For business leaders and marketers from around the world, author and Bain Fellow Fred Reichheld is a household name - even The Economist named him the “high priest” of customer loyalty. Today, I’m thrilled to sit down with the inventor of the Net Promoter Score to peel back the layers of the NPS v3.0, and the new era of customer loyalty in the post-COVID world. We talk about what 80% of marketers are getting wrong with Big NPS, Earned Growth and delve into his latest book “Winning on Purpose”.
Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada
For business leaders and marketers from around the world, author and Bain Fellow Fred Reichheld is a household name - even The Economist named him the “high priest” of customer loyalty.
Today, I’m thrilled to sit down with the inventor of the Net Promoter Score to peel back the layers of the NPS v3.0, and the new era of customer loyalty in the post-COVID world. We talk about what 80% of marketers are getting wrong with Big NPS, Earned Growth and delve into his latest book “Winning on Purpose”.
Thanks for tuning into today’s episode of The Voice of Retail. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss out on the latest episodes, industry news, and insights. If you enjoyed this episode please consider leaving a rating and review, as it really helps us grow so that we can continue getting amazing guests on the show.
I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company, and if you’re looking for more content, or want to chat follow me on LinkedIn, or visit my website meleblanc.co!
Expertise
Fred Reichheld is a Bain Fellow and founder of our Loyalty practice, which helps companies achieve results through customer and employee loyalty. He is the creator of the Net Promoter® system of management.
His work in the area of customer and employee retention has quantified the link between loyalty and profits. Fred's books, The Loyalty Effect: The Hidden Force Behind Growth, Profits, and Lasting Value (HBSP 1996); Loyalty Rules! How Today's Leaders Build Lasting Relationships (HBSP 2001); The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth (HBSP, 2006) and The Ultimate Question 2.0: How Net Promoter Companies Thrive in a Customer Driven World (HBR Press) have each become best sellers.
In his most recent book, Fred reveals how NPS practitioners including Apple Retail, Philips, Schwab, Allianz, American Express, and Intuit, have used the Net Promoter System (NPS) to generate extraordinary results. He explains how NPS helps companies become truly customer-centric, unleashing profitable growth through systematically converting more customers into promoters and fewer into detractors.
Fred is a frequent speaker at major business forums and his work on loyalty has been widely covered in The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Financial Times, Fortune, Business Week and The Economist. He is the author of eight Harvard Business Review articles on the subject of loyalty and he is also a LinkedIn Influencer, a member of a group of corporate leaders and public figures who are thought leaders in their respective fields.
Consulting Magazine chose Fred as one of the “25 Most Influential Consultants” in its 2003 annual survey. According to The New York Times, "[He] put loyalty economics on the map." The Economist refers to him as the "high priest" of loyalty.
Reichheld graduated with Honors both from Harvard College (B.A., 1974) and Harvard Business School (M.B.A., 1978).
Michael LeBlanc is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience, and has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. Michael is the producer and host of a network of leading podcasts including Canada’s top retail industry podcast, The Voice of Retail, plus Global E-Commerce Tech Talks and The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois and the all new Conversations with CommerceNext podcast.
Last but not least, check out my new YouTube cooking show, Last Request Barbecue!
You can learn more about Michael here or on LinkedIn.
Michael LeBlanc 00:04
Welcome to the Voice of Retail, I'm your host, Mike Leblanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
For business leaders and marketers from around the world, author and Bain Fellow Fred Reichheld is a household name - even The Economist named him the "high priest" of customer loyalty.
Today, I'm thrilled to sit down with the inventor of the Net Promoter system to peel back the layers of his new NPS 3.0, and this new era of customer loyalty in the post-COVID world. We talk about what 80% of marketers are getting wrong with the Big NPS, Earned Growth and delve into his latest book, "Winning on Purpose".
Fred Reichheld 00:37
Earned Growth came out of my gray matter somehow, during the last year. Just like Net Promoter did 19 years earlier. I think of them as completely complimentary statistics and reinforcing. But what, what I didn't realize is how much you had to if you're going to hold people accountable. You're going to link [inaudible] the bonuses. You must have an accounting metric that is auditable, and people know that if you cheat, you get in trouble. Whereas, with survey scores, you know, it's fine, please give me a 10, I sure would appreciate a top score.
Michael LeBlanc 01:13
Yeah. Let's listen in now. Well welcome to The Voice of Retail podcast, Fred, how are you doing this morning?
Fred Reichheld 01:18
Nice to be here, thank you.
Michael LeBlanc 01:20
Your book jacket lists you either Cape Cod or Miami. It's mid-November. I got to think Miami but you tell me, where am I reaching you this morning?
Fred Reichheld 01:28
No, family Thanksgivings are always in Cape Cod.
Michael LeBlanc 01:31
Ah, right, right, I forgot. See our Thanksgiving, I'm in Toronto, so our Thanksgiving is just a memory long ago. I forgot it's Thanksgiving weekend right, right, right. Fred, you're certainly a household name for marketers and customer loyalty focus listeners. But for those perhaps less familiar, tell us about yourself, your background, how you spend your time and, and your long connection to Bain and Co.
Fred Reichheld 01:51
Well, I joined Bain right out of school in 1977, and have been there ever since. The big change there about 25 years ago or so, I switched to a halftime role as a Bain Fellow. And have been able to be on public company boards as a result, do outside projects and, and try and advance the Net Promoter business movement in, in, in creative ways. But at Bain, that, you know the half time I, I continue to write do research. I support teams at Bain, who are working with clients, where Net Promoter is really at the center of their, of their challenge and, and increasingly not just, not little NPS. Not, not the, the technical system. It, it's more of the big NPS. The, the philosophy of, of leadership and the underlying economics that, that makes that a rational approach to business.
Michael LeBlanc 02:49
Right on right on. Alright, well, let's talk about, should we, should we say this invention, the Net Promoter Score. So, give us a bit of the origin story. It's gone through a few iterations, as you say there's a technical component. You know, that is a calculation, but it is a much broader, it's really a philosophy. And many, you know, many of my listeners would use it, they, they might have it even in their bonus structure. They may not know where it came from, or how its origin story, and tell us how that came about? And, and just explain what NPS is, even for those who may or may or may not understand or know better.
Fred Reichheld 03:20
Sure, but many years ago, I, I, I began to recognize how special companies were, who were earning the loyalty of their customers and their employees. They generated unusually attractive economics, they, they were resilient to recessions and black swan events. And they're just special places. They're communities where you want to work you want to buy you want to be an investor, you want your kids to work there. But we didn't have a metric that, that made this distinguished set of communities obvious, but I like behavior. I'm not a big fan of surveys. This'll sound odd to people [inaudible] promoter.
Michael LeBlanc 03:59
Wait, what? [inaudible].
Fred Reichheld 04:01
I don't trust surveys. Surveys, you know, if you're in a good mood, you give a 10, if you're grumpy.
Michael LeBlanc 04:06
Sure.
Fred Reichheld 04:07
Well, am I rating, that individual I just dealt with, or am I writing that whole set of experiences? And, and you know, Germans are tougher graders than people from Latin America. You get all, it's, a it's a soft thing. I don't, I like behaviors. You can observe them. It's a science. So, I've, I've focused on retention rates for many years. And retention, turn, it, it's at the center of probably the underappreciated economic power of loyalty. But over time, I came to see that retention is just not enough. You know, it's too late. When somebody defects, it's, it's often too late to fix it.
Michael LeBlanc 04:42
Yeah, yeah.
Fred Reichheld 04:42
So, we needed a forward looking metric. And I finally said, well, if it has to be a survey, it's, it's going to be the shortest survey ever invented, it's gonna be one question. And, and then one follow up. So how likely to recommend to a friend we figured out was the best question in 99% of the cases not all, but almost all. And the follow up is just an open text, you know, don't, I'm not going to lead them the, the witness with all sorts of structured data to make it easy to analyze. I'm going to ask them in their words, why do you feel that way? And how can we serve you better? And that basic idea I, I saw work beautifully at Enterprise Rent-A-Car. And I decided, I think the world would be better off with this approach. And that's, that's the origin of, of, of Net Promoter. The reason for the would recommend question, because it was the best predictor of future behaviors that drive economics. Repeat, buying, you know, higher share of wallet, referring to friends, all these behaviors that are the, the real drivers of economic success. Well, they are best predicted by someone's willingness to recommend.
Michael LeBlanc 05:50
And I'm curious how many sentences or ideas were up on that whiteboard before you landed on? I mean, it sounds so simple and obvious now, but I'm sure the path was a little squiggly. How many? How many ideas? What did you?
Fred Reichheld 06:02
Oh, dozens, dozens
Michael LeBlanc 06:03
Dozens, I'm, I'm sure, right. Yeah, yeah.
Fred Reichheld 06:04
Yeah, everyone is even, you know, this company is worthy of my loyalty. This is my favorite brand. I love this brand. I, you know, satisfaction. I knew satisfaction was wrong, but I tested it anyways, because satisfaction. It's just not special, it means you've done enough. And the whole idea behind big NPS is that you're doing more than enough, you're being remarkable, you're leaving tons of money and value on the table because you love your customer. And customers recognize that, that's what starts the special flywheel going of customers coming back for more and bringing their friends and giving useful constructive feedback. That's at the core of big NPS.
Michael LeBlanc 06:45
Even more so I suppose then would you shop here again, because they even that is graded with yeah, I'll shop here again because it's right around the corner. I mean, there's a lot of things that could be going on the shop [inaudible] you know again right.
Fred Reichheld 06:55
[Inaudible] you know, habits, it's good.
Michael LeBlanc 06:57
Yeah, yeah.
Fred Reichheld 06:57
You want to get people in to good habits. But no, that's not the highest standard. A lot of people are lazy. And things change. And oh, yeah, I, I chose that bank 20 years ago, and I'm still there because for heaven's sakes, I don't want to go through the administrative bureaucracy of changing all my bill to addresses.
Michael LeBlanc 07:14
I wouldn't tell anybody else to join, God, don't join this bank, but I don't want to leave.
Fred Reichheld 07:18
No, I would, I would not program my personal reputation with that brand. Heavens no.
Michael LeBlanc 07:24
Interesting.
Fred Reichheld 07:24
So, referral, you know, it's a much higher standard of excellence.
Michael LeBlanc 07:28
Right, right, right. All right, well, your new book is "Winning on Purpose: The Unbeatable Strategy of Loving Customers". Tell us about why you wrote the book, what, what whitespace you were trying to fill out, not your first book. Who did you write it for? And, and the journey of bringing that book to life.
Fred Reichheld 07:43
I there are several reasons. The first one was, even though I was thrilled that that little NPS had spread around the world. Two thirds of the large corporate corporations in the world now, say they use NPS but, but they mean little NPS. They just, you know, they're measuring a score.
Michael LeBlanc 07:59
Right.
Fred Reichheld 08:01
The vast majority of those so-called practitioners were doing it wrong. They were misusing and abusing the, the, the ideas behind big NPS, which is to love your, you know, at the highest level, love thy neighbor itself. And, and I just got frustrated, I said, I've got to get this movement back on track. And, and I'm thrilled with that I've been able to do that.
The second thing, though, is we just given how much NPS feedback has happened over the last 20 years, we have a new view of the world. And big NPS is right, the world does circulate around customers. And, and still we run businesses as if investors were the only things that mattered. I know a lot of people will say, oh, yeah, a balanced stakeholder duties and great place to work. But all the measurement systems that count, the governance systems, the, the ones you go to jail, if you get the wrong numbers, they're all financials. So, they just, they shine a financial light on the world every day, 24 hours a day. And so even the best the well-intentioned people who want to love their customers, they see the world through a financial mindset, because that's where the feedback mechanisms are coming to see which experiments are working, which ones are failing. That is now fixable. Because we've expanded NPS behind past just the, the score a survey-based score, inherently soft, as I said before. With buttress that with, with a financial metric called Earned Growth. Earned Growth.
Michael LeBlanc 09:37
And that's a new, that's a new concept you, you pretty much introduced in this book, right? Is that something you've taken already for a test drive or is that organically is grown out of your evolution of your thinking. Just the right size or change the course in the right direction of, of NPS.
Fred Reichheld 09:51
Earned Growth, it, it came out of my gray matter somehow during the last year. Just like Net Promoter did nineteen years earlier. I think of them as completely complementary statistics and reinforcing. But what, what I didn't realize is how much you had the. If you're going to hold people accountable, you're going to link it [inaudible] the bonuses. You must have an accounting metric that is auditable, and people know that if you cheat, you get in trouble. Whereas with survey scores, you know, it's fine. Please give me a 10. I sure would appreciate a top score. What's wrong with that? Well, it's fraud. If, if you're doing that with accounting numbers and, and, and account numbers, we figured out one that works actually, I didn't figure it out. I, I saw it in a bank called First Republic. They measure the percentage of their growth in revenues, that, that comes from their existing customers coming back for buying more stuff, increasing balances, and the referrals of their friends. And they track those things. And for instance, First Republic reports to their investors that almost 90% of their loan growth comes but is earned by, by its earned because it comes from existing customers expanding and referring their friends. And I take I saw that metric and I said, that is exactly what we need to, to reinforce and buttress the Net Promoter revolution. And yes, we've test driven it a few places. But you know, First Republic has been test driving it for years. And it, it works quite well, thank you.
Michael LeBlanc 11:25
I mean, in the book, you, you articulate a few concerns, I mean, on a big concern, capital C, so to speak. You’re concerned about capitalism that capitalism has somehow gone awry? I mean, this starts I think it feels like as I read through the book, that it bubbles up from your concerns about what is it 80% of people you argue, aren't even using NPS or the philosophy correctly? So, what's your concern about capitalism? Is, is it system is systematic? Is it just an evolution and, and we sum what went wrong? How have we gone off course?
Fred Reichheld 11:54
Yeah, I think it's wrong at a number of levels. But at the highest level, I think most people misunderstand what drives capitalism success, and, and how it needs to change. In the old days financial capitalism worked, worked just fine. We had a philosophy I think Milton Friedman laid it out pretty nicely. And but Adam Smith, long before the invisible hand would you know, if you act in your own selfish interests, then the you'll be allocating resources correctly and the worlds better off. That just doesn't work anymore, the, the companies who succeed do not do the things that are legal, but maximize profits. They do things that are legal, that love their customers, and. and sustainably of course. It has to be an economic sustainable engine. But man, once you kickstart this flywheel of customers loving you and coming back for more and bringing their friends. There's not much that can get in the way of profitable sustainable growth.
Michael LeBlanc 12:53
I have to think is you, you call out several, many examples. It's great. It's a great read Amazon I when I think of flywheel, I think of I think of Amazon, and everything from Prime. I mean, that was a big igniter. But really, you talk about them being just relentlessly focused on. I mean, it's their number one guiding north star, right is customer satisfaction and how they think about the customers. It seems to have led to some pretty impressive financial outcomes. Yeah?
Fred Reichheld 13:19
It does. You know, Amazon, as much as any company I've ever seen is, is rigorous in laying out their principles, and then integrating them into everything they do. From hiring people to giving bonuses and promotions to, to making investment decisions. And the number one, the one that stands above all others is customer obsession.
They exist, their primary purpose is to make customers happy. You know, they've got a logo, that's a smile with an arrow on it. It when you make customers happy, the world is a better place. That's an important idea. I think that's the core idea behind customer capitalism. And what, what most people would think of as that know about it is the big NPS love thy neighbor as thyself. Net lives and Rich does what I was going to call Net Promoter. You know, every person, every team, every company, is touching lives through time. And you want to know you need to know how many of those lives are enriched how many are diminished. And Net Promoter is that simple idea of you know, its promoters minus detractors is net lives enriched minus those diminished. Amazon measures that all the great NPS success stories see big NPS as a philosophical difference that, you know, maximizing shareholder value that went out that the wet not the way of the woolly buffalo 30-40 years ago. It’s not you know, it's sure you can get rich that way. And I suppose one of the things CEOs, some CEOs aren't going to like my book, because if they'd argue is they're wildly over compensated, not all of them.
People who are delivering shareholder returns below The Vanguard Index Fund, are not adding true value to their investors. You're better off as an investor putting your money in a diversified index fund if all you're going to do is achieve that level of stock market return. The only true value for investors is in excess of that hurdle rate. So, I argue, yeah, make those guys rich. But for heaven's sakes, don't make the other people rich for, for actually stealing money from their investors. But the way the world works today, nobody thinks about hurdle rates of return. It's all old school, profit accounting, that has no cost of capital hurdle build on it. No, it's, it’s flawed. And if people see that system and they know it's wrong.
Michael LeBlanc 15:42
How are you thinking about or ask differently? Is there room in your philosophy for, I guess, what the economic economists used to call the economic rent of things. In other words, delivering value to some customers, but you know, impacting others, a half a world away, for example. You know, ESG, for example, the impact of decisions you make, you might keep your customer satisfied. But there's other impacts that may or may not impact on the shareholders. Is there room and your philosophy for a, a broader definition of, of satisfaction and impact?
Fred Reichheld 16:13
Oh of course. You don't recommend a company to a friend who pollutes the environment and, and kills people around the world. You don't, you don't recommend, you're not proud to co brand your personal reputation with someone who has child labor and abuses society. And frankly, you don't recommend to a friend a good personal recommend to a friend if, if you don't treat people in from minorities, or in vulnerable situations the right way. So, I, I think in many ways, this philosophy embraces the ESG and DEI of the world and makes it practical and real. Because all these other special interests. It's not like they're not legitimate, of course, these stakeholders have legitimate needs. But it is so hard to get a rigorous metric that lets you hold people accountable. At least Net Promoter, we're moving toward where we've got something really special and with Earned Growth, you, you take on the mantle of accounting excellence and rigor. So, I actually think by focusing on loving customers, and being thoughtful about what it means to love a customer. And, and what a referral means that we, we will advance toward the these higher objectives have a better world a, a better and a, a better environment.
Michael LeBlanc 17:29
You your other idea, or concept, I guess is the next iteration of NPS 3.0, as you call it. And you've, you’ve been iterating on the concept since you first came up with it. And it, it talks about seven main components. Is, is there any one of those components that you see as it could do you see them as some as being table stakes? And some being differentiators? Or is there ones that you're more of the seven that are more important, or they're all equally important? How are you thinking about the, the list of seven?
Fred Reichheld 17:57
It's a great question. They're not all equally important, I. I think they are probably start with the most important this notion of embrace and unbeatable purpose. What I argue in the book is there is only one winning purpose. And I know that's radical given there's so many one, you know, you, you could cure cancer, you can be a great place to work, there's just a lot of good things. But if you don't put your customers first, you have to be a great place to work, of course. But if you put your employees first, that really doesn't lead to great customer outcomes, because there's a lot of things that make employees happy that or least they think make them happy, that, that don't have anything to do with great customer outcomes. Customers have to come first. And a leader’s job, though, is to inspire their teams, their employees, to embrace that mission of service to others. And then achieve such high levels of, you know, remarkable outcomes, because that standing ovation from your customer, is what makes a truly great job. It doesn't go the other way. And I think so it's redefining the job of a leader and the primary purpose of the company. And then I suppose this, you know, feedback flows are in this one, one of the, the Net Promoter 3.0 rules is NPS caliber feedback. Most people haven't thought through what that means, it's not just sending a survey. You have to be thinking, could I expect people to speak the truth? You know, if I'm a dentist and I'm sending out surveys to the person I'm going to be drilling next week. Can I really without an anonymity, or you know, I want feedback as a leader and am I more likely to recommend your team leader as a person to work for?
How likely is it you could get honest candid feedback? So, you got to be very thoughtful about when to ask, how to ask, what degree of anonymity is appropriate? Now, but those are the technical side. I, I, I get back to the, the core purpose is to do to make you know Martin Luther King Jr. said everybody can be great because everybody can serve. I think he was mostly right but he should have gone a little further. Most people can do remarkable things for their neighbor. And, and, and it's that standard of greatness of excellence that, that I think makes life's worth living, and is it is the energy behind all good communities.
Michael LeBlanc 20:17
You, you mentioned earlier, a, a great NPS philosophy just helps getting through black swan events. Well, I think we've just had or are hopefully close to the end of a pretty big black swan event, the COVID era. You know, with your focus on understanding customers and customer satisfaction, I'm trying to sort out for the listeners, customer behaviors that are that have changed us to accommodate for the unusual circumstances, versus ones that have changed forever. You also talked about customer habits, right. So, any, any observations from your perspective? I mean, you're very thoughtful in terms of understanding customers of the longer-term impact of the COVID era.
Fred Reichheld 20:54
Yeah, I think COVID has made both customers and employees rethink their priorities. Any near death, you know, I'm a cancer survivor. Five years ago, when I didn't know how long I, I mean, I'm still at risk, but it's a lot lower risk than it was five years ago. That is the real thing that kicked off, why did I write the book? Well, it’s because I didn't know how many days I had left, and I had ideas that I really wanted to communicate. I think everybody in COVID had a little bit of that, you know, it wasn't as bad as a cancer diagnosis, but you recognize you're not going to live forever. And you can think about what do I want to get accomplished while I have those finite days on earth. And that leads toward a deeper understanding of what you care about as an employee what you care about as a customer.
And I think employers, leaders need to listen to that and, and serve it and, and foster it. Because it's the right point of view for living a good life. And I think those who are finding ways to help their employees lead more meaningful existences and, and, and workloads that make it possible to have a family balance. They’re, they're going to get appreciate it. I think more than the than other pre-COVID area. And I think those who are using digital tools to keep their employees and their customers safe, and to make it possible to live a full life in this riskier world. They're going to get rewarded they, they are being rewarded.
Whether it's Warby Parker and Peloton and these, these. You know, Peloton stock just went down a bunch. But and I think yeah, I think there's a fair they probably got overvalued in the in the heat of the, the investment community who see the world purely through financial mindset. They're just looking at the math of the of the growth in revenues. I am looking at Peloton at what their earned growth rate is and what their promoter score is. And I see a very special company there. And, and so on and on, I should we haven't talked about, I, I invest in the companies with the highest Net Promoter score. Not you know not self-reported scores. This is Bain NPS prism rigor. But once I see someone who's got a really substantially higher NPS score that means that they love their customers better. Their customers are feeling the love. And they've got this flywheel going of customers coming back for more bringing their friends that has been undervalued by the market. So just as evidence I, I lay out in the book, I invested in all the companies who were the NPS leaders in my previous book NPS or the, “The Ultimate Question 2.0”. My stock returns have tripled the market over that 10 years subsequent.
Michael LeBlanc 23:33
Yeah, some pretty, some pretty big hitters in that list; Amazon, Apple, Costco, Discover, First Republic you mentioned right though some pretty big hitters so.
Fred Reichheld 23:40
And, and Amazon was being criticized the same way that Peloton is back then. Remember eBay was a bigger, probably triple the size of Amazon. It’s overpriced, it's all pie in the sky. They had a killer Net Promoter outcome and I saw the principles that Bezos believed in with customers at number one. And I said I'll take that bet. And not all these bets pay off, but I continue to put money in those firms who come out as the best. I'm on the board of a company called First Service, Canadian based. [Inaudible] my grandfather Reichheld grew up in Canada for any of your listeners.
Michael LeBlanc 24:18
Well, I actually, I actually an alumni an alumni of mine is actually the new president down south. So yeah, I know First Service as it as it just coincidentally happens. They’re great because they do service around for buildings, right? For tenant buildings and, and, yeah.
Fred Reichheld 24:30
Yeah exactly. So, you know hashtag first serve others you sort of get an idea of it. They get where you know, the, the pride the, the primary purpose is to enrich the lives of others. It the their shareholder return, over the past 25 years of all the public companies that existed 25 years ago, with at least 100 million in sales. That's everybody, 2800 of them. They are number 8 out of 2800, their their shareholder return is eye popping. And people don't realize it because the financial mindset of the investment community is just is always looking for the next exciting financial story.
Michael LeBlanc 25:06
The next story stock.
Fred Reichheld 25:08
Yes.
Michael LeBlanc 25:09
It's an interesting it's an interesting bifurcation your story stock or your performance stock and Peloton I think got caught up in a middle of the story. We're big we're a great story but you know.
Fred Reichheld 25:18
Underlying it, it's something real.
Michael LeBlanc 25:20
Underline yeah. Which isn't always the case but could certainly be for Peloton.
Okay, last question for retailers listening. Many of whom use NPS any tips or future tips for future success getting ready. First of all, by the by this great book, I've been reading it “Winning on Purpose: The Unbeatable Strategy of Loving Customers”, that's got to be tip number one. And at least that's my tip, because it's a great book. Give me two or three more?
Fred Reichheld 25:44
Well, I think one is I'd have the employees your employees read the book, or at least one of the chapters, and then talk about the big NPS. This notion of loving your customers and how that plays into the role of living a great life as an employee, and, and, and the economic success of the entity. So that people can start talking about living our core values and how that is the right way to think about building a great company. So that's more of a philosophy, what the, the, the more the second one is way more practical. Just ask your teams. And I would do this through a survey, I'd say, what is the one thing we need to change, to help you delight more customers and enrich their lives?
Michael LeBlanc 26:32
That's a great question.
Fred Reichheld 26:33
And, and get the feedback from your frontline teams, what's getting in the way of them living this big NPS philosophy, and winning on purpose?
Michael LeBlanc 26:41
Now, that's great advice. All right. So, I can't miss this opportunity. Based on my interview with you on a scale of one to 10 would you recommend to friends and colleagues being interviewed on The Voice of Retail podcast?
Fred Reichheld 26:53
It's got to be it's got to be a 0 through 10. And you've done very nicely, so I'm, I’m a tough grader, it was at least a 9 and I'll be watching it, it could, it could earn its way, it could earn its way up to a 10.
Michael LeBlanc 27:05
Alright, good enough. Well, listen, Fred, thanks so much for joining me on The Voice of Retail. I wish you continued success in your writing and continued good health, on your on that journey and time with your family over Thanksgiving. And once again, thanks for joining me on The Voice of Retail podcast.
Fred Reichheld 27:20
My pleasure, thank you.
Michael LeBlanc 27:22
Thanks for tuning in to today's episode of The Voice of Retail. Be sure and follow the podcast on Apple, Spotify or wherever you enjoy podcasts, so you don't miss out on the latest episodes, industry news, and insights. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating review, as it really helps us grow so that we continue to get amazing guests onto the show.
I'm your host Michael LeBlanc, president of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc., and if you're looking for more content, or want to chat, follow me on LinkedIn, or visit my website at meleblanc.co. Until next time, stay safe. Have a great week.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
nps, customers, people, net promoter, world, bain, book, friends, survey, philosophy, big, employees, economic, company, amazon, capitalism, peloton, black swan events, recommend, podcast