• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, October 30, 2013

According to a new study and development by ForSee, for the past decade, Net Promoter Score (NPS) has served as a leading metric used by businesses to measure customer recommendations and loyalty. After its introduction in 2003, NPS quickly became the most popular and widely adopted customer experience metric for U.S. businesses.

Research from the Temkin Group in 2012 supported the popularity, says the report, showing that 83% of companies asked their customers the Net Promoter question: “How likely is it that you would recommend (this product/service/brand) to a friend or colleague?” From 2011 to 2012, NPS was the fastest growing customer experience metric.

But business leaders incorporating NPS into their executive dashboard are constantly striving to innovate their analytics and not rely on status quo, says the report. According to ForeSee analysis and research, a more equitable method of deleting “detractors” from the measurement equation provides, as their analysts propose, a more accurate understanding of the word of mouth recommendation quotient.

The report says that ForeSee has collected more than 2 million survey responses over the last two years to research and develop a more accurate and precise way to measure both word-of-mouth promoters and detractors.

As a result, ForeSee conceived the Word of Mouth Index for the next generation. WoMI measures both likelihood to recommend and likelihood to detract from a specific brand by adding a second question: “How likely are you to discourage others from doing business with this company?” By measuring both positive and negative word of mouth, business leaders gain a next-generation metric that, when viewed within the context of the customer experience ecosystem of metrics, provides actionable insights that can help leaders improve key business outcomes, including word of mouth, says the report.

That having been said, there follows several top brand categories comparing the WoMi index to the current NPS index as of the third quarter of 2013.

Top B2B Brand Indices (Q3, 2013)
Brand	WoMi	NPS
3M	55	46
Cisco	46	34
GE	44	28
John Deere	59	47
Nokia	39	21
Oracle	39	21
Siemens	39	25
Xerox	39	20
Source: Forsee. October 2013

 

Top Computer and Electronics Manufacturers Brand (Q3, 2013)
Brand	WoMi	NPS
Adobe	45	31
Apple	65	54
Blackberry (RIM)	39	19
Canon	52	37
Dell	43	18
HP	57	42
IBM	41	30
Intel	44	38
Microsoft	40	25
Nintendo	52	40
Panasonic	51	39
Philips	43	28
Samsung	48	37
Sony	52	41
Source: Forsee. October 2013

 

Top Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) Brands (Q3, 2013)
Brand	WoMi	NPS
Avon	61	52
Budweiser	44	25
Colgate	41	18
Corona	43	21
Danone	35	21
Gillette	42	24
Heinz	47	32
Johnson & Johnson	54	41
Kellogg	48	29
Kleenex	45	24
Nescafe	44	27
Nestle	44	28
Pepsi	40	17
Sprite	39	12
Source: Forsee. October 2013

The full report continues with Financial Services Brands, Retail Brands and Other Brands to not only provide comparative data with which to develop marketing strategy, but to review and consider improvement to the metrics of the proposed measurement methods.

ForeSee concludes that some organizations will continue to use word-of-mouth measurement as a satisfaction metric because of its ease of implementation, sharing, and understanding. Given this reality, organizations need to adopt measurement methodologies that provide more accurate pictures of the business world.

The report suggests that a system that significantly advances the measurement of the customer’s experience with primary benefits for businesses operating in today’s high-speed, word-of-mouth-driven culture would include:

• Any measurement with one simple value that can be used to rally stakeholders (executives, employees, Wall Street, board members, etc.) around their customers’ experience and across an organization
• An understanding of the difference between True Detractors and True Promoters to eliminate the risk of alienating customers who aren’t legitimate detractors
• Adding a second question to understand what drives negative word of mouth as well as positive word of mouth to allow companies to take proactive measures to fix issues

To review the complete report in PDF format, please visit ForeSee here.