A "Super Promoter" Example

When promoters are really active, good things happen

Proponents of NPS (which I am one) argue that by increasing the number of customers who are "likely to recommend" you, your business will prosper.  They also argue that by focusing on increasing the numbers of an often indeterminate class of promoters who both recommend and provide "good" profits, businesses can generate out-sized growth over time.  I believe in this approach.  But often, I think businesses struggle with defining the characteristics of these extra profitable highly loyal customers - their "Super promoters".

In my own experience with NPS I have seen that promoters are found within all classes of customer profitability.  So, determining which groups to focus extra effort on often isn't easy, especially if the customer base being evaluated is large and diverse along product, business unit, revenue or other categories.  Knowing these challenges, I've always looked for an easier way to identify customer groups to focus on.  I think I may have found one.  I'll call it the "Super promoter" question: "How many times have you recommended [company] in the last year". 

I have a great example to share about the use of this question.  I just can't divulge the organization's name.

For the last two years I've been working with a fairly large local soccer club on their annual membership survey.  We ask a number of questions regarding people's experiences in the program, the coaching their kids are getting, the skill development they observe in their kids and their affinity with the club and it sponsors. And:

• We've asked club members the Net Promoter question: "How likely would you be to recommend [Club] to your colleagues and friends". 
• We also asked just "promoters" a follow up question: "How many times have you recommended [Club] in the last year".  Response options included: Never, 1-3, 4-7,8-10 and more than 10 times.

I looked at those promoters who recommended "more than 10 times" in the last year.   They were this organizations' "Super promoters".   It's my opinion that the growth this soccer club has experienced is to a large degree based on the recommendation activity of these "Super promoters".  But, more importantly, when comparing survey responses of "Super Promoters" to those of other club members (both "regular" promoters and the average of all respondents), "Super Promoters" exhibit substantially more loyalty across a range of value categories.  For instance, they are more likely to:

• Wear gear from the club's sponsor
• Be interested in becoming a team or club sponsor themselves
• Be interested in becoming a "Host" to one of the club's coaches (important as each hosted coach doesn't require a rent allowance as part of their pay). 

All of these metrics indicate a willingness to "add value" for the club, beyond just paying the club's (substantial) tuition fees.

Two other very interesting factoids stood out in this club's survey response data:

1. "Super Promoters" for this organization are more likely to be key influencers of other people (2/3 of them are town-based soccer coaches).  Clearly, when town coaches recommend a club, parents naturally consider that club for their kids.  This effect is clearly benefitting this club.
2. "Super promoters" report "Major improvement in their kids skills" at much higher rates than do other members.  Since the club's mission is player skill development, these members appear to be reacting very positively to the achievement of that mission for their kids.  And, it reinforces their recommendation by the increased skill sets their kids demonstrate in town games, in front of other parents.

This soccer club has grown substantially year-over-year.  It seems clear to me that recommendation activity of "Super Promoters" is driving much of that growth.  As a group "Super promoters", by my estimate, are responsible for roughly 35% of all recommendation activity made by all promoters. Since for this organization, "Super promoters" are influential to begin with, it's my guess that their recommendations had a very high impact on overall growth in club membership.

The "Super Promoter" lesson 1 - Identify and Engage them

The lesson from this club's survey data is that their "Super promoters" have an outsized impact on getting prospective customers to engage with them.  Organizations, and especially those seeking to grow by word-of-mouth, therefore should try to identify their "Super promoters" and get them engaged with other prospective customers.  For this organization, engagement with other potential customers is a natural consequence of their proximity with, and influence over, other prospective customers (both parents and kids).  Since most businesses don't have this natural mechanism for promoting engagement, the challenge is one of assisting "Super promoters" to engage with other potential customers in ways that will influence them to buy from that business.

The "Super Promoter" lesson 2 - Market to other potential "Super Promoters"

For this organization the "Super promoter" question easily identified the key group of potential customers to focus on.  Town program coaches.  Now, conceivably, a "super promoter" question wasn't necessary to figure out that developing affinities with town soccer coaches is key to generating recommendation activity.  But, it's my belief that "super promoter" customer characteristics will often be pretty easy to identify and leverage without a lot of expensive consulting and analysis.  By comparing "Super promoter's" survey responses with other customer responses, characteristics of "Super promoters" should almost self identify in the data. 

A couple thoughts on how to engage with "Super promoters":

I believe that for most businesses social media is the most suitable mechanism for engaging with their "Super promoters".  Once identified, I believe "Super promoters" can be stimulated to recommendation behavior in a number of ways.  Obviously, incentives are one way.  Others potentially include:

• "Liking" things they say on your Facebook page or websiet
• "tweeting" their posts on your website, Facebook page, LinkedIn forum, etc.
• Interviewing them on-line via chat sessions (what do like most about [company]) and re-posting (with permission) the conversation elsewhere
• Soliciting their input on blog posts, tweeting and liking what they say
• Setting up LinkedIn forums for them to engage with you via questions and tweeting, liking, etc.,  good comments.

Doing this kind of thing regularly would - in my opinion - generate lots of engagement between "Super promoters" and other potential customers, including other potential super promoters.

 A couple of notes:

For this soccer club, the "Super promoter" question characteristics were developed in completely arbitrary way.  "More than 10 times" might be too many for your company, or too few.  I thought about writing this article a year ago when I first noticed the correlation between high amounts of recommendation activity and high "value add" to the soccer club.  But, I wanted more than one year's data before discussing it.  My theory being, that some level of high reported recommendation activity will define an organization's "Super promoters".  And. that those customers can then be leveraged for business success.

I'd love to hear other people's comments on this.  Anyone wishing to dialogue with me privately can reach me at stew.nash2010@gmail.com

Stewart Nash
http://www.linkedin.com/in/stewartnash
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