The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth

CEOs regularly announce ambitious growth targets, then fail to achieve them. The reason? Their growing addiction to bad profits. These corporate steroids boost short-term earnings but alienate customers. They undermine growth by creating legions of detractors—customers who complain loudly about the company and switch to competitors at the earliest opportunity.

Based on extensive research, The Ultimate Question shows how companies can rigorously measure Net Promoter statistics, help managers improve them, and create communities of passionate advocates that stimulate innovation. Vivid stories from leading-edge organizations illustrate the ideas in practice.

Practical and compelling, this is the one book—and the one tool—no growth-minded leader can afford to miss.

Frederick Reichheld is a director of Bain & Company in Boston. He is the author of The Loyalty Effect (over 125,000 copies sold), as well as several articles in the "Harvard Business Review" and "The Wall Street Journal."