The effect of marketing plans and new product incentives pale in comparison to the opinion of a trusted friend, relative, or colleague. According to Fred Reichheld’s Ultimate Question, positive word of mouth is key for driving good profits, while negative referrals cast doubt on a company’s integrity. Reichheld’s Net Promoter Score (NPS) helps companies ask customers whether or not services rendered are worthy of word of mouth promotion.

The NPS framework characterizes customers as a promoter, passive, or detractor. Promoters have the highest repurchase and customer loyalty rates of the three groups. Passives follow promoters with lower repurchase rates and excitement about the product. Detractors create negative publicity for a company because they’ve experienced poor customer service and want to warn others about the company’s practices.

On the NPS referral scale, promoters are “extremely likely” (9-10) to recommend service to someone else. Detractors dominate the scale (0-6) as “not at all likely” to recommend a company’s service to another person. However, both groups are able to generate equal amounts of word of mouth about the service received. Reichheld fails to give a good description about purchasing behaviors of passive customers. From the explanation given, I get the impression that passive customers have experienced good and bad service, but they still support the company. Passive customers aren’t exactly in the middle of the NPS scale (7-8), but they’re in a position where they can become either strong promoters or detractors.

The NPS framework can extend to social services as well. In health education, positive word of mouth is your profit. Health educators want to deliver a quality program to community members, so that people not only return, but also bring other community members along.

I held an emergency preparedness training this morning and spoke with three participants who’ve been enjoying the program, but recently had a bad experience with an instructor. One student began the conversation positively by saying “Candice, thank ‘Bob’ for teaching Monday’s course for us.” Another student chimed in with negative comments about Bob’s teaching style. This sparked negative comments from a third person. By the end of the conversation, all three participants were complaining.

This experience made me think about the power detractors have in influencing peers to defect. I consider the participant who wanted me to thank Bob as a passive participant – he had some reservations, but was willing to overlook them due to his overall good experience in the program. Had detractors not been present, I wonder if he would have continued to give Bob accolades.

Consumers are greatly influenced by word-of-mouth referrals. It’s harder to convert a detractor into a promoter. After determining NPS, business leaders should take steps to identify passive customers before they fall into the clutches of detractors. Leaders should work to understand needs and preferences of passive customers to create a better product that turns them into loyal promoters.