In an era where purchasing decisions are empowered by the information available at your customer’s fingertips, we believe that leading the way in great customer service is vital to our business.
Our commitment to knowing our customers, understanding why they choose Ray White over our competitors and how we sustain, build and promote that relationship has seen our driving force in customer satisfaction, Shelley McDowell from our Ray White marketing team, invited to present recently at the 2014 New Zealand Customer Conference.
The conference showcased 25 unique perspectives on customer service innovation and is the ultimate presentation of customer-centricity in action. “Shelley’s invitation is testament to Ray White’s focus on and progress in customer satisfaction.” says Carey Smith, Chief Executive Officer of Ray White New Zealand.
At the conference, Shelley presented and discussed a range of topics from how Ray White have established a real-time customer experience program, the challenges of changing an industry wide view of the customer experience, and switching from a reactive to a proactive customer relationship driver. Shelley went on to talk about the collective strength and benefits of building momentum through internal culture changes and how Ray White have gained, and retained, a world class Net Promoter Score (NPS).
The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is an international customer service monitoring tool, and is calculated as: the percentage of Promoters minus the percentage of Detractors. Customers respond to the simple question: ‘How likely are you to recommend your Ray White Agent to your family and friends?’ on a 0 to 10 rating scale and results are categorised as follows: Promoters 9 and 10 score; Passives 7 and 8 score; Detractors – 0 to 6 score. Our customers are contacted electronically after an unconditional sale inviting them to take part in the survey. Through a series of structured metrics the results are calculated and feedback is then made available to the team – enabling individuals and offices to not only assess their performances, but also identify opportunities for service improvements and growth in their business. “This programme is part of our business growth strategy and our dedication to keeping the customer at the heart of everything we do. Through Harvard research and Bain & Co. Consultancy we know that business growth and profitability are closely linked to better customer service” says Shelley.
The Ray White Customer Satisfaction Programme is a tool which will continue to drive our behaviour as the market leader in customer service. The programme collects customer feedback enabling us to capitalise on word of mouth as well as identify opportunities for service improvement and growth. “Ray White have adopted, across our business, the Customer Satisfaction Program to drive our behaviours as the market leader in customer service” Carey Smith, CEO Ray White New Zealand states. Informed by this data, the new financial year will see us improve our training and review systems, working on areas of improvement identified through the surveys to date, and of course launching more surveys to our customers.
Following on from our earlier blog post on our customer service satisfaction program – here are a few fast facts on our Ray White Customer Satisfaction Programme:
- 32,000 surveys have been sent out internationally
- 81% of survey respondents have been promoters (giving Ray White Agents a 9 out of 10 score)
- Australia and New Zealand are currently showing a Net Promoter Score of 73