[Case Study] How Zip Water UK Lifted NPS from 5 to 73

In just three years Zip Water UK dramatically lifted their NPS from +2 to +73 by driving customer experience culture and relentlessly finding and correcting root cause issues for their customers.

In this case study we examine the reproducible steps and approaches they took to drive that change.

Zip UK’s 3 Year Transactional NPS Trend

Zip Water UK is the UK arm of Zip Water, an Australian-based company, with headquarters in Sydney Australia. Zip Water is part of Culligan International, a world leader in delivering premium water services and solutions that improve the health and wellness of consumers.

The CX / Net Promoter program at Zip Water UK is led by Amanda Graham – Head of Customer Experience. Amanda looks after 60 people in their Norfolk, UK, based contact centre.

Executive leadership comes from the top with Tracey Bamber (Managing Director, UKI at Culligan International, responsible for the UK and Ireland for Culligan) providing powerful sponsorship and support for the program.

Drive CX Culture Deep Into All Areas of the Organisation

Transactional and relationship survey data is collected using a CustomerGauge NPS account experience system integrated deeply with the organisation’s Salesforce CRM.

Zip UK uses the CustomerGauge system to review feedback and share it widely and deeply across the organisation.

As head of the program, Amanda leads this process personally: reviewing feedback daily, celebrating great outcomes and sharing successes across the organisation.

Importantly, while the process is informal, i.e. there are no specific NPS awards or bonuses, it is consistent and driven from the top.

Positive feedback is simply shared openly with staff to showcase individual staff and their successes. This feedback also finds its way, informally, into many of the organisation’s staff recognition programs.

This approach helps all staff to understand the importance of customer experience and continually reinforces the CX focused culture Zip has created.

Relentlessly Perform Root Cause Analysis and Implement Fixes

While many organisations use root cause analysis and take corrective action in their business, Zip UK takes it to a whole new level.

The key for Zip UK is that they haven’t created long and detailed root cause programs or complex formal processes that can be cumbersome and difficult to implement.

Instead, they simply view every comment through a root cause analysis and corrective action lens.

Every response is an opportunity to uncover and correct a problem and prevent future issues:

This creates a powerful long term improvement path where continual small improvements lead to large long term gains.

NPS is Not A Formal KPI and Not Linked to Remuneration

While, Zip UK measures, shares widely and tracks Net Promoter Scores, they don’t directly tie individual or team rewards to it. While no individual or team has NPS improvement as a goal, it is an improvement goal at the enterprise level.

This is a best practice approach but lots of companies do directly reward individual and small team NPS data. Tracey explains the rationale behind their decision not to do this at Zip UK:

Tracey further notes:

The organisation recognises that it’s not just front line staff, often the only ones goaled on NPS, who impact the score – it’s everyone who impacts the customer, which is everyone in the company.

Create KPIs For The Drivers of NPS

While NPS is not a target for individuals or teams, there are targets for the drivers of NPS.

Zip used driver analysis to identify the two or three business areas that are most important to customers and ultimately drive Net Promoter Score. Then they created matching KPIs for those business areas.

For example, using CustomerGauge driver analysis, Zip identified First Contact Resolution (FCR) as an important driver of NPS. So, they started measuring FCR and then created programs to directly improve it long term.