“Net promoter” internally?

The fine Church of the Customer blog has an interesting post. It’s called “Remodeling customer surveys” but it has good advice for internal surveys as well. Here's blogger Ben McConnell’s description of a good customer survey:

1. Its first question is: “Based on your recent experience with us, would you recommend us to your friends, family, colleagues, etc.?” Yes, no, or I don't know are the possible answers. (You could use the Net Promoter methodology here, too.)
2. Based on the answer to question 1, the survey then asks, “Tell us more about the reasons for your previous answer.” Then I could select from a pre-determined list of reasons for my answer, or blank boxes for me to write my own.
3. It would ask me how I would describe the company and/or my experience to friends and colleagues. Again, a list of possible answers could be presented along with a blank field for my own description.
4. Finally, it would ask me how the company could improve. I could rank the importance of specific items or provide my own idea which, who knows, could be the dumbest idea ever or somewhat innovative. Process improvement is a never-ending marathon.

I love how this list stresses providing a list of possible answers, along with a blank “other” field. In my book, this is the perfect combination of sortable data and consumer freedom. You will get tons of great material that you can analyze in PowerPoint. And you will get write-in comments that should be manageable. This approach eliminates much of the tedious and subjective work of reading and classifying open comments. A quick brainstorming session will surface most of the possible answers, and there's your list.

The net promoter approach of asking “would you recommend?” is also interesting. Net promoter is based on a single question – would you recommend us to a friend or colleague? Net promoter is the percentage those who will recommend, minus those who will not.

Can it work internally? I don’t see why not. “Would you recommend X Team Town Halls to your co-workers?” “Would you recommend the X Team e-newsletter?”

I’m going to try it in a future survey. If any of you do, please share your results.

Read the entire Remodeling customer surveys post at the Church of the Customer blog.