A Satisfied Customer Isn’t Enough

March 6, 2006

Deep loyalty turns customers into word-of-mouth promoters—and that’s a force you need for growth. An excerpt from the new book, The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth.

Editor’s note: It’s fine to have customers who like you, but satisfaction isn’t going to stoke the growth engine, argues loyalty expert Fred Reichheld. The goal is to turn a customer into a promoter, someone who would answer yes to the "ultimate question": Would you recommend us to a friend? Reichheld’s new book, The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth, offers a system called the Net Promoter Score that helps rate customers based on their view of your company. The goal: Cut out "detractor" customers and promote recommenders. In this excerpt, Reichheld outlines the payoffs from developing deep customer relationships and outlines the NPS system.

by Fred Reichheld

Full Story: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item.jhtml?id=5236&t=leadership&iss=y