• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
QuestionPro

QuestionPro

questionpro logo
  • Products
    survey software iconSurvey softwareEasy to use and accessible for everyone. Design, send and analyze online surveys.research edition iconResearch SuiteA suite of enterprise-grade research tools for market research professionals.CX iconCustomer ExperienceExperiences change the world. Deliver the best with our CX management software.WF iconEmployee ExperienceCreate the best employee experience and act on real-time data from end to end.
  • Solutions
    IndustriesGamingAutomotiveSports and eventsEducationGovernment
    Travel & HospitalityFinancial ServicesHealthcareCannabisTechnology
    Use CaseAskWhyCommunitiesAudienceContactless surveysMobile
    LivePollsMember ExperienceGDPRPositive People Science360 Feedback Surveys
  • Resources
    BlogeBooksSurvey TemplatesCase StudiesTrainingHelp center
  • Features
  • Pricing
Language
  • English
  • Español (Spanish)
  • Português (Portuguese (Brazil))
  • Nederlands (Dutch)
  • العربية (Arabic)
  • Français (French)
  • Italiano (Italian)
  • 日本語 (Japanese)
  • Türkçe (Turkish)
  • Svenska (Swedish)
  • Hebrew IL (Hebrew)
  • ไทย (Thai)
  • Deutsch (German)
  • Portuguese de Portugal (Portuguese (Portugal))
Call Us
+1 800 531 0228 +1 (647) 956-1242 +52 999 402 4079 +49 301 663 5782 +44 20 3650 3166 +81-3-6869-1954 +61 2 8074 5080 +971 529 852 540
Log In Log In
SIGN UP FREE

Home CX

Co-create with your innovative customers

NPS-plus-customer-feedback

When right is wrong & wrong is right

We’ve all seen quite a few changes in the last few months. Like most, I see some changes I don’t like and some that I do. As someone with an operations mindset, I continue to observe some changes and keep asking myself, “Why weren’t we doing this all along?”. 

One place we’ve seen many of these changes is at the grocery stores. For a place that handles the food we consume, our standards have probably increased significantly and aren’t likely to go down. A friend who works in customer service for a grocery store near a National Park campground relayed a recent story. Because it is a remote area, it has drawn individuals from more densely populated areas in the hopes of a vacation with fewer risks of the pandemic. Simultaneously, while the local economy never felt much impact, the services at the campground were reduced, which included litter disposal – leaving a pack-it-in/pack-it-out policy in place. For one customer, the solution was to purchase a few items at this local grocer, then ask to throw out two bags of refuse in the dumpster. However, store policy (and economic reality) really doesn’t allow for customers to use that single dumpster – otherwise, it would exceed capacity. That exchange turned into a debate that ended with the proclamation of “Next time I’m spending $60 on groceries, it won’t be here!”. Being from out-of-state, I would assume that to be true. After the customer had departed, the manager went out front, disappointed to find that the customer decided to leave the two bags in a shopping cart in the parking lot. 

Having spent time as a cashier and in customer service for a grocery store chain, I have many stories like this. Back then, I remember the line – which was posted prominently in the employee break room – “The Customer is Always Right!”. I was not present for this incident, but I will declare unequivocally that in this case, that statement is wrong, the customer was not in the right, at least with regard to the leaving of garbage in the store parking lot.

The great customer debate

“The Customer is Always Right”, “Perception is Reality” and “Everything Starts With The Customer” are a few of the phrases that I’ve seen shared throughout the years when it comes to discussing Customer Experience and expectations. However, having been on all four sides of the debate (front-line service worker, management, CX practitioner, and customer), each of these has a varied amount of truth and reality in practice depending on which function you are serving. 

There is the reality that if every customer took their $60 elsewhere, you’d have no revenue and be out of business. On the other hand, if every customer used the dumpster every time they spent $60, your costs would skyrocket, and you’d be out of business. 

A key reason we seek to understand the voice of the customer is to find that balance simply. Recognizing that not every experience with each customer will go right is a reason we have tools for case management. Understanding that not all customers are the same is a reason that, at QuestionPro, we have revenue weighted NPS. We even drive a better understanding of the customer by sharing data in CX dashboards, while also keeping in mind that dashboards also have limitations. 

What does the customer know?

Balance is probably the most important factor in most areas of our lives. The same is true when it comes to customers. If you ask them what they really want, they’re likely to tell you they want a better product, delivered more efficiently, with great service and all for free. That isn’t as practical as we know, at the same time, we need to listen to the customers’ needs. We get feedback all the time in stores and through surveys, but we also can’t take every suggestion from customers as business advice. So, where do we draw the line? The simple answer is through the use of customer co-creation. 

Regardless of your point of view on NPS versus CSAT, some basic ideas are similar:

  1. We group customers into those that were pleased with the service, displeased with how they were treated or somewhere in between
  2. We leverage attributes in an attempt at building a model to understand where the service has the greatest impact on overall customer perceptions
  3. Open-end comments are requested to fill in any gaps

While every likely customer has an opinion, some of those opinions may not resonate completely with other customers (never mind the bottom line). That was the driving force behind the development of QuestionPro’s NPS+ feature. Two driving elements of this feature are understanding Root Cause and Customer Innovation and Co-Creation. When an idea resonates with enough customers, you have the opportunity to build services and/or products around the idea. This could be towards greater customer satisfaction or, possibly, enhanced revenue opportunities.

NPS-plus

While some good ideas may get left behind, there will always be new opportunities popping up that can support the customer experience. Perhaps even a service where customers can pay a disposal fee upon emerging from their camping trip. I’m sure I know of one customer that feels strongly about that, though I suspect that customer would still churn. 

Keep watching for more information about NPS+. While we are always rolling out new tools, we’re updating our Root Cause feature to help better understand the risk of churn in organizations, especially among those that might not be dissatisfied, but not completely happy. If you want to see our NPS+ feature in action, don’t hesitate to contact me or you can sign up for a free trial of our CX suite here, just click on the Free Trial button.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE:

About the author
Ken Peterson
Ken has 20 years of customer experience research in retail, technology, hospitality, financial services, automotive, SaaS deployments, and CX consultation.
View all posts by Ken Peterson

Primary Sidebar

Take full control of your customer journey

Make immediate business actions with our CX management platform

Learn more

RELATED ARTICLES

HubSpot - QuestionPro Integration

Everything You Do Is About the Experience — Tuesday CX Thoughts

Aug 15,2023

HubSpot - QuestionPro Integration

Bank of America’s NPS & Customer Perception 2025

Apr 04,2025

HubSpot - QuestionPro Integration

Large Language Models: Types, Applications, and the Future

Nov 22,2023

BROWSE BY CATEGORY

  • Academic
  • Academic Research
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Assessments
  • Audience
  • Brand Awareness
  • Business
  • Case Studies
  • Communities
  • Consumer Insights
  • Customer effort score
  • Customer Engagement
  • Customer Experience
  • Customer Loyalty
  • Customer Research
  • Customer Satisfaction
  • CX
  • Employee Benefits
  • Employee Engagement
  • Employee Engagement
  • Employee Retention
  • Enterprise
  • Events
  • Forms
  • Friday Five
  • General Data Protection Regulation
  • Guest Post
  • Insights Hub
  • Life@QuestionPro
  • LivePolls
  • Market Research
  • Marketing
  • Mobile
  • Mobile App
  • Mobile diaries
  • Mobile Surveys
  • New Features
  • non-profit
  • NPS
  • Online Communities
  • Polls
  • Question Types
  • Questionnaire
  • QuestionPro
  • QuestionPro Products
  • Release Notes
  • Research Tools and Apps
  • Revenue at Risk
  • Startups
  • Survey Templates
  • Surveys
  • Tech News
  • Tips
  • Training
  • Training Tips
  • Trending
  • Tuesday CX Thoughts (TCXT)
  • Uncategorized
  • VOC
  • Webinar
  • Webinars
  • What’s Coming Up
  • Workforce
  • Workforce Intelligence

Footer

MORE LIKE THIS

enps-survey-template

eNPS Survey Template: Use QuestionPro for Your eNPS Survey

Jun 27, 2025

united-airlines-nps-2025

United Airlines NPS and Customer Sentiment in 2025

Jun 26, 2025

enps-survey-questions

eNPS Survey Questions to Include in Your Next Employee Survey

Jun 25, 2025

american-airlines-nps-2025

American Airlines NPS & Customer Loyalty 2025

Jun 24, 2025

Other categories

  • Academic
  • Academic Research
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Assessments
  • Audience
  • Brand Awareness
  • Business
  • Case Studies
  • Communities
  • Consumer Insights
  • Customer effort score
  • Customer Engagement
  • Customer Experience
  • Customer Loyalty
  • Customer Research
  • Customer Satisfaction
  • CX
  • Employee Benefits
  • Employee Engagement
  • Employee Engagement
  • Employee Retention
  • Enterprise
  • Events
  • Forms
  • Friday Five
  • General Data Protection Regulation
  • Guest Post
  • Insights Hub
  • Life@QuestionPro
  • LivePolls
  • Market Research
  • Marketing
  • Mobile
  • Mobile App
  • Mobile diaries
  • Mobile Surveys
  • New Features
  • non-profit
  • NPS
  • Online Communities
  • Polls
  • Question Types
  • Questionnaire
  • QuestionPro
  • QuestionPro Products
  • Release Notes
  • Research Tools and Apps
  • Revenue at Risk
  • Startups
  • Survey Templates
  • Surveys
  • Tech News
  • Tips
  • Training
  • Training Tips
  • Trending
  • Tuesday CX Thoughts (TCXT)
  • Uncategorized
  • VOC
  • Webinar
  • Webinars
  • What’s Coming Up
  • Workforce
  • Workforce Intelligence

questionpro-logo-nw
Help center Live Chat SIGN UP FREE
  • Sample questions
  • Sample reports
  • Survey logic
  • Branding
  • Integrations
  • Professional services
  • Security
  • Survey Software
  • Customer Experience
  • Workforce
  • Communities
  • Audience
  • Polls Explore the QuestionPro Poll Software - The World's leading Online Poll Maker & Creator. Create online polls, distribute them using email and multiple other options and start analyzing poll results.
  • Research Edition
  • LivePolls
  • InsightsHub
  • Blog
  • Articles
  • eBooks
  • Survey Templates
  • Case Studies
  • Training
  • Webinars
  • All Plans
  • Nonprofit
  • Academic
  • Qualtrics Alternative Explore the list of features that QuestionPro has compared to Qualtrics and learn how you can get more, for less.
  • SurveyMonkey Alternative
  • VisionCritical Alternative
  • Medallia Alternative
  • Likert Scale Complete Likert Scale Questions, Examples and Surveys for 5, 7 and 9 point scales. Learn everything about Likert Scale with corresponding example for each question and survey demonstrations.
  • Conjoint Analysis
  • Net Promoter Score (NPS) Learn everything about Net Promoter Score (NPS) and the Net Promoter Question. Get a clear view on the universal Net Promoter Score Formula, how to undertake Net Promoter Score Calculation followed by a simple Net Promoter Score Example.
  • Offline Surveys
  • Customer Satisfaction Surveys
  • Employee Survey Software Employee survey software & tool to create, send and analyze employee surveys. Get real-time analysis for employee satisfaction, engagement, work culture and map your employee experience from onboarding to exit!
  • Market Research Survey Software Real-time, automated and advanced market research survey software & tool to create surveys, collect data and analyze results for actionable market insights.
  • GDPR & EU Compliance
  • Employee Experience
  • Customer Journey
  • Synthetic Data
  • About us
  • Executive Team
  • In the news
  • Testimonials
  • Advisory Board
  • Careers
  • Brand
  • Media Kit
  • Contact Us

QuestionPro in your language

  • English
  • Español (Spanish)
  • Português (Portuguese (Brazil))
  • Nederlands (Dutch)
  • العربية (Arabic)
  • Français (French)
  • Italiano (Italian)
  • 日本語 (Japanese)
  • Türkçe (Turkish)
  • Svenska (Swedish)
  • Hebrew IL (Hebrew)
  • ไทย (Thai)
  • Deutsch (German)
  • Portuguese de Portugal (Portuguese (Portugal))

Awards & certificates

  • survey-leader-asia-leader-2023
  • survey-leader-asiapacific-leader-2023
  • survey-leader-enterprise-leader-2023
  • survey-leader-europe-leader-2023
  • survey-leader-latinamerica-leader-2023
  • survey-leader-leader-2023
  • survey-leader-middleeast-leader-2023
  • survey-leader-mid-market-leader-2023
  • survey-leader-small-business-leader-2023
  • survey-leader-unitedkingdom-leader-2023
  • survey-momentumleader-leader-2023
  • bbb-acredited
The Experience Journal

Find innovative ideas about Experience Management from the experts

  • © 2022 QuestionPro Survey Software | +1 (800) 531 0228
  • Sitemap
  • Privacy Statement
  • Terms of Use