“I had a clear vision of what efficient sales management requires. Smiley faces alone didn’t provide good enough data.”
Topi Nieminen, Sales Director at Masku
Salesperson–specific NPS measurement – an innovative way to measure customer experience
Masku started measuring customer experience with Roidu feedback devices in all their 52 Masku and Finlandia outlets in July 2019. Masku measures customer experience unlike anyone else: NPS measurements are specific to each salesperson and outlet. First, the customers evaluate their service experience and then direct it to the salesperson serving them. This is how salesperson-specific NPS data is collected, and Sales Director Topi Nieminen has come up with various innovative ways to utilise it.
Salesperson-specific NPS measurement
Salesperson-specific NPS measurement provides raw data about the success and competence of a salesperson and reveals directly how the customer experienced the service situation. “The results have led to changes for both management and staff, and to additional training. We especially expect persons in positions of trust to lead by example – they need to be able to turn words into action,” Nieminen says. Data management and analysis play a key role in the utilisation of the results. This is why weekly and monthly practices have been set up, so that both the senior management and individual outlets receive real-time results reports with the data needed for development. Masku is also planning a reward system to reward the outlets and employees that succeed exceptionally well.
Salesperson-specific feedback might seem like an intimidating idea but it has been received well by the employees. After the initial confusion, the interest towards the results has increased and salespersons want to know what kind of feedback they have received. In fact, the quality of customer service has improved significantly. The advantage of real-time customer experience measuring is that the effect of the changes made can be seen immediately in the customer satisfaction levels.
Product categorisation offers more valuable information
After the feedback to the salesperson, the customers are asked which product category they were interested in. This provides information not only on which products people look for but also on how well these products are sold. For example, if people ask for beds often but beds are not selling well, the focus of sales training can be changed to better match the demand.
Linking the salesperson-specific NPS data to the product categories indicates each salesperson’s success in each product category. Product group-specific NPS highlights the experts, so that they can be used in internal training along with other instructors. “We want to use grassroots level expertise in peer-to-peer training, because it has been found to be much more effective. The best salespeople know the exact right ways to speak to a customer and not just the theory involved,” Nieminen says.
“Smiley faces alone didn’t provide good enough data”
Previously Masku measured customer experience with smiley faces, but that was not enough. “Smiley faces alone didn’t provide good enough data. Smileys helped me with employee resourcing but soon we needed more data. I had a clear vision of what efficient sales management requires, how I want to measure staff performance and, most importantly, how I want to help them improve. For all other service providers, the product range was only a part of the solution and the sufficient capability for changing the basic solutions was missing. Roidu was the only one able to respond to our demands and needs cost efficiently,” Nieminen says, describing the reasons for choosing Roidu as the service provider.
Nieminen is extremely satisfied with the cooperation with Roidu. As an outspoken man, he especially appreciates the ability to speak frankly without circling around the issues. “I appreciate being told right away what is possible and what is not, and that active efforts are made to find solutions,” Nieminen describes. Because Roidu is very flexible and develops its solutions together with clients according to their needs and wants, idea-rich customers such as Nieminen gain new and innovative opportunities: “There are exactly as many possibilities as we can come up with.”
