Rob Markey talks to Charlie Chase, president and CEO of FirstService Brands, which provides property services such as painting, remodeling and storage design through its franchise network. Charlie started as a painting franchise owner in 1982 and went on to start CertaPro Painters, one of the company's brands.  FirstService uses the Net Promoter System to collect feedback from not only customers,...

Rob Markey welcomes back Fernando Cadena, director of associate engagement at Elwood Staffing Services, which places 25,000 temporary employees at companies across the country. Fernando has been leading the firm's Net Promoter efforts, which began six years ago when he first sought feedback from the company's associates. He has since expanded the company's feedback efforts to its customers. Net Pr...

Year Up has helped thousands of young adults leave minimum wage jobs and forge meaningful careers. Its one-year program has served almost 20,000 people since 2000, and the vast majority end up in roles at major companies or in college.   Delivering such strong results requires Year Up to balance the needs of its students, donors and the companies that provide critical support and internships. The...

What do successful leaders have in common? It often comes down to two key traits: passion and perseverance. In other words, they have grit.  In this episode, Angela Duckworth, a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, shares insights from her  New York Times best-selling book,  Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. She's also the founder of Character Lab, a nonprofit that wo...

When companies set out to dramatically improve their customer experience, they have many decisions to make—where to invest, which markets to go after, which touchpoints to enhance. And there are usually many opinions to consider for each choice.  In this episode, Rob Markey talks to Bain Partner Jason Barro about how companies can use a roadmap to leadership to set priorities and find clarity as t...

Rob Markey talks to Jackson Jeyanayagam, chief marketing officer at Boxed, an online grocery startup that's taking on traditional wholesalers by offering personalized service and convenient delivery. Jackson joined the company in 2016 after overseeing digital marketing at Chipotle Mexican Grill.      

Host Rob Markey talks to Celine Del Genes, vice president, concept to consumer, for Adidas Football. She oversees the sports apparel company's go-to-market strategy for soccer shoes and gear, managing key decisions about pricing, sales channels and marketing approaches. Celine is also a Net Promoter practitioner and uses the method to gauge customer reaction to company initiatives and product desi...

Rob Markey talks to Bain Partner Jeff Melton, co-leader of Bain Simple & Digital, an approach that helps companies apply digital technology where it matters. Jeff discusses the importance of choosing the right metrics to gauge a customer episode and what happens when companies choose the wrong ones.

Dell has been collecting customer feedback since Michael Dell dropped out of college three decades ago and founded the company. It's part of the company's DNA. The computer maker began its Net Promoter journey a decade ago when it was trying to connect customer satisfaction with economic outcomes. Now the company has a robust Net Promoter System that informs major projects and innovations. In this...

Rob Markey welcomes Griff and Hunter Jaggard, the brothers behind the FireDisc, a portable propane cooking surface that has become required gear among outdoor enthusiasts. They launched their company in 2010 with a tractor plow disc and an idea inspired by their Texas childhoods, and they have been using Net Promoter to help guide their efforts.

When responding to an angry customer, few words are as effective as "I'm sorry." And yet, it's so hard for some people to apologize sincerely. Why? In this episode, host Rob Markey welcomes back Maurice FitzGerald, retired vice president of customer experience at HP Software and author of Net Promoter—Implement the System . Together, Rob and Maurice will discuss how behavioral economics can inform...

How does a customer's country of origin affect the feedback they provide about service experiences? Are certain countries home to naturally tough critics? Do people in some countries view rating scales differently? Cultural differences play a role in Net Promoter feedback, but to a far lesser degree than many practitioners assume. The challenge is to separate cultural issues from real service prob...

Despite companies' best efforts to engage their teams, more than half of employees say they are uninspired and dissatisfied in their roles, according to Bain research. Only 19% of employees say they're inspired and satisfied—a huge opportunity for companies that learn to tap their teams' potential. We've spent the last several years studying companies' best engagement methods and distilling them i...

Building internal support for a fledgling Net Promoter System can be one of the biggest challenges of getting such an effort off the ground. It requires leaders to not only have a strong grasp of loyalty economics and the company's strategy, but the softer skills necessary to inspire and teach employees to do the right thing for customers. In this episode, host Rob Markey welcomes back Maurice Fit...

No industry has escaped the disruption of digital technology. Advertising is no exception. Ad agencies, which previously thrived in what was once a loyalty-based industry, are now facing new competition as they struggle to hold on to client relationships. Advertising fee structures have also changed, along with customer expectations. In this episode, host Rob Markey talks to advertising industry e...

Begging customers for strong scores. Only seeking feedback from customers who had positive outcomes. Altering contact information to make dissatisfied customers hard to reach. When it comes to gaming the Net Promoter System, we've seen it all and one thing is always clear: When employees intentionally undermine a company's efforts to understand customers and improve service, everyone loses. In thi...

Airbnb launched 10 years ago when roommates Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia decided to rent out an air mattress on the floor of their San Francisco living room to make a few extra bucks. Now it's a $31 billion hospitality giant that has created a whole new category of lodging. Airbnb's unique business model, which allows people in more than 190 countries to rent their homes to travelers, requires a hi...

The statistical validity of the Net Promoter Score depends on response rates; the higher the rate, the greater the accuracy. Low response rates can easily undermine a company's Net Promoter System, causing leaders to overlook burgeoning problems or wrongly assume that customers are happy. In this episode, host Rob Markey and Maurice FitzGerald, retired vice president of customer experience at HP S...

People feel good when they look good—it doesn't take a fashion expert to tell you that. But that feeling compounds when you make it easy for people to access clothing that's unique, fits well and suits the occasion. That's the  Rent the Runway  approach. The company launched in 2009 with a mission to help women feel their best by renting them designer clothing and accessories through an innovative...

What does it take to develop meaningful competitive benchmark Net Promoter Scores? What is the relationship between benchmark trends and revenue? What if your company is small or operates in a niche industry with few competitors for comparison? Competitive benchmark Net Promoter Scores provide an objective and fair basis for comparing your company's feedback to the feedback your competitors earn....

What do customers really want when they buy a product? Some benefits are fairly obvious — convenience and quality, for example. But some customers, even those in business-to-business (B2B) markets, are seeking far more from their purchases — hope, self-actualization and motivation. Bain Partner Eric Almquist returns to the Net Promoter System Podcast to discuss developments in his Elements of Valu...

When faced with a scrappy challenger, it's not hard for established brands to lose sight of their core customers, especially if they're in a highly competitive market. These situations usually arise when an established brand starts to lose market share to a buzzworthy upstart. When that happens, a company's leaders might debate whether they should change course to chase a new competitor or try to...

What if a company wants to adopt the Net Promoter System, but lacks the resources and time to fully implement each aspect of the framework? Is something better than nothing? In this episode, Rob Markey welcomes back Maurice FitzGerald, the retired vice president of customer experience at HP Software and author of Net Promoter—Implementing the System . Together, Rob and Maurice will tackle this que...

Telecom executives are under pressure from their customers, shareholders and other stakeholders to become more digital, to exploit the new technologies and opportunities that will enable them to deliver more services and operate more efficiently. Some companies approach their digital transformation as a series of boxes to be ticked: mobile apps, better web services, more online transactions. But th...