Like a lot of apparently good ideas, the 'devil is in the detail' with Net Promoter Programs...

The good news, however, is that there is a developing body of public NPS knowledge and to some degree an "open source" approach fostered by the originators of the Net Promoter concept - Frederich Reichheld, Bain & Company and Satmetrix Inc. The Satmetrix NPS certification course attended recently by this student is one example of this.

And whilst it might seem like you are starting from an empty page - there are several other disciplines that can be drawn from on your NPS journey. More like adapting a wheel for your own terrain than reinventing it. 

Why is this so important?

Firstly, there is the score itself. The NPS score requires open standards, common terminology and research rigour for credibility (in particular, did the movement in NPS correlate with revenue growth!). The quoting of NPS scores needs to aspire to the same gravitas as leading performance indicators as do financial statements have as lagging performance indicators. All in context of course - the Italians have been using double-entry book-keeping since the 13th century... but standards worth having need constant development and reinforcement. This has a very practical implication when you (as a line manager) come to backing a "customer investment" against a CFO laden with historical financial statements.  

Even more importantly, the substance of these programs can draw from other disciplines. For any one involved in making these programs work it should be immediately apparent that they are not about the score - "you don't fatten a pig by weighing it". Net Promoter programs are transformation programs - driven by a focus on customer experience, enabled by the score - but transformation programs nonetheless.

This is where the parallels and comparisons with the quality movement and derivations such as Six Sigma and Lean methodologies get interesting. Bruce Temkin provides a very useful summation of these methodologies and their merits in relation to customer experience initiatives.

Similarly, there is a lot that can be used from the supply chain discipline and enterprise resource planning.... "The beauty of ERP is that it is a pre-packaged, proven solution that improves transactional efficiency." However the most efficient supply chain is not the most effective - you can indeed have a bridge to nowhere.    

It seems to me that NPS metrics can provide the all-important receptors for a customer-centric organisation but we need to drive our evidence based discipline well into the organisation and through the action and feedback loop to the customer. And borrowing carefully from the tried and tested in other 'performance improvement' disciplines through that process is probably a good idea...