While the net promoter score has gained popularity among business executives and is considered a widely used instrument for measuring customer loyalty in practice, it has also generated controversy in academic and market research circles. Scholarly critique has questioned whether the NPS is at all a reliable predictor of company growth. Our panel will explore this HOT TOPIC in customer service and attendees will take away a better understanding of the pros & cons, strengths and weaknesses, advantages and limitations of the wildly popular NPS! Bring your questions.

Randal Ries, Data Science & Analytics Manager, CIO Design, IBM

Randal is the Data Science & Analytics Manager for IBM CIO Design where he leads a team a team of data scientist conducting analysis of internal NPS survey data in order to increase the productivity and engagement of IBM employees. In his previous role as a Principal in IBM Market Development & Insights, he conducted analysis of client NPS data and piloted a program for employee NPS.

He is a past NYAAPOR President and has presented research on NPS at the AAPOR national conference, the Insights Association Client Research Conference and Quirks.

Randal holds graduate degrees in Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences from Columbia University in New York, Data Science and Business Analytics from UC Irvine, and English Language and Literature from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Tabitha Dunn. Chief Customer Officer – Head of Customer Experience and Global Sales Excellence, Ericssonhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/tabithadunn/

I am truly fortunate to work in a role that I love - I get to geek out about our customers every single day. My passion for driving customer focused transformation is evident in my background, having successfully built five global customer experience functions from the ground up and speaking regularly as a thought leader in customer and employee experience.

I have extensive knowledge in numerous customer and employee experience best practices from driving major cross-functional initiative, CX and EX program design, design thinking, actionable insight development, change management leadership, market research, segmentation & persona development, customer and employee journey mapping, customer advisory boards, partner experience, employee experience focused design and customer driven business cases, all with a strong track record of quantifiable results.

Eric Smuda (InMoment, Principal, CX Strategy & Enablement) eric.smuda@outlook.com VP of CX | Chief Customer Officer | VOC & NPS Champion | C-Suite and Board Advisor)

Eric Smuda has a 20+ year career building customer experience, voice of the customer, CRM & loyalty functions to bring new products, services and strategic capabilities across the travel & hospitality, financial software, technology and telecom industries. His breadth of experience ranges from leading corporate staff functions within Fortune 500 firms to building an entrepreneurial consulting firm with Fortune 100 clients. He has been involved with NPS since the beginning, serving first as a consultant to Intuit, one of the early adopters to NPS, as well as installing Net Promoter Systems at Avis Budget and Hertz. He also spent several years on Bain's client-only NPS Forum. Eric currently serves as a Principal of CX Strategy & Implementation at InMoment, lending his seasoned perspective to many of the company’s clients across the retail, hospitality, software and financial services industries.