Cassius Weatherby is a human resources manager at a major technology firm that produces software and hardware products. He would like to analyze the net promoter score (NPS) of sales professionals at the company. The NPS measures customer satisfaction and loyalty by asking customers how likely they are to recommend the company to others on a scale of 0 (unlikely) to 10 (very likely). This measure is an especially important indicator for the company’s software business as a large percentage of the sales leads come from customer referrals. Cassius wants to identify relevant factors that are linked with the NPS that a sales professional receives. These insights can help the company make better hiring decisions and develop a more effective training program. 

With the help of the company’s IT group, a data set with over 20,000 records of sales professionals is extracted from the enterprise data warehouse. The relevant variables include the product line to which the sales professional is assigned, age, sex, the number of years with the company, whether the sales professional has a college degree, personality type based on the Myers-Briggs Personality assessment, the number of professional certificates acquired, the average score from the 360-degree annual evaluation, base salary, and the average NPS received. Cassius is tasked with inspecting and reviewing the data and preparing a report for the company’s top management team

The net promoter score (NPS) is a key indicator of customer satisfaction and loyalty. It measures how likely a customer would recommend a product or company to others. Because our software line for business relies heavily on customer referrals to generate sales leads, the NPS that our sales professionals receive is a key indicator of our company’s future success.  

From a total of about 20,000 records of sales professionals, we select only the sales professionals in the software product group and divide them into two categories: those with an average NPS below nine and those with an average NPS of nine or ten. When a customer gives a sales professional an NPS of nine or ten, the customer is considered “enthusiastically loyal,” meaning that they are very likely to continue purchasing from us and refer their colleagues to our company. Based on the NPS categorization, we then divide the sales professionals into two categories: those with zero to three professional certificates and those with four or more professional certificates. Table 2.10 shows the results. Of the 12,130 sales professionals in the software product group, we find that 65.57% have earned less than 4 professional certificates, whereas 34.43% have earned four or more. However, there appears to be a link between those with 4 or more professional certificates and NPS values. For those who received an NPS of nine or ten, we find that 62.60% have earned at least four professional certificates. Similarly, for those who received an NPS of below nine, we find that 73.00% earned less than four professional certificates. 

Although this might simply suggest that high-achieving employees tend to be self motivated to earn professional certificates, we also believe that sales professionals with sufficient technical knowledge can effectively communicate and assist their customers in finding technology solutions, which will lead to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty. Our training and development program must place a greater emphasis on helping the employees earn relevant certifications and acquire necessary technical knowledge.

TABLE 2.10 Sales Professionals by the Number of Certificates and NPS Value

Based on NPS categorization, we then divide the sales professionals into categories based on personality type. Table 2.11 shows the results. In addition to professional certification, we find that personality types are linked with NPS values. Among the four personality types, Diplomats and Explorers account for 72.69% of all the sales professionals in the software group. However, when we divide the employees based on the NPS values, these two personality types account for 91.63% of the group with an average NPS of nine or ten, whereas they account for only 67.69% for the below nine NPS group. 

TABLE 2.11 Sales Professionals by Personality Type and NPS Value 

We also examined NPS variations by other variables such as age, sex, education attainment, sales, and commission but did not find considerable differences in NPS categorization. Other variables such as salary and the tenure of the employee with the company are not included in our initial analysis. 

Based on the insights from this analysis, we request that the company appoint an analytics task force to conduct a more comprehensive analysis of sales professionals. We strongly suggest that the analysis focus on professional certification and personality, among relevant factors for determining the NPS value. At a minimum, two goals of the task force should include making recommendations on 

(1) A redesign of our training and development program to focus on helping employees acquire relevant professional certificates.

(2) The efficacy of using personality types as part of the hiring decision.

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Net Q& Promoter Score