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Loading... The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth (2006)by Fred Reichheld
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Introducing NPS Good Ethics Is Good Business? Spend any time with a business executive and you might hear the cliché, “Good ethics is good business.” Setting aside the clear disassociation between this statement and the way American businesses operate, the philosopher in me reacts negatively to such statements. Often times, good ethics does equal high profits, but such a statement should never paint broad strokes. Occasionally, the right decision costs a firm extensive money. However, Fred Reichheld’s The Ultimate Question might offer a key to translating an overused cliché into a tangible metric that links profits with good ethics. Rethinking Profits At its core, The Ultimate Question proposes that business managers rethink the ways they evaluate business success. Since financial metrics are easy to produce and easy to read, managers often make decisions strictly based on financials. Reichheld, however, believes that these profit-oriented measurements force business leaders to become addicted to bad profits. Reichheld says, “Bad profits work much of their damage through the detractors they produce. Detractors are customers who feel badly treated by a company – so badly that they cut back on their purchases, switch to the competition if they can, and warn others to stay away from the company they feel has done them wrong” (6). To reorient business decisions, the author argues that managers ought to measure customer satisfaction instead of financial performance. If a company creates loyal customers, it produces good profits. “A company earns good profits when it so delights its customers that they willingly come back for more – and not only that, they tell their friends and colleagues to do business with the company. Satisfied customers become, in effect, part of the company’s marketing department, not only increasing their own purchases but also providing enthusiastic referrals. They become promoters” (9-10). The Ultimate Question After years of research, Reichheld and his consulting firm, Bain & Company, found that highly satisfied customers offer a direct link to profitable long term growth for a company. In order to find out whether a company holds satisfied customers, only one question needs to be asked. That question is: “How likely is it that you would recommend this company to a friend or colleague” (18-19)? By answering that question on a 0-10 scale, a company can truly gauge the satisfaction and loyalty of its customers. Those that answer in the 9-10 range are considered promoters; those in the 7-8 range are passive; and those in the 0-6 range are detractors. Thus, a company will know the satisfaction of its customers by subtracting the detractors from the promoters. This equation gives managers a net promoter score (NPS). If the company’s NPS is high, it has delighted customers who buy multiple products and encourage their friends to do the same. A company with a low NPS, on the other hand, is addicted to bad profits and is holding its customers hostage. Whenever the customers have an opportunity to leave this company, they will. Theory aside, Reichheld’s metrics hold when applied in business settings. The industry leaders in NPS are also growing exponentially and making large profits. TOMS: Good Ethics Equaling Good Business Considering the angle I presented at the beginning of the review, where are the ethics in this book? At first glance, NPS is a customer satisfaction metric, an equation with little connection to ethics. A business need not be overtly ethical in order to serve customers; it only needs to practice the golden rule of treating others as it would wish to be treated in order to obtain a high NPS. But I argue that serving customers is a task that orients a company toward ethics. By thinking of the needs of the customer, a company cannot act selfishly because a selfish action results in bad profits and customer detractors. Furthermore, I hypothesize that a business which promotes its ethical practices as a core reason for operating have a high NPS. For example, TOMS shoes illustrates the significance of promoters. With its one-for-one social enterprise model, the company relies on customer promotion for its advertising. In fact, TOMS dedicates a portion of its website to customer testimonials. Without the social ethics surrounding the business, TOMS is just another shoe company. Knowing that a shoe purchase helps a child in need, customers take great joy in wearing and promoting the product. Thus, TOMS success relies on a high NPS for profitability. So perhaps, advertised good ethics does equal business. More research is in order, but a link between ethics and high profits seems plausible. With bad profits leaving most companies middling around a 0-10% NPS, the search for ways in which a company can raise its NPS, and therefore grow, is extremely important. If you manage a business, you owe it to yourself, your employees, and your customers to read The Ultimate Question. Originally published at http://wherepenmeetspaper.blogspot.com This is the book through which Reichheld conveys the story behind his Net Promoter Score. Bain and Associates did research to determine which of several potential questions best relate to increased loyalty. The winner: On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend [company] to your family and friends? The "net promoter score" is the percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors. The approach proves itself empirically, as companies across industries show correlation between between NPS score and growth. The methodology includes recommendations for transparency, understanding the target audience, and a solid cycle of using surveys, backed by follow-up, action, and insight in a closed-loop process. no reviews | add a review
Distinctions
CEOs regularly announce ambitious growth targets, then fail to achieve them. The reason? Too many companies are addicted to bad profits. These corporate steroids boost short-term earnings but burn out the employees and alienate customers. They undermine growth by creating legions of detractors--customers who sully the firm's reputation and switch to competitors at the earliest opportunity. Now loyalty expert Fred Reichheld shows how to reverse the equation, turning customers into promoters who generate good profits and true, sustainable growth. The key: one simple question--Would you recommend us to a friend?--that allows companies to track promoters and detractors and produces a clear measure of an organization's performance in its customers' eyes. Analysis shows that on average, increasing the Net Promoter Score (NPS) by a dozen points versus competitors can double a company's growth rate. While easy to grasp, this metric represents a radical change in the way companies manage customer relationships and organize for growth. Rather than relying on notoriously ineffective customer satisfaction surveys, companies can use NPS to measure customer relationships as rigorously as they now measure profits. What's more, NPS finally enables CEOs to hold employees accountable for treating customers right. It clarifies the link between the quality of a company's customer relationships and its growth prospects. Based on extensive research and rich with vivid examples of organizations that have pioneered NPS in practice, The Ultimate Question offers hands-on guidance on how to: Distinguish good profits from bad; Measure NPS and benchmark performance against world-class standards; Quantify the economic value generated by customer word of mouth; Assign accountability for improving customer relationships; Identify core customers and set priorities for strategic investments; Move customers beyond mere "satisfaction" to true loyalty; Create communications of passionate advocates that stimulate innovation and growth. Practical and compelling, The Ultimate Question will help you solve your organization's growth dilemma. No library descriptions found.
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)658.1554Technology Management and auxiliary services Management Of Corporate Finance Financial Management Of Costs And Revenues RevenuesLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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