“We create an agency we want to work for and one we would personally like to work with.” NPS 2021 Customer Satisfaction Survey Outcomes
Sonia Oczadły, Senior Account Manager at Whites Agency
“We create an agency we want to work for and one we would personally like to work with.” This statement accompanies us at every stage of client cooperation. When starting out, we define the expectations and needs on both sides. Then, after a certain period of time, we verify that these expectations are being met in order to determine whether the cooperation is progressing satisfactorily for both parties. At Whites Agency we regularly conduct Customer Satisfaction Surveys to improve our results every year.
How have our clients rated their partnership with Whites?
Whites’ Net Promoter Score (NPS) in 2021 was 49%.
What is NPS?
Bain & Co, creators of the standard for evaluating agencies’ cooperation with clients, declare that “a score of over 50% is really excellent, and over 80% is world-leading”. Read more about the NPS methodology below.
Continuously improving the quality of our customer relationships is our strategic goal. We aim high. We believe that this aspect can distinguish our agency and provide a high level of satisfaction for us and our clients. Business is about results and profits, but the people and relationships we foster along the way are equally important.
We regularly poll our customers regarding their satisfaction and as you can see, our rating scores higher and higher every year.
Our clients gave us excellent marks in yet another aspect. In the most important annual survey of Polish advertising agencies, conducted by MMP and Kantar, we were ranked 10th among the 25 largest advertising agencies in Poland in the category of ‘agencies with the highest client service satisfaction score’.
According to PWC’s Future of Customer Experience Survey, up to 73% of consumers say a positive experience is the key factor influencing their brand loyalty. This data aligns with our experience at Whites. In fact, 75% of the clients we’ve acquired since the beginning of 2021 were referrals from our clients and partners who had already experienced collaboration with us.
Striving for excellence as a digital expert and business partner on international markets demands trust and clear communication. To ensure mutual understanding, we ask our clients for their opinion: about our experts, process management and quality of cooperation. We are proud that despite the challenges of Covid-19, the overall client experience of working with us improved and they perceive us as a good business partner.
– says Marcin Piotrowski, Business Development Manager at Whites Agency
How do clients view the Whites team and its effectiveness?
Top-quality client service is one of Whites’ strategic objectives. Why is this so important? Clients appreciate Whites for their campaign results, but also for their excellent communication, dedicated commitment and efficient workflow.
In 2021, we took a closer look at how 78 of our clients rate working with Whites, posing 6 different questions. We are particularly proud that in the questions evaluating the service of our specialists and accounts, the scores were very high. We rely on a robust team and clients know they can count on us.
What questions did we ask in the 2021 Customer Satisfaction Survey?
Question 1: Are you satisfied with the Account Team’s service? (rating 0-10)
Average score 9.00/10
In this age of the pandemic and remote working, we faced the challenge of moving all of our client communication to the online sphere, which as we know, is not as dynamic and subtle as live communication. In order to meet all of our customers’ needs, and above all, to provide them with adequate support – our team had to be extremely attentive, and also empathetic – since both, we and our customers, had to carry out all the communication in channels which previously were only supporting direct communication.
As we entered the lockdown and the remote working era, we agreed that our goal was to be close to our clients, so they could feel we were their partner and they could count on us. Efficient communication and delivering on time proved to be essential. It was important to be proactive in achieving the established goals, including efficiently reporting events we noticed in the dynamically changing advertising market. A quick recommendation in many cases helped our clients get through the pandemic period more efficiently than their competition which was not so responsive. Above all, the number one factor highlighted by our clients in the June survey was our team’s engagement and commitment.
Question 2: Are you satisfied with the service provided by your team of professionals? (rating 0-10)
Average score 8.55/10
Everyday activities in each of the areas we support are based on substantive knowledge that we are constantly developing – this is the factor that customers participating in the survey indicated as the most valued. Proactivity, good communication and punctuality are other, equally important factors repeatedly listed as our strengths. These are the qualities that mark us out as an agency, but we also realize that in a dynamically growing team (about 48 new people per year) focusing on these elements is especially important for further development as an agency, and thus for supporting the growth of our clients’ businesses.
Question 3: Is our partnership progressing in accordance with our goals? (rating 0-10)
Average score 8.08/10
In addition to communication-related elements, it is important to understand the client’s business and jointly defined goals at the beginning of the cooperation – monitoring them is essential to determine whether the work is progressing in the expected direction.
We strive to set goals at the beginning of cooperation. This applies to our estimates, and also to the purpose of the collaboration itself. We track the results and report regularly. We use advanced, proprietary technology to ensure accuracy and innovation. Detailed examples are described in the case study section.
Question 4: Would you recommend our services to a colleague?
(rating 0-10, NPS question)
- Promoter (9-10): 44 (56.41 %)
- Neutral (7-8): 28 (35.89 %)
- Critic (0-6): 6 (7.69 %)
Turning to the measure that best assesses customer loyalty, we can see that the vast majority of our customers are in the promoter group. They are the ones who recommend Whites to other companies.
What affects these results? Both the substantive knowledge of our specialists and our efficient, effective communication, along with the quality of the deliverables. At this point, it is worth emphasizing that our key values are proactivity and partnership, which is consistent with our daily work. Despite the fact that most of our clients are in the group of promoters, we do not relax our attention to them or to the companies in the remaining two groups.
Question 5: What do you value the most about our collaboration? (open question)
This question about the strengths of our collaboration gives us an overview of how our customers perceive our development – which in turn has a significant impact on where we go next, as it allows us to determine whether the elements that we are strengthening as an organization are also perceived by our customers. So far, the survey results have highlighted the characteristics which we, as a team, have been paying great attention to, characteristics which we have been continuously improving.
Within the open question, the vast majority of clients focused on communication and the team’s commitment to handling projects. It is worth noting that this is inseparably linked to the continuous development of our team’s expertise, organizational culture and the atmosphere of both internal and external relationships with our clients. Other elements are professional timing and flexibility, features that are particularly important considering the challenges all companies are facing, both on local and global markets in this pandemic era. Flexibility is what keeps us seamlessly aligned with the new realities and evolving needs of our clients, and on-time performance keeps our clients’ projects and businesses moving forward at a dynamic pace.
Question 6: Is there anything you would like to change in our collaboration? (open question)
Clients grow together with us. Therefore, their expectations naturally evolve year by year. It is important that clients’ expectations and the development of our competencies are in sync. When we asked openly about clients’ needs that can be better addressed by the agency, the answers were: better understanding of the client’s specificity in the process of content creation and active search for the best and most suitable solutions, ones with growth potential. This is an insanely difficult, but incredibly necessary approach. It requires a close, joint action from agency teams, strong strategic thinking and the ability to look at the client’s business with distance.
We listen to our clients and this year we are putting special emphasis on the development of strategic competencies and better organizing teams working on cross-channel digital campaigns. We have worked out new models of cooperation between teams and are now implementing them. We hope that clients will notice the improvements.
If you are looking for an agency that, in addition to improving the performance of your business, will make sure that the quality of your cooperation is constantly maintained – let’s talk. The best way is to contact Marcin Piotrowski, Business Development Manager – marcin@whites.agency, or get in touch via Linkedin.
What is the Net Promoter Score (NPS)? The structure and objectives of the survey at Whites Agency
The Satisfaction Survey is designed for clients who have been working with us for more than one month. This period allows us to determine whether the agency is providing high-quality solutions, meeting the needs of the given brand or organization. This approach to cooperation is important for us because we care about transparency and being close to our clients at every stage of cooperation. It allows us to build long-term relationships based on mutual trust and understanding of needs – which, as we know, is the key to success for both parties.
The Customer Satisfaction Survey consists of 6 questions as described above. All of them are rated on a scale from 0 to 10, and two open-ended questions are also included. In addition to the quantitative assessment, our clients were given an opportunity to further elaborate on these answers through the open statements, which provided a space for assessment of the teams’ work and insight on the implementation of activities. Clients highlighted key issues related to collaboration, such as meeting targets, but also elements from the soft skills category. Both areas are extremely important for successful cooperation and delivery of rewarding results while maintaining an atmosphere of mutual support. Therefore, we tend to both of them with equal attention in order to render stronger and more durable relations with our clients.
Among the survey items is a question directly related to the Net Promoter Score (NPS), which is a tool for assessing customer loyalty. Those invited to participate in the NPS survey rate the partnership on a scale of 0 to 10 by answering the question, “Would you recommend our services to a colleague?” They are then assigned to one of three respondent groups, which in turn provides us with an overview of whether we, as an agency, are fulfilling our mission, building quality relationships with our clients and providing them with the best value in the marketplace.
NPS = % promoters – % detractors
There are three groups:
- Critics (Detractors) – participants who answered the question by rating 0-6
- Neutral (Passives) – rating 7-8
- Promoters – rating 9-10
Naturally, our goal is to deliver the best quality of customer service, such that as many individuals are in the promoter group as possible, as this clearly indicates to us, as a team, that our activities are heading in the right direction. However, it is important that even when we have a strong majority of customers in the third group – as in our case – we are constantly watchful to further enhance our activities, as well as to form relationships based on trust and mutual education.
How do we understand customer feedback and continue to grow?
Conducting a survey, as well as an in-depth analysis of its results, is essential to grasping our customers’ attitudes and understanding their perspectives even better. While constantly reinforcing the quality of our actions and our service, we always turn towards our customers and ask them for feedback. Therefore, simply conducting a survey is not the last step we take.
Following the survey, the next element we focus on is analyzing what our clients say in their teams and scheduling meetings that involve the account leader, team leader or head of the team and the client. The purpose of the meeting is to deepen the feedback and understanding of issues mentioned in the surveys, to examine the sources of evaluation and to determine the areas which, from the client’s business perspective, are priorities for further development of our cooperation.
In our daily work, we focus on maintaining a permanent and holistic understanding of our client’s business, and on the constant development of relationships based on mutual trust and understanding. Therefore, after meetings with clients, we move on to strategic meetings in teams to deeply review the conclusions of conversations with clients and to prepare an action plan for the next interval.
We can say, with a high degree of certainty, that such a structured process brings the intended results because in April 2019, the NPS was 33.3, but now – in the June 2021 edition – this result is 48.72. This is an increase of more than 15 points. However, we aren’t stopping there, as we are committed to the continuous improvement of cooperation and relationships with our customers.
In this pandemic era of remote work and challenges of all kinds, the survey has allowed us to better understand our clients’ perspectives during this difficult time and to respond promptly and accurately to their needs.
We create a company that we want to work for and one that we personally would like to work with. Our clients are primarily partners in business – people who have their own goals, ambitions, and dreams and who, like us, want to make them come true. For us, running an agency means building trust and mutual understanding. What distinguishes us is our team of top specialists – people who not only have above-average competencies, but also get involved and feel responsible for what they do and always have the courage to sign off on the work they complete.
Ania Tkaczyk, Managing Director at Whites Agency
The Customer Satisfaction Survey is for us, as the agency, a sort of confirmation that as a team we are heading in the right direction. However, we are not stopping there and, despite our good results, we are continuing to enhance the competencies of our team and the quality of our service. We want to be and remain the agency that our clients want to work with and that we personally would like to work for. This is crucial for us because we know that two of our most important values are commitment and trust. We have been working on this for over 9 years, during which we have been developing our team, competencies and client relationships – and these values will continue to guide our team in their daily work for the coming years.
About the author
Sonia Oczadły, Senior Account Manager at Whites Agency
Over 6 years of experience in the processes of servicing and maintaining business clients. Experience in coordinating and managing projects in the field of broadly understood digital marketing. Cooperation with clients such as: Medicover, Red Bull or Cetaphil.