Excellential reversed a declining NPS at a scale-up Indian furniture marketplace within six months through diagnosis-first process redesign.
The NPS Improvement Case Study That Saved an Indian Furniture Unicorn’s Series C
When a leading Indian online furniture marketplace looked at its quarterly NPS dashboard in late 2016, the trend was undeniable. As a result, the CHRO and the CXO knew they had a problem that no engagement survey would solve. Importantly, this NPS improvement case study captures how a six-month, three-layer intervention turned a declining NPS into a sustainable recovery and protected the company’s path to Series C funding.
However, the challenge wasn’t unique to this client. Across India, fast-scaling e-commerce and direct-to-consumer companies hit the same wall around the time they cross 500-1000 employees. Meanwhile, processes that worked at startup scale break under enterprise volume. Furthermore, frontline teams trained on the original brand promise can’t deliver consistently as service complexity grows. As a result, NPS drops, customer complaints rise, and the cost of acquiring new customers starts to exceed the lifetime value of the ones leaking out.
What makes this NPS improvement case study worth reading is the diagnosis-first approach. Specifically, Excellential did not start with training. Excellential started with process audits, voice of customer analysis, and journey mapping across multiple Indian metros. Only then did Excellential design the capability-building intervention. Notably, a McKinsey India analysis of customer experience in e-commerce confirms what this engagement showed on the ground: companies that diagnose CX gaps before deploying training outperform their peers consistently. Ultimately, the difference came from sequencing diagnosis, then capability building, then technology instead of the reverse, which is what most companies attempt.
Read on for the full case study: the diagnosis, the three-layer intervention, and the measurable NPS recovery that followed.
The Client: A Unicorn Bet on Customer Loyalty
Executive Result Summary
- Client: Online furniture marketplace, India, pre-unicorn stage
- Industry: E-commerce / Direct-to-Consumer
- Challenge: Declining NPS, missed SLAs, high attrition, no real-time visibility
- Excellential’s intervention: Diagnosis and journey mapping, assessment centre for 300 employees, SOP redesign, real-time NPS dashboard
- Result: NPS moved from declining to consistently improving within six months; faster turnaround time and SLA adherence
This engagement was delivered as the client scaled toward unicorn status; the diagnosis-first approach below remains Excellential’s standard method for NPS recovery today. |
A leading Indian online furniture marketplace, on the verge of unicorn status, was facing a steady decline in its Net Promoter Score (NPS). The company operated across multiple metros like Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Hyderabad and had built its valuation thesis on customer loyalty and repeat purchase rates. A falling NPS was not a CX problem. It was a valuation problem.
The root causes were visible in the data and the customer feedback, and they painted a picture that no single fix could address:
- Missed SLAs and slow turnaround times (TAT)
- High customer escalations and unresolved queries
- Scattered, geo-dependent processes with legacy systems
- Undefined SOPs and outdated quality monitoring
- High attrition eroding service consistency
- Brand perception is taking a hit in an increasingly competitive market. This pattern of NPS decline at scale-up Indian companies is documented in our NPS improvement playbook for India but the playbook only works when the diagnosis is right.
Without decisive action, the risk to customer loyalty and ultimately to growth was significant.
The Challenge: NPS Was Falling, Quietly and Fast
Excellential was brought in to:
- Identify why NPS was dropping and map the complete customer experience journey.
- Re-engineer processes for speed, ownership, and consistency.
- Build capability across leadership and frontline teams to deliver exceptional service.
- Implement technology and dashboard upgrades for real-time, data-driven decision-making.
The CEO and CXO knew the company had roughly two quarters to fix the NPS slide before it would impact the Series C conversation. Investors were already asking about repeat purchase trends. The CHRO knew the answer was not another tool. It was a capability.
The Solution: A Three-Layer NPS Rescue
Excellential designed and executed a multi-layered transformation:
- Diagnosis & Mapping
- Analysed NPS data and Voice of Customer (VOC) feedback.
- Conducted process audits, journey mapping, and technology assessment.
- Visited vendor operations and engaged in team surveys, focus groups, and root-cause brainstorming.
- Capability Building & Process Redesign
- Ran an Assessment Centre for 300 employees to identify skill and process gaps.
- Created targeted learning interventions for 250+ employees.
- Developed clear, accessible SOPs (“Back to Basics” documents).
- Defined new KPIs, roles, and responsibilities.
- Established a Centre of Excellence (COE) model for sustainable improvement. The same diagnostic-led methodology Excellential covered in our CSAT improvement in Indian e-commerce breakdown.
- Technology & Quality Enhancements
- Automated transactional processes and moved to a paperless workflow.
- Designed a near-real-time NPS and quality dashboard.
- Introduced random audits and weekly NPS contributor analysis.
- Upgraded technology systems for smoother, faster service delivery.
The Results: NPS Recovery That Held
The impact was rapid and measurable:
- NPS and customer satisfaction scores moved from declining to consistently improving within six months.
- Faster TAT and SLA adherence became the norm.
- Clear ownership and accountability at every level.
- Cost efficiencies improved ROI.
- Stronger brand image, enabling market expansion, unique customer acquisition, and enhanced customer satisfaction.
- Cross-functional collaboration replaced siloed handoffs.
The pattern of NPS recovery here mirrored what we saw in Excellential’s CSAT case study for fashion e-commerce: when capability building precedes technology deployment, the results compound.
Key Insight
For fast-scaling digital businesses, NPS is more than a metric; it’s a growth lever. By combining process re-engineering, skill development, and technology adoption, Excellential helped the client not just fix a score but future-proof their customer loyalty.
| Key takeaway
Excellential diagnosed the NPS decline before designing any training, running an assessment centre across 300 employees and mapping over fifty customer touchpoints. NPS moved from declining to a sustained recovery within six months, ahead of the client’s next funding conversation. |
Frequently Asked Questions
Why start with diagnosis instead of training when NPS is falling?
In this engagement, the root causes were structural, missed SLAs, undefined processes and legacy systems, not a skills gap. Excellential ran process audits and journey mapping first, and only then built the training, which is why the recovery held rather than fading after the workshops ended.
Is NPS still a useful metric for fast-scaling Indian e-commerce companies?
Yes, in this case, NPS sat directly on the company’s growth story ahead of its next funding round, which is why a stalled NPS recovery was treated as a business risk, not just a customer experience metric, and fixed accordingly.
Is a declining NPS putting your hard-earned growth at risk?
For fast-scaling Indian companies, customer loyalty is not just a CX metric it sits directly on the path to valuation, repeat revenue, and Series C readiness. Let us help you rebuild your customer experience into a real growth engine.
What worked here was not a single intervention but a layered approach: process re-engineering, frontline capability building, and the technology backbone to sustain both. Generic CX consulting delivers slides. Excellential delivers behaviour change that shows up in next quarter’s NPS dashboard.
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