Want a Better NPS®? Get Data Inspired for Superior Results

In 2003, Fred Reichheld invented the Net Promoter Score℠ (NPS®) to measure how well companies create customer loyalty. Twenty years later, NPS is nearly ubiquitous and used by organizations worldwide to understand and improve customer relationships. Revolutionary yet simple, NPS boils down to this: Do your customers love your service enough to recommend it to others?  

In a recent session with broadband service provider (BSP) leaders, Fred shared his concern that NPS has become just another key performance indicator (KPI) that companies track. It comes up during business or individual performance reviews, but something needs to be actionable. To make NPS truly meaningful, we need to go beyond the number and find out what is driving your subscribers to respond as they did—and the best way to do that is by analyzing the underlying data. 

NPS: The Catalyst for Stronger Subscriber Relationships 

Service providers have vast amounts of data they collect daily. Information like rate plans, areas served, billing information, trouble ticket information, and subscriber tenure. But it can take time to transform this data into actionable insights that drive results. That’s why Calix Services developed a new offering, Business Insights Services, that helps BSPs strategically leverage their data to grow their business.   

First engagements with Calix’s Business Insights Services team have focused on subscriber loyalty analysis. Calix customers are tracking this metric in various ways. For example, some have adopted the NPS approach and see scores far exceeding industry averages (including ALLO Communications, CentraCom, Cumberland Connect, GVTC, HTC, Jade Communications, and OTTC, to name a few). The Business Insights team aims to help every Calix customer leverage their data to understand their business better, improve decision-making, and impact business goals—like improving NPS, which ultimately fuels business growth.   

Use Trends and Insights To Impact Subscriber Satisfaction 

Calix works with BSPs to combine NPS results with insights from the Calix Support Cloud or Calix Marketing Cloud data. Calix data analysts identify detailed trends and insights that impact subscriber satisfaction and then bring the findings to life with comprehensive insights visualization and reporting. Business Insights Services then develops action plans with concrete steps BSPs can take to improve subscriber relationships and partner with the BSP’s Customer Success Manager to formalize it into their success plan for tracking and execution. 

3 Ways To Leverage Findings To Improve Subscriber Loyalty

Here are three insights that can guide you to NPS success: 

1. Ensure your subscribers’ lifestyles match their service plans. You can uncover potential problem areas by examining NPS for different personas (gamers, streamers, or subscribers who work from home) through the lens of various service tiers. For example, if gamers on your lowest tier have a significantly lower NPS, you can take proactive steps to upgrade them, increasing satisfaction and winning loyalty.  

2. Subscriber tenure does not equal subscriber happiness. The fact that subscribers stay with their BSP for an extended period does not necessarily mean they’re satisfied. NPS can decrease dramatically over time. Look at the qualitative comments from your NPS surveys for further insights. Do subscribers only interact with you when they have a problem? Or do they feel unappreciated? Once you understand the issues, you can build programs to encourage loyalty.

3. Become proactive versus reactive. Leverage your Calix Marketing Cloud or Calix Support Cloud data with your NPS data to identify factors and build predictive profiles for potential promoters, passives, and detractors. Then design campaigns, customer support initiatives, and loyalty programs to bring more people into your “promoter” profile to create customer satisfaction.

Remembering that NPS should be more than just a score or a KPI is essential. Improving subscriber loyalty must be viewed as a long-term program and embraced across your organization. Taking a data-inspired approach will be the catalyst to help you better understand your subscribers’ wants and needs and develop informed, actionable strategies that lead to stronger relationships with subscribers.  

Join us on May 11, 2023, at 2 PM (ET) for our webinar “Ready for Bigger, Better Data Insights? Business Insights Can Help Drive Improvement” to discover new ways to improve your business and achieve your goals.

Net Promoter®, NPS®, NPS Prism®, and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., Satmetrix Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld. Net Promoter Score℠ and Net Promoter System℠ are service marks of Bain & Company, Inc., Satmetrix Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.