Net Promoter Score Survey Best Practices You Should Be Using

The timely and consistent use of Net Promoter Score (NPS) data allows you to create the best possible experience for your clients.

NPS is a metric used to measure clients’ sentiment toward a brand. It has become one of the standard key performance indicators (KPIs) for measuring customer experience (CX). 

This KPI was developed by Bain & Company in 2003 and has grown in popularity through the years. Many modern companies use it to gather quantitative and qualitative customer feedback; in fact, a Lumoa survey shows two-thirds of companies today use NPS.

Leveraging NPS survey data helps build customer loyalty and improve retention rates. This blog explores the importance of NPS to your bottom line and highlights NPS survey best practices you should be using.

What Makes NPS Different

Unlike other types of surveys, a net promoter score survey is based on only one question:

“On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend [company name] to a friend or colleague?”

You can ask follow-up questions depending on the customer’s response. NPS looks simple, with easy, short and flexible questions. But it’s a powerful tool providing you critical insight into the following:

• Brand perception
• Growth potential
• Customer satisfaction
• Quality of customer experience

Compared to other surveys, NPS gains higher response rates and is more reliable than other survey formats.

Calculating Your Score

In NPS surveys, respondents are classified into three segments:

1. Promoters: A score of 9-10
2. Detractors: A score of 0-6
3. Passives: A score of 7-8

A promoter, also known as a brand advocate, is more likely to recommend your brand to others. On the other hand, a detractor is a customer who is likely to provide negative feedback and switch to your competitors. Lastly, passives are customers who are satisfied with your products and services but remain uninvolved with brand promotion.

Computing and finding out if you have a good net promoter score is easy. First, subtract the percentage of your detractors from the percentage of your promoters. For example, you sent an SMS survey to 100 people and found you have 40 percent promoters and 25 percent detractors. Doing the math gives you a score of +15. Your final NPS score can range from -100 to +100.

Interpreting Your NPS Score

It’s important to understand that an NPS score isn’t a percentage but rather an index. The initial net promoter score question starts the conversation with clients. But the answers to the follow-up questions give you deeper insight when figuring out how to improve customer experience and building customer loyalty.

According to the makers of the NPS survey, a five percent increase in retention rate translates to 25 to 95 percent revenue growth. 

Any score higher than zero is considered acceptable or good. A score 20 or higher is favorable, while a score of 50 is excellent. And if you score an 80 or higher, you have a world-class team.

NPS Survey Best Practices

The goal behind NPS surveys is to leverage user data to improve customer experience. You can send an NPS email or SMS survey when gathering responses from your customers; either way is acceptable. But the vital piece of the strategy is to be timely. Apart from that, best practices also include a concerted effort to best use the information gathered.

Here are our recommendations for NPS best practices:

1. Send Your Net Promoter Score Survey at the Right Time

When is the best time to send an NPS survey email or SMS survey? The short answer is it depends on the type of feedback you’re after. You can target transactional or relational feedback with each NPS email or text message.

Transactional feedback involves responses related to customer interactions with your business. They include feedback after a purchase, resolution of a support ticket and voice or chat interactions with clients. These are feedback for specific touchpoints.

On the other hand, relational feedback focuses on the customer’s relationship with your brand. These are times when you send an NPS survey email at the end or beginning of a year. You can also post a net promoter score question quarterly. Obtaining relational feedback from a customer helps win a brand advocate in the long run.

Here are a few dos and don’ts to keep in mind:

• Send your net promoter score question after resolving a customer problem. Ask what went well during the process and what could’ve been improved.
• Keep questions short and to the point.
• Leverage the services of an email marketing specialist. SMS marketing agencies can help you determine the best times to send text surveys.
• Don’t send a net promoter score survey directly after a purchase. Give customers time to experience the product first.
• Don’t send NPS email surveys too frequently to avoid survey fatigue. Take advantage of survey apps, targeted website surveys and online reputation management software to capture responses at appropriate times.

2. Find Ways To Leverage Your Promoters

Research indicates that promoters are 7.2 times more likely to try new offers, 5.2 times more likely to forgive any shortcomings and 4.2 times more likely to repeat purchases. These numbers indicate that promoters are ideal for beta testing new products and services. (XM Institute, 2017)

Consider the following tactics for leveraging promoters:

• Ask them to try new products
• Open a new referral program
• Have advocates participate in beta groups
• Reward them for leaving a testimonial or review
• Ask promoters to promote new products and services

Since every promoter is a brand advocate, give them incentives for participating in these programs. For example, a Nielsen study tells us that 83 percent of consumers purchase products based on peer recommendations. Undoubtedly, this strategy is an effective way to boost referral marketing.

3. Involve the Entire Team

Once you’ve gathered your data, get your entire team involved in the process. Share the feedback with everyone involved. The responses from the NPS survey email reflect the health of your customer relationships. 

Here are some ideas for getting everyone on board:

• Provide recognition to deserving team members who provided exceptional customer service.
• Highlight outstanding efforts and emphasize further improvement.
• Use a good net promoter score as a core business metric when formulating your customer experience strategy.
• Give team members access to the data to find feedback that matters most to their performance.
• Point out areas for improvement and work on those areas providing a reasonable timeframe for resolution.

4. Measure, Analyze and Test Results Regularly

Always treat a good net promoter score as something variable. Such is the nature of NPS scores and customer sentiment – they can change at any time. So one of the NPS survey best practices is to survey customers regularly.

Your customers will form different opinions when you launch new products. So expect variations in customer sentiment with every product launch and policy change.

• Perform A/B testing and send different survey questions. 
• Find out which formats get better response rates and improve customer experience. 
• Leverage the expertise of SMS marketing agencies if you’re using text surveys. 
• Work with an email marketing specialist to help you craft better survey emails.

5. Close the Feedback Loop

Using NPS helps you build a robust customer experience strategy. While the initial survey question starts meaningful conversations with customers, the absolute goldmine lies in the answers to the follow-up questions.

These questions help you interpret customer feedback by zooming in on the reasons why clients have given you that score. They allow you to identify common concerns and take the opportunity to remedy the situation promptly. To keep a pulse of your audience, use survey tools and online reputation management software that help you monitor customer reviews and feedback.

Responding to negative feedback in real-time mitigates the impact of negative reviews. On the other hand, closing the feedback loop for promoters and brand advocates helps in building customer loyalty. With this approach, you demonstrate to both supporters and detractors that you care about providing quality service and improving your brand as a whole.

Partner With an Online Reputation Management Company

Streamline all your survey campaign management efforts with the help of a seasoned online reputation management company like Rize Reviews. Our team specializes in review generation and survey management, equipping your business with the right tools to tackle these projects with efficiency and ease.

Reach out and launch your survey management campaign today.