NetCNS vs NPS
NetCNS is to operations what NPS is to marketing. It does not replace NPS; it adds the understanding of which customer needs you are, and are not, meeting.
Why NPS alone is not enough
- "The main reason why NPS is only a metric of limited utility is that it doesn't give any definite understanding of the extent to which an organisation is meeting customer needs, and more importantly which ones it is not meeting."
- "When an NPS score is going down, organisations typically have no idea why this is happening. If an NPS is going up, organisations feel safe, but it is arguable that NPS … gives a false sense of security … It simply produces a number, rather than an understanding of why customers have scored the way they have."
- NPS is "a kind of quick barometric reading". It "sits most comfortably with the organisation's brand promoters" (marketing). Operations "needs to know as much as it can about its customers' needs and wants and to what extent it is delivering on them in its everyday activities."
- Stephen questions what "recommend" means and says NPS is "open to abuse by being applied in contexts that are inappropriate". His examples are asking it after "a flu jab" or "filling up their car at a petrol station? I have experienced both."
- This is not about dropping NPS. "I'm not of course suggesting NPS should be discarded. NPS ought to be seen as a measurement to which specific insights about how an organisation is meeting customer needs and nice-to-haves must be added." "Organisations that combine use of NetCNS with the NPS metric will give themselves the best opportunity to maximise their competitive edge." In line with this, every dCNS question set ends with the two NPS questions.
- Unlike NPS, "the Net Customer Needs [Score] provides a measure against specific and tangible needs - making it easy to see what needs to be done to improve any given score."
- "It may be argued that NetCNS is in fact the best predictor of NPS … how could a customer reasonably recommend a service, brand or experience, if their basic needs are not being met? You'd hardly recommend a hospital that left you feeling as ill when you left as you felt when you went in."
NetCNS: the metric
- In one line: "NetCNS is to operations what NPS is to marketing."
- "NetCNS is an organisation-wide operational measure that tracks how customer needs are being met, and also provides a deeper understanding of what is driving customer perceptions including signposting to root causes of why needs are not being met." It is also described as "a complementary metric, NetCNS that measures performance weighted by emotional impact."
- "NetCNS has been designed to deliver just one number that provides an organisation-wide operational measure and benchmark … These indications can then be acted upon pretty much instantly by staff on the front line."
- How NetCNS is calculated, in three steps (from Stephen’s 2017–18 articles; scoring was simplified in 2021, see below):
- Customer Needs. "Listen carefully and understand the feedback provided by your customers. Most organisations already have significant quantities of text, verbal and other verbatim data so it is a relatively straightforward matter to identify themes and group the feedback in a way that describe needs and wants. Often common groups of needs emerge from this feedback, however their priority and specific mix will vary from organisation to organisation, across different sectors."
- Customer Needs Score. "Each customer's verbatim statements can be scored by them through traditional surveys, face-to-face workshops or online data capture to indicate how well a customer need is met across three different dimensions: a) Emotion – how do customers feel when the need is not meet? b) Importance – how important is the need? c) Performance – how well does the organisation currently meet that need? The Customer Needs Score (CNS) can be calculated by establishing a weighted formula that represents a sum of the experience that relates to the need they have specified and if that need has been met or not."
- Calculating NetCNS. "The NetCNS is obtained in the same way that the NPS is, by totalling the number of customer needs that have been met, then taking away the number that have not been met. This is then divided by the number of responses and multiplied x100 to produce a score between -100 and +100."
- "To calculate NetCNS, you must have first understood your customer needs and wants, and how each grouping is performing. This means that when the executive board asks why the score has moved, you already know the answer."
- Stephen’s offer: "I offer the NetCNS thinking and concept freely to anyone who truly cares about their customers".
How NetCNS is scored today (NetCNS2)
- Two inputs per customer statement, each on a 1–5 scale: Performance and Emotion. "NetCNS2 is a proxy for importance taking into account Performance and Emotion".
- How each statement is classified: every scored statement comes out as a Positive, Passive or Negative experience:
| Emotion ↓ / Performance → | 1 "It was a nightmare" | 2 "Not Great" | 3 "OK" | 4 "Pretty Good" | 5 "Excellent" |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 "Really Angry" | Negative | Negative | Passive | Positive | Positive |
| 4 "Slightly Angry" | Negative | Negative | Passive | Positive | Positive |
| 3 "Annoyed, but not angry" | Negative | Negative | Passive | Positive | Positive |
| 2 "Slightly disappointed" | Passive | Passive | Passive | Passive | Passive |
| 1 "I don't give it a second thought" | Passive | Passive | Passive | Passive | Passive |
- Need classification by Emotion: E = 5 → "CORE NEED"; E = 3–4 → "NEED"; E = 1–2 → "NOT A NEED".
- The final score: "Final NetCNS2 Score (% of Positive Experience -% Negative Experiences)", "Range -100 to +100". Passives are excluded from the numerator but count in the base, which is the number of scored statements. For example, 1,000 responders with 200 positive and 100 negative gives NetCNS2 = 10. As the 2021 deck says, "This matches the NPS method".
- Scale anchors:
- Performance: 1 "It was a nightmare" / 1 "Not at All"; 2 "Not Great"; 3 "OK"; 4 "Pretty Good"; 5 "Excellent" / "Always done well".
- Emotion ("how do you feel when it is not done well"): 1 "I don't give it a second thought" ("Don't Care"); 2 "Slightly disappointed"; 3 "Annoyed, but not angry"; 4 "Slightly Angry"; 5 "Really Angry" ("Angry").
- What it measures: "CNS Framework measures two key indicators: Performance - How well an organisation meets customers needs; Emotion - How a customer feels based on their last interaction with the organisation". NPS measures "Relationship". "Performance & Emotion + Relationship = Business Success".
- NetCNS "should be used as part of a balanced score card – not on its own".
Further reading by Stephen
- "NetCNS: a crucial new metric to maximise your competitive edge" — Stephen Hewett (I J Golding blog, 5 Dec 2017) (Archived copy (Wayback Machine))
- "The end of NPS? Why it's time to measure your customers' needs instead" — Stephen Hewett (MyCustomer, 17 Oct 2018) (Archived copy (Wayback Machine))