"Well-well look. I already told you: I deal with the god damn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?"
At least it's not Google Hangouts. That crap platform will kill any laptop battery in ~30-45 min flat and make it seem like you're rendering some 8K video.
In the early 2000's there was the "original AT&T", a separate wireless company called AT&T Wireless, then Cingular who was the wireless group/division of SBC (Southwestern Bell) and SBC themselves.
Consolidation started with Cingular buying AT&T Wireless. Then SBC bought AT&T and simply kept the AT&T brand. Eventually the Cingular brand went away and they went back to AT&T and AT&T Wireless.
Wheeeee! The AT&T of today is basically SBC with all the old assets rolled in. SBC bought AT&T, not the other way around.
Surprised no one mentioned this already. I was a KS backer for Kung Fury and pretty sure that Blood Dragon gave them some "inspiration". Love them both!
Thank you for sharing...way to be persistent and not give up! Hate when I see founders seemingly giving up too early because they don't see the instant success/traction of the lucky few.
On another note, I wanted to ask about the admin/personal assistants. Why were these roles necessary at this stage in the company? Asking because I'm seeing more of this, but even with the funding I've raised it's still a hire I don't feel like I can justify.
I was always impressed by this during several of his keynotes at QuakeCon the past few years. I believe it was 2012 when he was standing next to the chair talking and didn't seem to flinch for almost 2 hours straight.
The primary issue with churn is that there are few reliable ways to get a picture of accounts that are likely to churn. We're starting to see better data driven options (at least with online services) by watching user behavior which can really help, but one of the best ways continues to be proactively engaging customers with a meaningful metric.
NPS (Net Promoter) is generally looked at through the lens of driving growth by understanding who your most loyal customers are, why, and encouraging recommendations/referrals.
The other major benefit when instituted properly (regular quarterly engagements for most subscription services) is the early warning you get from detractors who have a very high likelihood of churning within a 90 day period, if not sooner. Nothing tends to be more accurate than a customer self-selecting and letting you know they are either having a bad experience or they don't understand the product, not seeing the value, etc.
Unfortunately a lot of companies/services optimize for churn at the point of cancelation which is way too late. You've got to interact and engage those at-risk accounts ahead of time.
Using tools like NPS (properly of course) along with some key behavioral metrics and the commitment to have meaningful conversations with those accounts can have a drastic impact on churn in most organizations. We've seen it first-hand.
With regards to the article...couldn't agree more. Never enough focus on churn it seems.
Great article Todd! Thank you for sharing your experience. Would be good to hear more about how you engaged with your customers post-survey which is one of the most important aspects of Net Promoter. Driving to that direct engagement (to either ask for referrals/recommendations from Promoters or recover Detractors).
We're very excited to have recently launched Promoter.io (www.promoter.io), a platform built specifically to help companies not only measure and track their NPS, but drive more valuable/actionable insights out of the data and open-ended feedback. We also heavily streamline the process of customer engagement post-survey.
We don't allow customers to change (or "break") the survey. Standard single question with an open-ended follow-up about the score.
One important aspect to keep in mind about Net Promoter is that you're attempting to identify what is causing the most loyal customers to feel that strongly about your brand, and who WOULD (not just who is) recommend/refer your brand. Once you know who would you can directly engage those Promoters to drive referral business you might otherwise never see. It's there.
Surprised here too at the lack of engagement, but I appreciate your comment...maybe I timed the post wrong :)
We are seeing a fairly strong surge in popularity with Net Promoter within the startup community, but I do think that many people don't understand how deeply NPS relates to those bottom line metrics you mentioned (revenue, LTV, churn, etc). In a predictive fashion no less. Add to that the simplicity from a customers perspective and response rates orders of magnitude higher than traditional research/surveys...powerful stuff.
You correctly noted the challenge of spreading the word (and perhaps benefits) of NPS. I think a lot of that has had to do with the lack of tooling built for this specific purpose, which is something we hope to change in a big way.
Feel free to drop us a note anytime if you'd like to chat further. Would love to get more feedback or answer any other questions you may have.