In a remarkable jump, the customer satisfaction score for retirement villages has risen from an already impressive Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 25 in January 2018 to 40 in November 2020.
That is an increase of 60% in 22 months.
All-important, this NPS score makes the village sector the outright winner across Australia for Customer Satisfaction. Specialist NPS consultancy Perceptive (part of the Clemenger Group), rated charities the highest scoring sector with an NPS of 27. Here is its latest list for other sectors.
COVID is the difference
Our survey commissioned by DCM Research and executed by Australia Online Research (AOR), surveyed 4,845 village residents.
The score of 40 was made up from residents across more than 20 village operators, Private and Not For Profit, and from all states.
Taking out the variable of the operator, the only significant change to take place since January 2018 is COVID.
To deliver such a striking growth in satisfaction is interpreted to reflect the residents’ positive customer experience during the pandemic.
This makes sense given the great lengths most operators went to ensure residents were both safe and remained connected to their village community. Management and operators stood by their side, which we reported on extensively during the height of the pandemic.
A good news story for the sector.
NPS the best satisfaction measurement tool
How good is the NPS as a measuring tool of satisfaction?
The metric was developed by (and is a registered trademark of) Fred Reichheld, Bain & Company and Satmetrix. It was introduced by Reichheld in his 2003 Harvard Business Review article, "The One Number You Need to Grow". Its popularity and broad use have been attributed to its simplicity and its openly available methodology.
It is a management tool used as a measure of customer satisfaction and has been shown to correlate with revenue growth relative to competitors. NPS has been widely adopted by Fortune 500 companies and other organizations.
The basis of the concept is to ask customers “How likely is it that you will recommend this product/service to a friend”, ranked one to ten.
Only people who rate a nine or a ten are considered really satisfied customers.
This is how the score works:
The village management on the ground at village level have obviously done a great job this year, creating a significant number of nines and tens.
A great result.