At Ad Lightning, customer service courses through our veins. Case in point – our entire team is made of sharp, innovative, and motivated former ad ops people from publishers and platforms, each just as customer-obsessed as the next. And that obsession is by design, where we vet every potential new hire to make certain they share the Ad Lightning vision and passion to plaster permanent smiles across every partner’s face.
Granted, it’s one thing to say how passionate we are about service and quite another to actually be proactive about it. But that’s what makes the Net Promoter System (NPS) such a critical cornerstone to our operations, providing a guiding star for our already customer-obsessed team to analyze for areas to improve upon.
In fact, we place so much importance on NPS, I wanted to take a few minutes to explain what it is and how we use it at Ad Lightning, maybe throwing in a brag or two along the way. Hey, I can’t help myself – if other companies had our NPS scores, they’d never stop talking about it.
A Net Promoter System score is exactly what it sounds like – a metric that gauges how willing a customer is to recommend a company's products or services to other people. Scored on a range between -100 and +100, the higher your NPS is, the more satisfied a customer is with your organization.
The philosophy behind NPS is fairly straightforward, where it assumes that a customer will only recommend a product or service to others when they are satisfied themselves. It is also a very simple concept, typically asking someone to rate how likely they are to make a recommendation based on a scale of 0 to 10, resulting in groups of detractors, passives, and promoters across a customer base. To put that into context, recent research puts the average NPS scores in B2B software, software development, and IT Services at +39, +38, and +36, respectively.
As a bit of a palate cleanser, now I want to show you how Ad Lightning’s average NPS score from 2020 stacks up against other B2B industries:
In what was the most challenging year anyone can remember across all industries, our NPS score was nearly twice that of the highest scoring B2B industries, manufacturing and B2B software.
Remember up top when I said that I was going to brag a bit? Well, this is that part of the programming. As you can see, our NPS scores are well over 30 points higher than industry averages, meaning our partners are far more likely to recommend Ad Lightning to others.
And while loyalty is nothing but good for our revenue streams, we honestly take the most pride in the underlying meaning behind our stellar NPS scores – that we’re doing something very right when it comes to customer service and satisfaction.
So what exactly are we doing that’s so unique? Well, a lot of it stems from simply hiring the best people, the ones that, as I said above, share our passion for customer service.
Meghan Mark, our Account Management Director, and Colleen Petronchak, our Account Manager, are perfect examples of Ad Lightning “hiring the best people,” that “share our passion for customer service.” I recently spoke with Colleen and Meghan for some deeper insights on what’s different about our approach.
Besides poring over our NPS scores to look for areas of improvement, both Colleen and Meghan made a point to mention our team’s exhaustive preparation, including our ever-evolving playbook of insights and best practices, countless checklists, and highly-detailed internal and external documentation mean we’re prepared for any possible question or concern.
That’s our philosophy in a nutshell and the principal driver behind our success. And that success shines through in the different facets of our service and operations that our clients absolutely love, including:
As I’ve said before, it’s imperative that companies look for ad quality partners, not just set-it-and-forget-it solutions and providers. When questions or concerns arise, it’s critical that we listen carefully but then quickly and thoroughly address them, something that our partners can speak to:
“Our experience with Ad Lightning has been nothing short of wonderful! The contacts that we’ve partnered with are always extremely responsive and spend the time to hear our needs and adjust the tool to meet them.” – NBCU
Further, since we understand the importance of communication, we not only ensure quick response times but also alert clients of changes and updates, making certain we give them opportunities to share feedback.
We’re in business to make life easier for our partners which, in turn, allows them to do more with often very limited ad operations resources. That’s why it’s absolutely critical that when a publisher or platform chooses Ad Lightning, they’re getting both a reliable partner and industry-best ad quality solutions.
"We're excited to be partnering with Ad Lightning. After testing and working with other solutions, we've recently decided to switch to ADL because of the effectiveness of their solution and responsiveness of their team." – Adscend Media
Naturally, providing the most effective tools also requires a proactive mindset. That’s why we’re always anticipating client needs, from both an account management and product development perspective. Our team is constantly looking for trends to address as well as additional product features that will make life easier for our partners.
Been there, done that is an especially relevant saying when it comes to ad quality. A truly effective solution must come from a team that knows first-hand what it’s like to be on the frontlines in the battle against fraudsters and bad ads. Thus, our experience is yet another Ad Lightning asset that our partners place immense value on:
“Our founding team holds decades of experience as a publisher ourselves, so ad quality is of utmost importance. AdLightning has been the perfect partner for NoBid to ensure quality ad experiences for our publishers.” – NoBid
I could go on and on but you get the idea. We’re growing quickly because our customers get the best ad quality solutions on the market and, just as importantly, a valuable partnership that they can rely on. As those quotes demonstrate, we listen to our customers and use their opinions to help shape our decision making.
In other words, “we listen to you” isn’t just empty corporate speak to Ad Lightning. It’s a mantra, one that we continue to build upon. Because with every new partner, experience, question, and issue that arises, we get better at what we do. We never stop learning, improving, and growing as a team and organization and, as those NPS scores indicate, no one does it better.
And who benefits most from that unrelenting mindset? Our partners, of course. Ask any of them and they’ll say the same thing.