Budget season and annual planning is here again. That means you are likely evaluating the progress you’ve made over the past year and whether you’ve realized expected outcomes.
Now is also the time when many company leaders assess their Net Promoter Score program. What is the first thing that comes to mind? If it’s not total confidence, it’s probably time to revamp your approach, improve your score, and, therefore, your overall customer experience.
What is Net Promoter Score
For those unfamiliar with the Net Promoter Score methodology, it is a straightforward measurement tool used to monitor customer loyalty and predict the growth of your business to come. It asks customers on a scale of 0 to 10 how likely they are to recommend your company to a friend or colleague. Their responses are then sorted into the into the following categories:
- Promoters are those who answered 9 or 10
- Passives are those who answered 7 or 8
- Detractors are those who answered 0 to 6
Your NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of those in the detractor category from the percentage of those in the promoter category.
The reason Net Promoter Score is so popular with businesses is that the data you collect from asking customers this simple question can give you significant insight into the overall success of your business. It communicates not just an individual experience someone had with your company, but their overall impression and their likelihood to recommend you to others and continue coming back themselves.
Net Promoter Score Improvement Questions
If you are just getting started with Net Promoter Score or have employed this methodology in your organization for years, we have some unexpected questions to ask yourself if it is time to give your Net Promoter Score program a facelift:
How are you communicating your Net Promoter Score program internally?
Like any large and lasting initiative, total buy-in from everyone involved will be what determines the success of the program. That’s why we always recommend that your Net Promoter Score program is led by senior leaders in your organization. This sends a strong message that your company takes customer feedback seriously.
It is never enough to simply gather the information (asking customers “how likely are you to recommend our brand to a friend?”); the power of the NPS is what you and your team do with your findings. Said another way, the results should also be socialized with employees on a frequent basis.
Which customers are being invited to participate in your NPS program?
Here’s one question that seems to stir up a lot of debate inside companies – who should be invited to complete your Net Promoter Score survey. For example, do you only include Decision Makers? What about End-Users? We go more in-depth about the different audiences and how it impacts your NPS calculation here.
Another key consideration is how you plan to look at the data to inform important strategic, operational, and roadmap decisions. More than likely, you’ll find it important to include contacts who will provide insight into satisfaction and loyalty across revenue, tenure groups, geography, product categories, and more.
What does your Net Promoter survey look like?
Because Net Promoter Score is just one piece of the puzzle to your customer experience strategy, we often recommend incorporating it into a larger client satisfaction survey – although one that doesn’t take more than a few minutes to complete. In this case, NPS should be the first question you ask. Also, consider embedding the Net Promoter question in the email communication to boost survey response rates.
Knowing how, where and why to send a customer experience survey can be tricky; we’ve covered more ground on the topic here.
Could you be inadvertently altering your NPS responses?
Sometimes what appears to be innocent tactics can inflate your NPS and give you false information. Gaming the system to achieve a higher score will only give you unreliable responses and a false sense of hope for the overall success of your operation. Here are 10 ways you may be inflating your NPS and how to correct them.
Who is closing the loop with your customers?
Informing your customers that their voice is being heard is a critical step many companies miss. Let your customers know that not only is their time and opinions valuable to you but that you’re taking it one step further by implementing their suggestions.
Draft up an email your CEO can send to customers with any plans you have to improve your company based on their feedback. This simple step will earn some goodwill with customers and ensure they continue providing those valuable responses to surveys.
But what do you do if their feedback does not shine a great light on your company? Don’t shy away or shrug it off. Appoint a senior leader to reach out to unhappy customers for a one-on-one discussion to dig deeper into the issues they presented.
When the survey results are in, going another step further by sending a personalized thank you note to all participants is the icing on the cake. It will set you apart and make your clients feel valued. Isn’t that the overall goal?
What is a good Net Promoter Score?
Gathering information and calculating your Net Promoter Score can be a valuable tool for the future of your organization. By going straight to the source and finding out just how your customers view your business, you can formulate a solid plan to revamp your customer experience strategy and set goals to continue improving.
Finally, while Net Promoter Score is a valuable number to know, and it may be easy to fall prey to the desire to just increase the number for vanity’s sake, be sure you aren’t placing all the emphasis on the score itself. Rather, focus on what NPS represents: your valued customers and the experiences you offer them.