Skip to Content
  • Bain.com Home
  • Subscribe
  • Connect
  • About NPS
    Main menu

    About NPS

    • Understanding the System
    • The History
    • The Benefits
    • Three Types of Scores
    • Companies Using NPS
    • NPS in B2B
    Recommended reading: A collection of our best thinking
    Important Concepts
    • Measuring Your Score
    • Employee NPS
    • NPS and Growth
    • Predictive NPS
  • Resources
    Main menu

    Resources

    • NPS Prism® Benchmarks
    • NPS Loyalty Forum
    • Additional Vendors
    • Recommended Videos
    • CX Standards
    Listen to The Customer Confidential Podcast
    Interactive tool
    • Customer Love Quiz
  • Book
  • Insights
  • Contact
    Main menu

    Contact

    • Workshops and Speaking
    • Trademarks and Licenses
  • Bain.com Home
  • Subscribe
  • Connect
  • About NPS
    • About NPS

      • Understanding the System
      • The History
      • The Benefits
      • Three Types of Scores
      • Companies Using NPS
      • NPS in B2B
      Recommended reading: A collection of our best thinking
      Important Concepts
      • Measuring Your Score
      • Employee NPS
      • NPS and Growth
      • Predictive NPS
  • Resources
    • Resources

      • NPS Prism® Benchmarks
      • NPS Loyalty Forum
      • Additional Vendors
      • Recommended Videos
      • CX Standards
      Listen to The Customer Confidential Podcast
      Interactive tool
      • Customer Love Quiz
  • Book
  • Insights
  • Contact
    • Contact Us

      • Workshops and Speaking
      • Trademarks and Licenses
    Popular Searches
    • Net Promoter Score
    • Employee NPS
    • Benchmarks
    Your Previous Searches
      Recently Visited Pages

      Content added to Red Folder

      Red Folder (0)

      Removed from Red Folder

      Red Folder (0)

      LinkedIn

      How Do You Teach an Algorithm to Love Your Customers?

      How Do You Teach an Algorithm to Love Your Customers?

      Why it’s both important and rewarding to consciously embed humanity into digital customer experiences.

      By Fred Reichheld and Maureen Burns

      • min read
      }

      Article

      How Do You Teach an Algorithm to Love Your Customers?
      en

      This article originally appeared on LinkedIn.

      Have you noticed the surge of people returning to restaurants and stores in the wake of coronavirus vaccinations?

      It’s a reminder of the social aspects of purchases. Today, as so much goes digital, companies will have to consciously embed humanity in their digital experiences if they hope to continue to delight their customers and tap into the ingenuity of their best frontline employees.

      Read the Bain Book

      Winning on Purpose: The Unbeatable Strategy of Loving Customers

      This new book by Fred Reichheld, Darci Darnell, and Maureen Burns demonstrates that great leaders embrace a higher purpose to win, and Net Promoter® shines as their guiding star.

      We recently wrote about Chewy, the customer-delighting online pet supply retailer, but Maureen and a group of our colleagues at Bain have now taken a look at a group of companies that also blend digital experiences that please customers with the right amount of personal touch.

      Among them: Discover, a US credit card company that offers round-the-clock access to local agents, charges no fees on credit cards, and continuously makes decisions that put customers’ interests first. Across all credit card episodes, 84% are handled digitally, according to Bain’s recent NPS Prism® benchmarking. In fact, the share of interactions that go through human channels at Discover is less than half what it is at competitors.

      This has helped the company put extra attention on improving the service levels of those episodes that do require human intervention. Because there are so few of them, Discover is able to ensure that they are handled by skilled agents who are well trained at handling complex customer problems. When customers interact with Discover, their needs are met at the first contact around 80% of the time.

      This is especially instructive because finance has a particularly high level of automation. In banking, for example, our NPS Prism benchmarking in 2020 shows that roughly 70% of customer interactions at US banks started in digital channels.

      This prompts the question: How do you teach the algorithms to love your customers?

      Key elements of the traditional Net Promoter SystemSM remain essential, particularly using feedback to create a customer-centered culture among highly engaged employees. Combining that culture with the right data and technology will power the next generation of loyalty leaders.

      For more insights, check out the Bain brief “Will the Bots Love Your Customers?”

      Subscribe to the Customer Obsession newsletter on LinkedIn
      Authors
      • Headshot of Fred Reichheld
        Fred Reichheld
        Bain Fellow, Boston
      • Headshot of Maureen Burns
        Maureen Burns
        Partner, Boston
      Contact us
      Customer Interaction Prioritization
      Delta’s Ascent: How a Legacy Airline Earned a Leader’s Spot in Loyalty

      From biometric insights to personalized service recovery, Delta is showing what it means to make emotion a KPI. Learn what’s behind the airline’s NPS surge.

      More
      Customer Interaction Prioritization
      AI in the Air: How Airlines Are Elevating Loyalty Programs

      Airline loyalty programs have been losing altitude as reduced benefits frustrated frequent travelers. Now, airlines are turning to AI to rebuild trust and improve satisfaction.

      More
      Customer Interaction Prioritization
      The Secret to Mars’s Remarkably Durable Success: Customers Come First

      CEO Poul Weihrauch explains how Mars uses both its heart and head to navigate an evolving world with purpose.

      More
      Customer Interaction Prioritization
      How to Know Who Your Best—and Most Valuable—Customers Are

      Many companies have no idea who their best customers are, but new software tools illuminate the critical role promoters play and the value they create.

      More
      Customer Interaction Prioritization
      The Incredible Value of Accurate NPS Data

      Third-party double-blind NPS data like that compiled by NPS Prism enables executives to gauge their customer excellence vs. the competition.

      More
      junio 23, 2021
      Tags
      • Customer Interaction Prioritization

      Want to continue the conversation?

      We offer unparalleled analytic and organizational tools for the Net Promoter System. Together, we can create an enduring customer-centric culture.

      Get the latest on loyalty in your inbox. Our quarterly Loyalty Insights newsletter offers our best thinking and tips on running the Net Promoter System.

      *I have read the Privacy Policy and agree to its terms.

      Please read and agree to the Privacy Policy.
      Bain & Company
      Contact us Connect Subscribe Terms of use Privacy Environmental Policy Sustainable Procurement Policy Sitemap

      Net Promoter®, NPS®, NPS Prism®, Net Promoter System®, and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., NICE Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld. Net Promoter Score℠ is a service mark of Bain & Company, Inc., NICE Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.