THE WORD OF

MOUTH INDEX:
TOP 100 BRAND
EDITION
SUMMER 2013
By:
Larry Freed, President and CEO, ForeSee

2013 ForeSee

THE WORD OF MOUTH INDEX: TOP 100 BRAND EDITION (2013)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Measuring customer word-of-mouth recommendations functions as a critical part of understanding business
success, and Net Promoter Score (NPS) has served a valuable purpose in doing so throughout the years. When
NPS first became popular a decade ago, it launched a vital new area of business measurement at precisely the
right time. Consumers had gained unprecedented power when it came to making purchasing decisions and
influencing other customers.
NPS quickly became the most popular and widely adopted customer experience metric for U.S. businesses.
Research from the Temkin Group in 2012 shows that 83% of companies asked their customers the Net
Promoter question (On a zero-to-10 scale, how likely is it that you would recommend us (or this product/
service/brand) to a friend or colleague?) and that from 2011 to 2012, NPS was the fastest growing customer
experience metric. Forrester Research calls Net Promoter wildly popular, and a 2011 article in Inc. Magazine
declared that Fortune 500 companies around the globe latch[ed] on to [NPS]. Today, companies such as
Intuit and Southwest Airlines use the NPS methodology as a way to quantify their customer experience.
Is the widely used metric popular just because it is well known? Is it popular because of its ease of use, or is
it popular because there are few alternatives? Many organizations are asking: Does the one-question metric
hold value 10 years after its inception?
ForeSee explored the value and accuracy of NPS with research spanning almost two years. ForeSee looked at
more than 1.5 million survey responses for the broadest and deepest NPS research to date.
Using a relatively simple calculation, ForeSee discovered serious issues with NPS. Primarily, NPS measures
only the likelihood to recommend because it inaccurately assumes that if people are not recommending a
brand, they are detracting from it. Companies spend millions of dollars chasing after supposed detractors,
who are, in some cases, neutral toward a brand or, in many cases, active advocates of the brand.

ForeSee is not affiliated with Net Promoter or Satmetrix Systems (and/or Fred Reichheld or Bain & Company) or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates. Furthermore
ForeSee is not associated with, licensed by, endorsed by, or funded by Satmetrix Systems (and/or Fred Reichheld or Bain & Company), and no effort has been
made to falsely suggest a connection with any of those entities or the products/services offered by Satmetrix Systems (and/or Fred Reichheld or Bain & Company).

THE WORD OF MOUTH INDEX: TOP 100 BRAND EDITION (2013)

The study being released today shows that NPS overstates brand detractors by 299% on average (see
part 2 on page 11). This assumption of detractors causes the majority of the Fortune 500 companiesas
well as smaller businesses, many of whom use NPS as a key performance indicator (KPI )to make bad
business decisions. They invest significant resources and engage in chasing after customers whom they
erroneously assume are detractors.
ForeSees research made it clear that NPS needed to evolve, just as word-of-mouth communications have
evolved over the past decade. Thus, we conceived the Word-of-Mouth IndexSM (WoMISM) as the next
generation of Net Promoter. ForeSees WoMI evolves NPS by measuring both likelihood to recommend and
likelihood to detract from a specific brand by adding a second question: How likely are you to discourage
others from doing business with this company? This additional question helps to deliver on the promise of
NPS by creating a more precise, accurate, and actionable measurement that evaluates satisfaction and allows
organizations to foster the type of changes that affect the customer experience.
WoMI significantly advances the measurement of the customer experience because its scores offer
four primary benefits for businesses operating in todays high-speed, word-of-mouth-driven culture.
WoMI provides:

1. A single score Any measurement with one simple value can be used to rally stakeholders
(executives, employees, Wall Street, board members, etc.) around the customer experience and
across an organization;

2. Valuable insight Understanding the difference between true detractors and true promoters helps
organizations avoid wasting resources trying to convert passives into promoters and eliminates the
risk of alienating customers who arent legitimate detractors; and

THE WORD OF MOUTH INDEX: TOP 100 BRAND EDITION (2013)

3. Proactive data Adding a second question to understand what drives negative word of mouth as
well as positive word of mouth allows companies to take proactive measures to fix issues causing
problems for customers by gaining greater insight into what drives sentiment.

4. Improvement to NPS For the legions of companies already relying on NPS, WoMI services as a
simple upgrade that will provide more accuracy, precision, and actionability.

Part 1 (Page 4) of the following report evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of NPS, the origins of the
WoMI, and the scientific evidence driving WoMIs rapidly growing popularity as the next-generation NPS. It
also highlights examples of how NPSs overstatement of detractors can send companies chasing detractors
that dont exist , as well as the value of adding WoMI to the customer-experience strategy.
Part 2 (Page 11), a historic and comprehensive benchmark, shows the pitfalls of Net Promoter and allows the
hundreds of companies already using WoMI to compare their scores against those of their peers and competitors. This section includes satisfaction scores, NPS scores, and WoMI scores, as well as a calculation of how
much NPS overestimates detractors for the top 100 US brands.

PART 1:
THE ORIGINS OF NPS AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE
WORD-OF-MOUTH INDEX (WOMI)
After Fred Reichheld of Bain & Company developed NPS, he introduced it to the world in a 2003 Harvard
Business Review article titled, One Number You Need to Grow. He designed NPS to serve as a simple way
to categorize customers based on a single question:On a zero-to-10 scale, how likely is it that you would
recommend us (or this product/service/brand) to a friend or colleague?

THE WORD OF MOUTH INDEX: TOP 100 BRAND EDITION (2013)

Reichheld then categorized respondents based on three classifications:

> Promoters These people responded with a nine or a 10. They are most likely to actively talk up
the company, product, or service to their friends.
> Passives These people responded with a seven or eight. According to Reichheld, these customers
got what they paid for, nothing more. They do not make many referrals, and when they do they
are likely to be qualified and unenthusiastic. Reichheld maintained that companies should focus
resources on delighting these customers so some will be converted into promoters.
> Detractors These people gave a rating of six or below. According to Reichheld, these individuals
lives have been diminished due to their interactions with the company. Per Reichheld, they actively
share criticisms of the company with their friends, and if they are locked into a long-term engagement
with the company, they also drive up costs as employees address their frequent complaints. Reichheld
recommended that companies identify and mitigate the root cause of detractors concerns, but said
if there is not a rational solution to these problems, companies must learn not to acquire this type of
customer in the first place.
Not At All Likely

Neutral

Detractors

% Promoters

Extremely Likely

Promoters

% Detractors

Net Promoter Score

THE WORD OF MOUTH INDEX: TOP 100 BRAND EDITION (2013)

Today, organizations such as American Express, Charles Schwab, and General Electric rely on NPS as a
strategic KPI. They use it to measure the pulse of customer satisfaction, and it acts as the catalyst for a
wide variety of business activities and investments. For example, following Reichhelds recommendations,
companies invest significant sums of money into turning passives into promoters, and identifying and
mitigating detractor problems. These initiatives range from low-risk and simple price promotions and
proactive interactions to expensive undertakings like website overhauls, customer service process redesigns,
and major branding campaigns.
NPS, as this study will show, faces a problem in that it may never have been a true and accurate
measure of the customer experience; in other words, many NPS-driven business decisions have been based
on a false rationale.

THE FUNDAMENTAL FLAW OF NPS

NPS was designed at a time when word of mouth meant people literally talked to each other directly.
Facebook, Yelp, Twitter and Pinterest did not exist.
The rise of social networks caused a quantum leap in word-of-mouth velocity. Instead of recommending or
detracting from a brand one friend at a time, customers now voice their opinions to millions of people
within a matter of seconds.
The popularity of social networks caused a wave of investment from brands in monitoring and managing the
social sphere. Fear of detractors drives this trend. NPS overstates the number of these detractors, however,
causing brands to overinvest in mitigation activities.

THE WORD OF MOUTH INDEX: TOP 100 BRAND EDITION (2013)

Because consumers hold so much power, customer experience represents a critical business performance
metric. Research data proves that customer satisfaction rates predict future business performance, and
organizations today must boast strong customer satisfaction simply to survive. Many companies have
adopted NPS because they believe it accurately assigns a value to the state of customer satisfaction.
The logic is simple: Raise your NPS and youve raised customer satisfaction, which will lead to stronger
business performance. These reasons caused NPS to become a common KPI on executive dashboards.
Yet NPS does not distinguish between positive and negative word of mouth, nor between passive and
active word of mouth. In the real world, people labeled detractors by the NPS methodology do not
always discourage someone from doing business with a company. NPS misses this nuance, resulting in an
overstatement of the effect of detractors. As a result, business leaders cannot make sound, intelligent,
and well-informed decisions when their keyand in some cases, onlymetric is inaccurate by such a
large margin.

BEYOND NPS: THE WORD-OF-MOUTH INDEX (WOMI)

Despite its shortcomings, NPS has served a valuable purpose, although it has outlived its usefulness as a
metric. Word-of-mouth velocity has increased exponentially since 2003, and to make valid business decisions,
organizations need more depth and precision than NPS can provide. To help organizations move beyond NPS,
ForeSee has developed a new word-of-mouth metric: The Word-of-Mouth Index (WoMI).
Rigorously testing and refining WoMI resulted in a much deeper and more precise categorization of active
promoters and detractors than is possible with NPS. WoMI does this while preserving ease of use and
understanding similar to NPS. As stated previously, WoMI does this by supplementing the NPS question of
How likely are you to recommend? with a second question: How likely are you to discourage others from
doing business with this company?

THE WORD OF MOUTH INDEX: TOP 100 BRAND EDITION (2013)

WoMI

SM

True
Promoters

True
Detractors

Recommend %
of 9s and 10s

Discourage %
of 9s and 10s

NPS

Promoters

Detractors

Recommend %
of 9s and 10s

Recommend %
of 1s - 6s

In other words, by asking questions that are focused on both the positive and negative word-of-mouth
reviews, WoMI more accurately represents the difference between the proportions of consumers who report
being highly likely to promote and those who are highly likely to detract via word of mouth.
In the process of conducting these studies, ForeSee used its likelihood to discourage data to evaluate
the NPS scores of the companies participating in its analysis and found that NPS overstates the effect of
detractors, often by a significant amount.
What the Data Shows: NPS vs. WoMI Business Cases
In practical terms, suppose a company possesses 30% detractors as defined by NPS (the percentage of 1-6
ratings to the recommend question) and 10% detractors as defined by WoMI (the percentage of 9-10 ratings
to the discourage question). That companys NPS score overstates the number of detractors by 200%.
Many executives use NPS as a KPI for evaluating investments and other business decisions. If an executive
believes 30% of his or her customer base is made up of active detractors, but really only 10% of customers
are active detractors, then the executive may very well invest significant resources into trying to convert
detractors who simply do not exist.

THE WORD OF MOUTH INDEX: TOP 100 BRAND EDITION (2013)

Consider Apple, one of the top 100 brands ForeSee studied in its WoMI research, as an example.
Apple has publically stated that it uses NPS to address customer feedback taken from surveys. According to a
June 2013 article in the Business Standard, negative responses are followed up by store managers.
However, ForeSee research shows that NPS overstates detractors for Apple specifically at the store level by
57% (detractors are overstated at the brand level by 225%, see page 13). For Apple stores, this means that
instead of contacting the 7% of individuals who are actually likely to discourage others from doing business
with Apple, (i.e. True Detractors), they will contact 11% of their NPS-defined detractor store customers. By
using an inaccurate metric, Apple chases customers who are not true brand detractors. Thus, it squanders
employee productivity and resources.
In the Apple example, a store manager making $60,000 a year who spends one hour a day following up on
detractors (at $29/hr) costs Apple $7,500 annually. With more than 400 stores worldwide, this adds up
to $3 million per year, $2.1 million of which is lost productivity because it is being spent following up
with detractors that are not true detractors.and this is just one initiative based on NPS. Moreover,
contacting potentially loyal customers and asking them why they are not satisfied can lead to alienation of
those customers.
Apple should try to figure out why these customers are labeled detractors. Do they possess common
attributes, common personas, or common customer experience issues? It is difficult, if not impossible, to
determine why these customers are detractors if such a large percentage have been misidentified and
overstated. That margin of error introduces a sizeable amount of noise into the analysis and makes proactive
customer experience improvement efforts almost impossible.
Looking at ForeSees research (see page 15), another example, Nike, may think it is a good idea to take the
Reichheld-recommended leave-no-detractor-unanswered approach when its NPS-defined detractors are
measured at 17%. Consequently, Nike may invest in the personnel and technology required to identify and
respond to those who are creating negative word of mouth about the brand in an attempt to convert them

THE WORD OF MOUTH INDEX: TOP 100 BRAND EDITION (2013)

to promoters. This could take the form of anything from a website overhaul to reallocating resources to hire
more in-store personnel to assist customers. However, Nike would likely choose not to invest so heavily in
these activities (so as not to alienate loyal customers) if they knew that true detractors only represented 3%
of their customersa much smaller percentage than what NPS indicated. In this case, Nike overstates
detractors by 467%. This relatively simple example showcases how NPS can drive misguided investments
and cause a top brand like Nike to invest resources unnecessarily.
Hyundai, a leading automotive brand, is overstating detractors by 217% if they are relying on Net Promoter,
according to ForeSees data (see page 12). NPS says that 19% of Hyundais customers are detractors, but
according to WoMI scores, true detractors are measured at only 6%. In considering the value WoMI scores
bring to an organization, using a more precise metric of consumer evaluation could prevent Hyundai from
devising a strategy based on assumed detractors. For a company like Hyundai, this could mean undertaking a
new branding initiative to try to appeal to a different type of audience, or adjusting its pricing structure.
By adding the second question to better understand what drives negative word of mouth, Hyundai could
better position itself to focus on customer experience improvement efforts to enhance positive word of
mouthrather than spending resources trying to minimize negative word of mouth. In this case, true
negative word of mouth is not as dramatic as it appears.
Companies using NPS would benefit from incorporating the WoMI approach into their surveys. The research
results show that asking How likely are you to promote? alone does not accurately identify detractors.
Adding the question of How likely are you to discourage? provides accurate identification.
WoMI incorporates both of these questions to deliver a far more accurate word-of-mouth index that evolves
NPS to something that is more relevant to modern business conditions. However, even if a company wishes to
continue using NPS, it can improve on NPS simply by adding WoMIs second question. Business decisions are
made every day based on NPS detractor data that is off by an average of 200% but often more than 1000%.

10

THE WORD OF MOUTH INDEX: TOP 100 BRAND EDITION (2013)

11

PART 2:
THE RESEARCH AND FINDINGS
SATISFACTION, WOMI, NET PROMOTER, AND OVERSTATEMENT
OF DETRACTORS FOR TOP COMPANIES
In April of 2013, ForeSee measured satisfaction, WoMI, and NPS scores for Interbrands 2012 list of the
top 100 brands (the actual list below reflects 89 companies, as we were not able to collect a sample size
sufficient to calculate statistically significant scores for the remaining 11 brands). More than 21,000 consumer
surveys were collected for this study via panel.
This study contains tables with satisfaction, WoMI scores, and NPS scores, along with overstatement of
detractors for the 100 U.S. brands.
The research is illuminating. On average, NPS overstates detractors for the biggest brands by 299%.

NPS
Overstatement
of Detractors

Recommend %
of 1s6s

Discourage %
of 9s and 10s

Discourage %
of 9s and 10s

THE WORD OF MOUTH INDEX: TOP 100 BRAND EDITION (2013)

12

Industry
Top 100 Brands
(Based on
InterBrand list)

Satisfaction (on a
100-point scale)

WoMI
Score

NPS Score

NPS-Defined
Detractors1

WOMI-Defined
Detractors2

Average
Overstatement
of Detractors3

Average Across
Top 100 Brands

77

42

28

21%

7%

299%

Top Automotive
Brands

Satisfaction

WoMI Score

NPS Score

NPS-Defined
Detractors1

WOMI-Defined
Detractors2

Average
Overstatement
of Detractors3

The Top 100 US Brands

Automotive
Brands: Average

79

44

38

17%

11%

85%

Audi

79

30

37

16%

23%

-30%

BMW

78

37

40

14%

17%

-18%

Ford

77

43

28

22%

7%

214%

Harley Davidson

81

54

52

10%

8%

25%

Honda

82

52

49

11%

8%

38%

Hyundai

79

52

39

19%

6%

217%

Kia

80

46

39

16%

9%

78%

Mercedes-Benz

80

43

39

18%

14%

29%

Nissan

77

44

35

16%

7%

129%

Toyota

78

42

33

18%

9%

100%

Volkswagen

78

42

28

23%

9%

156%

THE WORD OF MOUTH INDEX: TOP 100 BRAND EDITION (2013)

13

Top B2B Brands

Sat

WoMI Score

NPS Score

NPS-Defined
Detractors1

WOMI-Defined
Detractors2

Average
Overstatement
of Detractors3

B2B Brands: Average

79

43

36

17%

11%

96%

3M

82

55

46

13%

4%

225%

Caterpillar

80

39

41

15%

17%

-12%

Cisco

80

39

38

16%

15%

7%

General Electric

75

36

20

24%

8%

200%

John Deere

83

56

54

11%

9%

22%

Nokia

75

37

22

22%

7%

214%

Oracle

74

36

25

23%

12%

92%

Xerox

80

43

41

14%

12%

17%

Computer/Electronics
Manufacturers

Sat

WoMI Score

NPS Score

NPS-Defined
Detractors1

WOMI-Defined
Detractors2

Average
Overstatement
of Detractors3

The Top 100 US Brands (continued)

Computer/Electronics
Manufacturers: Category
Average

78

45

33

18%

6%

264%

Adobe

75

39

25

20%

6%

233%

Apple

83

56

47

13%

4%

225%

Blackberry (RIM)

74

36

21

25%

10%

150%

Canon

80

50

41

15%

6%

150%

Dell

77

42

28

21%

7%

200%

HP

76

43

29

18%

4%

350%

IBM

78

34

27

18%

11%

64%

Intel

79

42

35

17%

10%

70%

Microsoft

75

42

29

20%

7%

186%

Nintendo

80

51

43

12%

4%

200%

Panasonic

80

46

39

12%

5%

140%

Philips

78

48

33

19%

4%

375%

Samsung

77

44

23

23%

2%

1050%

Sony

80

55

43

16%

4%

300%

THE WORD OF MOUTH INDEX: TOP 100 BRAND EDITION (2013)

14

Consumer Packaged
Goods (CPG)

Sat

WoMI Score

NPS Score

NPS-Defined
Detractors1

WOMI-Defined
Detractors2

Average
Overstatement
of Detractors3

The Top 100 US Brands (continued)

Consumer Packaged
Goods (CPG): Category
Average

78

44

31

19%

5%

399%

Avon

81

58

52

11%

5%

120%

Budweiser

77

41

29

18%

6%

200%

Coca-Cola

77

41

20

25%

4%

525%

Colgate

77

37

18

23%

4%

475%

Corona

77

39

18

25%

4%

525%

Danone

78

30

31

12%

13%

-8%

Gillette

78

44

28

20%

4%

400%

Heineken

78

43

34

16%

7%

129%

Heinz

80

48

31

18%

1%

1700%

Jack Daniels

81

55

45

15%

5%

200%

Johnnie Walker

80

45

38

17%

10%

70%

Johnson & Johnson

80

48

40

12%

4%

200%

Kellogg

77

43

27

19%

3%

533%

Kleenex

79

50

31

21%

2%

950%

L'Oreal

78

52

40

20%

8%

150%

Moet & Chandon

78

45

37

16%

8%

100%

Nescafe

79

47

33

18%

4%

350%

Nestle

78

43

28

20%

5%

300%

Pampers

79

47

37

17%

7%

143%

Pepsi

78

41

20

26%

5%

420%

Smirnoff

78

41

24

20%

3%

567%

Sprite

75

39

17

25%

3%

733%

THE WORD OF MOUTH INDEX: TOP 100 BRAND EDITION (2013)

15

Financial Services Brands

Sat

WoMI Score

NPS Score

NPS-Defined
Detractors1

WOMI-Defined
Detractors2

Average
Overstatement
of Detractors3

Financial Services:
Category Average

70

28

35%

8%

527%

American Express

78

44

29

21%

6%

250%

Citi

69

24

-13

45%

8%

463%

Goldman Sachs

69

15

29%

19%

53%

HSBC

64

14

-24

49%

11%

345%

J.P. Morgan

73

33

33%

8%

313%

Mastercard

72

30

29%

4%

625%

Morgan Stanley

74

41

16

28%

3%

833%

Santander

61

16

-25

51%

10%

410%

Visa

74

37

31%

2%

1450%

Top Retail Brands

Sat

WoMI Score

NPS Score

NPS-Defined
Detractors1

WOMI-Defined
Detractors2

Average
Overstatement
of Detractors3

The Top 100 US Brands (continued)

Retail: Category Average

80

47

39

15%

6%

222%

Adidas

77

40

28

18%

6%

200%

Amazon

85

61

53

11%

3%

267%

Burberry

82

44

45

11%

12%

-8%

eBay

80

52

39

17%

4%

325%

Gap

75

36

21

21%

6%

250%

Gucci

83

45

45

12%

12%

0%

H&M

73

37

21

19%

3%

533%

Ikea

80

53

46

10%

3%

233%

Louis Vuitton

79

46

40

15%

9%

67%

Nike

78

44

30

17%

3%

467%

Ralph Lauren

79

42

33

16%

7%

129%

Tiffany & Co.

83

57

51

11%

5%

120%

Walt Disney

83

59

50

12%

3%

300%

THE WORD OF MOUTH INDEX: TOP 100 BRAND EDITION (2013)

16

Other Top Brands

Sat

WoMI Score

NPS Score

NPS-Defined
Detractors1

WOMI-Defined
Detractors2

Average
Overstatement
of Detractors3

The Top 100 US Brands (continued)

Other: Category Average

73

33

10

30%

6%

499%

Allianz

74

27

30%

11%

173%

AXA

73

27

12

28%

13%

115%

Facebook

64

19

-21

46%

6%

667%

Google

75

40

19

25%

4%

525%

KFC

74

36

14

27%

5%

440%

McDonald's

68

26

-8

38%

4%

850%

MTV

73

28

12

28%

12%

133%

Pizza Hut

75

39

22

22%

5%

340%

Shell

71

25

-15

44%

4%

1000%

Starbucks

77

45

23

24%

2%

1100%

UPS

79

51

39

18%

6%

200%

Yahoo!

73

31

27%

5%

440%

NPS defines detractors as anyone who rates their likelihood to recommend a company at 0-6 on a 10-point scale.
WoMI defines detractors as anyone who rates their likelihood to detract from a company with a 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale.
3
Overstatement of detractors is calculated using the following formula: (% of NPS-defined detractors-% of WoMI-defined detractors)/% of WoMI-defined
detractors. The average overstatement at the category level is an average of the company-level overstatements of detractors. The overall average
overstatement is the average of the overstatements of each underlying category.
1
2

CONCLUSION
The science of measurement may seem static and exact, but in reality it is continually evolving. For many
organizations, NPS acts as a modern-day gauge of customer satisfaction, one that enjoys widespread
adoption because it provides simple, readily understandable measurement data to internal and external
stakeholders. However, NPS has not evolved since its inception a decade ago, and in todays world a
decade-old metric is quickly outdated.

THE WORD OF MOUTH INDEX: TOP 100 BRAND EDITION (2013)

How should NPS evolve? The answer to this question relates back to organizations use of NPS as a KPI of the
customer experience. NPS does not measure a customers experience; it measures the outcome of his or her
experience via word-of-mouth. To truly measure the customers experience, organizations need to supplement
word-of-mouth measurement with a comprehensive set of metrics that measure the root causes of customer
satisfaction in order to better understand what drives the customers experience.
NPS has served a valuable purpose since its initial introduction in 2003 by helping organizations focus on
the customer experience. However, NPS needs to evolve into a more sophisticated and precise approach for
measuring word of mouth.
Today, word of mouth should be considered a part, not the entirety, of customer experience measurement.
While word-of-mouth metrics can provide a high-level directional indicator of customer satisfaction, they
cannot provide insight into the root drivers of customer satisfaction, simply because word-of-mouth is an
outcome, not a cause.
Still, organizations will continue to use word-of-mouth measurement as a standard satisfaction metric
because of its ease of implementation, sharing, and understanding. Given this reality, organizations need
to adopt measurement methodologies that provide accurate pictures of the business world. WoMI, the first
measurement of its kind, combines the simplicity of NPS with the accuracy executives need to make sound
business decisions, making WoMI the first word-of-mouth measurement truly worthy of functioning as a
standard KPI on executive dashboards.

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THE WORD OF MOUTH INDEX: TOP 100 BRAND EDITION (2013)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

As President and CEO of ForeSee and author of Managing Forward: How to Move from Measuring the
Past to Managing the Future, Larry Freed is an expert on customer satisfaction and authors dozens of
research papers and reports on the subject every year. Freed speaks extensively on the topic at private and
public sector industry events and has been quoted in numerous publications and media outlets, including
CNN, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the New York Times, Investors Business Daily, Internet
Retailer, Internet Retailing, Multichannel Merchant, DM News, Computerworld, Federal Computer Week and
Government Executive, among many others. His latest book, Innovating Analytics: Word of Mouth Index: Use
the Next Generation of Net Promoter to Increase Sales and Drive Results, will be released in September.

ABOUT FORESEE
As a pioneer in customer experience analytics, ForeSee continuously measures the customer experience
across customer touch points and delivers critical insights on where to prioritize improvements for maximum
impact. Because ForeSees superior technology and proven methodology connect the customer experience
to the bottom line, executives and managers are able to drive future success by confidently optimizing the
efforts that will achieve business and brand objectives. The result is better business for companies and a
better experience for consumers. Visit www.foresee.com for customer experience solutions and
original research.

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