Effective account management cannot be gauged by sales numbers alone. The best AMs also drive significantly higher rates of customer satisfaction. Healthcare companies can use their NPS, a common customer-focused metric, to evaluate how well their AMs are doing on this critical front. Keep reading to learn more about why NPS is a useful assessment tool and how you can use other tools and data to make up for its shortcomings.
What Is NPS?
NPS stands for Net Promoter Score. This metric is used across many industries to gain insight into customer satisfaction and is particularly prized in healthcare consulting.
To calculate your NPS, you will need to ask your customers to rate how likely they would be to recommend your company to others on a scale of 1 to 10. You can then sort your customers into the following three categories.
- Promoters (score 9-10) are customers who have had great experiences with your company. They are extremely happy with your products and services and will gladly promote you to other prospects.
- Passives (score 7-8) are customers who have had middling experiences with your company. They are not pleased enough to become devoted customers but not dissatisfied enough to begin actively looking for alternatives.
- Detractors (score 0-6) are customers who have had poor experiences with your company. They are likely to switch to a competitor and may even discourage their associates from buying from you.
To calculate your company’s NPS, subtract the percentage of your customers who are detractors from the percentage who are promoters. The result will be a figure between -100 and 100.
NPS as a Measure of AM Performance
Your company’s NPS score offers a telling glimpse into your customers’ opinions of your account management team. In the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries, companies are rarely distinguished by their products alone. The quality of the services they provide is a major factor in determining their market share.
Account managers who go the extra mile for their clients will leave an excellent impression on them and may create a new promoter, leading to a higher NPS. Those who offer just adequate or poor service will not. In fact, poor service may leave such a negative impression on a customer that they become a detractor who actively works against you.
The worse your account management team performs, the lower your NPS is likely to be. Investing in things like account management training courses can improve this metric significantly, reflecting the rise in customer satisfaction that these investments bring.
NPS as a Longitudinal Measure
If you invest in continuing education for your account management team, you will naturally want to see that investment pay off. By comparing your NPS year-over-year, you can see how much your customers appreciate your efforts. Rising scores reflect the new skills that your AMs have put to work in service of your company.
However, NPS also has notable limitations as an assessment tool. It cannot assess the performance of specific AMs, leaving you with no way to determine which members of the group are top performers and which need more direction. It also cannot tell you which aspects of their service are resonating with your customers and which still need work. For this, you will need to invest in a more detailed Personnel Assessment Report.
To a Higher NPS and Beyond
Your company’s success rests on the skills of your account management team. The Brooks Group offers advanced account management training courses designed to help every member of your team excel, working together to improve your NPS.
If you are interested in more detailed performance assessments, our Voice of the Customer market research offering provides a comprehensive look at your customers’ feelings toward your products, your brand, and each of your AMs. Contact us today to learn more about this offering or any of our other healthcare consulting and market research services.