The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is superficial

Check out my latest  post on LinkedIn if you are interested in the common question designed to tell an organization something useful about customer satisfaction and loyalty.  

"On a scale from 0 to 10, how likely are you to reccomend us to a friend or colleague?"

Aside from leading marketers to easy conclusions, singular use of the NPS question is annoying to me.  For some of us, it's simply not the question we want to answer, nor do we want our views confined to a Likert Scale for marketing purposes.  

I suspect some NPS devotees just don't want to deal with unstructured data.  Perhaps more marketing heads will require their surveymonkeys to leverage AI and mine that data that tells them so much more than a checkbox.

Image by upklyak on Freepik

Reviewing products and services online

Who doesn't read consumer reviews on the Internet?  I take them seriously when making purchase decisions and while drafting them.

Many of my reactions as a consumer come in oral rather than written form.  For example, a couple of months ago I left a voice message for a service manager about outstanding service I received from one of his auto technicians.  Last month, I spoke directly with the restaurant chef to compliment his dish, after telling his manager about it.

In essence, the majority of my reactions as a consumer -- whether published online, or spoken, are positive.  This past week was abnormal in that I published two reviews of healthcare professionals: one an Orthodontist (positive) and the other an Optometrist (negative).  

The hyperlink to the Orthodontist will take you to the website associated with this business that dispenses superb care and service; in my view.  I issued a glowing, albeit brief, "5 star" , Google review for them.  

The hyperlink to the Optometrist, will take you to a one star review I wrote on Yelp, which reveals my poor experience.

Note to the gentleman in the Philippines emailing me about online safety and a shared desire to root out fake reviews: thanks for your messages, but I haven't been able to confirm your identity and your website is not functional.

(Image above by freepik)

   

Parsing the out of office reply

We use it, but how should we use it and when?  I'm talking about that automatic email feature known as an "Out of Office" reply.  

Let's ignore the when consideration for now; but it's the "how" behind the usage of the out of office reply that piques my interest.  I received one recently that reads exactly like this with nothing added before or afterward:  

"I'm ooo."  

That's it.  I'm ooo.  First, imagine receiving a voicemail greeting like that -- spoken exactly the same way followed by a beep to record a message.  Now consider, that you need something from the email author of that "ooo".  After receiving this sorry example one could conclude that the sender: 

a) doesn't know when he/she will return, or doesn't want to share that information

b) doesn't wish to be bothered  

c) doesn't care enough to mention an alternative contact in his/her absence.

d) assumes everyone should know what is meant by "ooo".

freepik image

I understand the desire to have a clear delineation between work time and personal time, but should that desire trump common courtesy?

Here are two simple guidelines for composing an out of office reply:

1.  Give the recipient some idea of when you'll be back on the job, or at least the frequency with which you plan to review email in the coming days. 

2.  Give the recipient an alternative in your absence.  Mention either another email address and/or phone number of someone who can handle a request, or if you prefer to handle responses yourself; invite the sender to text urgent matters to your cell phone.

Within an hour of posting this little screed about out of office replies; I received an excellent example of an "ooo" done right:

"I am currently out of the office on vacation the week of 8/21 and will be back on Monday 8/28.   I will be checking email at least once a day and will try to get back to you timely for anything urgent.  Send a text for anything especially urgent.  Thanks."                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

More than a napkin

Below is a humble cocktail napkin from a recent flight.  The inscription -- which I failed to notice at first -- has a richer significance. 

John Maddente photo

After I buckled up, a man next to me begin to banter with our flight attendant who obviously loved her work (I'll call her Laura).  Although he gave me permission to identify him for this post, I recall only his last name -- Weingarten.  Back to the flight...

Laura and Mr. Weingarten appeared to know one another rather well.  When Laura left to serve other passengers, Mr. Weingarten pointed out that both of our napkins contained this friendly, hand-written, greeting and that she had produced one for him on a previous flight.  What I learned next was my inspiration for this post.

Mr. Weingarten explained that on a previous flight, two other flight attendants took notice of Laura's gracious attitude toward her customers and criticized her napkin gesture (not knowing they were within earshot of Mr. Weingarten) because it made them look deficient. 

Shortly after Laura's colleagues finished upbraiding her, Mr. Weingarten motioned Laura to come over for a private word which he concluded with this counsel... "Don't let them crush your spirit".

The story continues.  A busy executive who travels over 150 days per year, Mr. Weingarten found a portal the airline uses to garner customer feedback.  He supplied his flight details and Laura's real name in order to extol her exemplary service and attitude. 

Airline managements take these passenger inputs quite seriously.  Laura was commended as a result.  I know not whether the other two attendants were cited in Mr. Weingarten's message, but this post is dedicated to all the Laura-types in our midst.  Don't let them crush your spirit.