We have all been chasing that holy grail of customer satisfaction and moving towards net promoter scores as a metric of success. While this is certainly a part of the puzzle we need to understand and pursue … it is only a part.
I have studied how we learn in life and thought initially that we learn through success. Upon further study, I found that success is much less influential in our learning than failure. The mark of great innovators is that they fail quickly … learning from what doesn’t work and using that to define what might. They try and fail until they succeed.
If you accept this hypothesis, we should be studying customer satisfaction and net promoter scores by studying customer dissatisfaction very closely. However, go ahead and have those conversations in your organization and you will certainly notice defensive arguments and finger pointing rather than looking into what we should learn.
Here is an example from a truly competitive industry which at first glance might sound a bit like airlines charging for luggage (which really miffs me so I and others now carry on everything). The hotel industry has studied a small element of customer dissatisfaction and found a new revenue source.
Let’s see where this one lands. Personally, I like this idea.