Here at MailGuard we are fanatic about our customer support; it is the paramount concern of our business. We understand that customer service - especially as a cloud provider - is supremely important.
How many times have you heard someone complain about Telstra's phone support? Probably enough to know that the response time won't be immediate and the process will give you a headache. This creates a huge opportunity for cloud providers to differentiate themselves from other businesses.
According to a survey conducted by technology consultants Portal, clients said they are almost 30% more likely to stay loyal to a company if the customer service is excellent. Staggering numbers when you compare that to the mere 5% who were concerned with the reputation of the business.
It is therefore equally as important to gauge your clients' impression of your support. Insert Net Promoter Score (NPS).
NPS measures customer loyalty by categorising them into three groups - promoters, passives and detractors. Customers are asked how likely they are, on a scale of 1-10, to recommend your services to people they know. Answers of 8+ are considered promoters, 7-8 are passives and 6 and below are detractors.
Generally speaking, promoters contribute much more to the growth of your business than detractors. They are less concerned with price and have a much higher retention rate which leads to greater margins for your business. And because NPS uses a standardised metric it allows businesses to compare their results with industry competitors.
As an example, I've inserted MailGuard's NPS analysis below; as you can see it gives you an accurate tool for comparison.
In the graph above, you can see that MailGuard compares very favourably to its direct competitors. This helps us to identify strengths and weaknesses, potential growth and which businesses have strong customer loyalty.
Knowing that strong customer loyalty is crucial for a business' growth, it can be safely stated that a tool to measure this would also be of benefit. If you're a business owner who values customer service then you should start using Net Promoter Score.
