The most important question to ask your customers  

It's a big claim.  Ask your customers one question and their answers will give you an insight into the strength of your business. So what's the question?  And what makes it so important to your business?  

The question  
Would your customers recommend your service to their friends or colleagues?  

Why it's important to your business  
According to the research boffins at Harvard, the answer isn't just interesting, it's vital.  It holds the key to the future growth of your business.  The original idea came from Fred Reichheld, author of 'The Loyalty Effect'.  

He asked customers to rate how likely they were to recommend a brand on a scale of 0 to 10.  The highest scorers reported a significant increase in sales.  

David Tiltman summed up the research in his article in Marketing Magazine recently -  

"It is a recognition of the power of word of mouth in an age where blogs and easily accessible online customer reviews have arguably made recommendations more important than ever."  

He quotes a UK study conducted by Paul Marsden at Enterprise LSE confirming the relationship between the score and business growth holds true for the UK market too.  

"The research estimated that for the average company, a 1% rise in word-of-mouth advocacy led to £8.8m in extra sales…"  

It's simple  
There's no long winded number crunching producing figures that need a first class degree in statistics to understand.  So your board and your managers are both more likely to get involved and use the system.

Set objectives  
What gets measured gets done. And Rant & Rave from Rapide makes it easy for you to measure your score regularly.  It's specifically designed around the Harvard research so you can see the results at a glance, online, even check every day if that's your thing. You can set objectives, target your staff and make sure they deliver.

Time to throw away the research agency?  
No, it might be tempting, but not quite yet.  It's important to use the right measures for the right reasons.  If your score changes dramatically, a research agency can help you to work out why.  

Call us on 02476 43011 911 to see our system in action

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