Reliability provides the basis for developing respect and building brand trust in your future actions. Our research indicates that reliable delivery is also the basis for recruiting more ‘passives’ (rather than ‘detractors’) and therefore is one of the critical steps in increasing your Net Promoter Score.
People are likely to express their reason for rating you 7 to 8 on the classic 11 point recommendation scale (that is the basis for the NPS) as having reliable products and services at a fair price. Being reliable is about being perceived as meeting core customer expectations, being consistent in your delivery, and delivering value for money.
Reliability is essentially about convincing people you deliver the overall Job to Be Done (Clayton Christensen 2016). Each company or brand has a core job to be done for customers in product/service categories served and certain critical circumstances which define success and non success.
For example:
- Qantas or Virgin Australia: getting people from A to B on time in acceptable comfort for a price customers are prepared to pay for the brand offering.
- Telstra, Vodafone, or Optus mobile: providing the voice and data customers need whenever required, at a fair price.
Moderate ratings on the classic 11 recommendation point scale (7s or 8s) rely on identifying the core deliverable or ‘job‘ that you have to do at a minimum. This customer outcome is also a basis on which higher ratings (9s or 10s) rely. There is no point delighting the customer or offering more than the basic job if reliable basic job delivery is not perceived to be in place.
Reliable delivery of the core job to be done is, however, easier said than done as Vodafone and Telstra will testify with the fragility of networks and almost inevitable outages.
When inevitable service failures happen, brands can, in our experience, recover quickly by:
- Minimising delivery failures, through reducing failure frequency,
- Setting expectations upfront about what will happen if a problem occurs, and
- By managing perceptions during any such a failure: rectifying the problem in a time frame that meets customer expectations, providing ongoing customer updates and, alleviating customer pain even if this is at a high financial cost to the organisation in the short term.
Consistent and effective job delivery is critical and will become a brand’s track record over time, underpinning your baseline reputation by creating brand trust in future actions through past actions.
There are many different ways to increase a Net Promoter Score. Tracking advocacy and corporate reputation since 1999, we have observed four steps characterising a range of businesses:
You have just read Step 3 in a four-part blog series: Building a high NPS® and strong reputation in 4 steps. Step 4 is still to come.
Step 3: In this post, we discuss building confidence through reliability, building trust in future actions, and growing respect based on past actions.
Step 4: In our next post, we cover achieving admiration through innovations that transform people’s lives and providing thought leadership.
To be continued. Please contact the Liane Ringham CEO of Inside Story at [email protected] for more about driving positive advocacy and stronger reputations.