Measure What Matters

As accountants and consultants, we can help ourselves and our clients understand that measuring what matters is critical to everyone’s long term success. 

There are two major requirements for growth and success as a company – profitable customers and happy customers. We all measure profit to some degree, but do we measure happiness? Having only profits is simply not good. If you cut corners and saved money but hurt long-term customer relationships, would that be good? If you made money but lost a customer, would that be worth it?

The basic rule of thumb is that a happy customer tells one other person about their experience, whereas an unhappy customer tells ten people.

In his book “The Ultimate Question,” Fred Reichheld discusses how we need to “stop measuring things that don’t matter to your customers.” 

He says: 

• You have to design value propositions that focus on the right customers. That means developing an appropriate segmentation of your customer base, then creating a complete customer experience capable of delighting each targeted segment
• You have to deliver those propositions in the end. Every department and every employee in your company will have to pull in the same direction.
• You have to develop your company's capability to do all this over and over again, renewing and reinventing the customer experience over time.

Therefore, to determine how happy our customers are, you should ask the ultimate question – and very little else: “On a scale of 0-10, how likely would you be to recommend our company to your friends and associates?” 

Analysis shows that, on average increasing the net promoter score by a dozen points versus the competitors can double the company's growth rate. 

If, as a company, you are truly providing value to your customers with your products or services, then your customers would gladly recommend you. Therefore, let’s measure what really matters – and that’s not how much your profits are, it’s what your customers think is important and what makes them happy.