The Ultimate Question

Driving Good Profits and True Growth

By: Fred Reichheld

Narrated by: Fred Reichheld

Length: 5 hrs

Publisher's summary

In this revolutionary management audiobook, Fred Reichheld reduces all business success into one question. "Would you recommend this business to a friend?" According to Reichheld, this measure of customer satisfaction should be at the heart of all strategic decisions made by every company. He presents compelling case studies to show how customer satisfaction is more important than any business criterion besides profits. You'll learn how financial pressures have caused some executives to sacrifice true customer satisfaction in exchange for "bad profits". Such shortsightedness undermines long-term growth and success. Learn how to use "the ultimate question" to strengthen your business.

©2006 FranklinCovey (P)2006 FranklinCovey

Critic reviews

"Among management books, this one's a keeper." (The Washington Post
"Reichheld makes a strong rhetorical case for his ideas." (Publishers Weekly)

An awakening message

This is an excellent book: it really reminds you that customers are ruling and many companies are forgeting this at their own expense.
The book provides and easy to apply methodology to realy focus your business to the customers, in fact, not in declarations. It gets upgraded from 4 to 5 stars for the practical methodology described by the author.
I recommend the book to anybody who wants to excel in business.

Good idea, poorly narrated

I like the idea and the concept of this book - a little overexplained, but that's forgivable. The narration, and editing, of the audio however, are very poor - the repeat takes are so badly cut together, it makes the narrator sound like a non-native English speaker who isn't always sure where to put the emphasis in a sentence.

Amazing Book!

You could say i'm a promoter! haha. wow, i'm going to buy this for my students. Its super critical to make sure your customers are happy. I am guilty of building businesses with bad profits. I've seen what damage it can do when you try to conceal negative feedback and continue to pour money into advertising hoping to always gain new customers. A lot of the times advertosomg starts to not work anymore because advertising platforms can now monitor brand reputation. When you focus on profits instead of customer satisfaction it definitely smothers growth.

Can't wait to apply the methods taught in the book.

Ultimate Question

Would you listen to The Ultimate Question again? Why?

Loved hearing this book on my iPod. I am not much of a book reader and was given the assignment to read the book by my company. I was able to listen to it a couple of times and have the ideas in my head clearly to discuss them at the meeting.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No, I listened to it over several days when I had time.

Very cool stuff!

My company does the Net Promoter Score so I was pick up this audiobook in order to learn more. It was really cool to learn more (than many people in my company, I think!) about the methodology behind NPS. The concept of good vs. bad profits REALLY resonates with me, so that was a great take away. I also love that it gives a simple, straight forward metric. I agree with the author that too many measures just creates confusion.

If you work for a company who uses Net Promoter Score, are considering Net Promoter Score or another customer loyalty/satisfaction metric, this is a must read.

Great Book!

Performance wasn't the best, but the message was amazing! Well worth a listen... Especially if you are in a business... 😊

Good profits

Simplistic in its approach but enduring if obtained. Business leaders should read this book to re-calibrate themselves on the golden rule and how it can be truly measured.