Your five-minute NPS implementation plan

Net Promoter Score (NPS), a term first coined by Frederick F. Reichheld, is a measure of your customer’s loyalty as you might have read in a previous article. There is a strong correlation between NPS and company growth. It is an efficient way to get to know what your customers think of your brand and comes in contrast with more extensive surveys. This one only has one question:

"From a scale of 0 to 10, how likely is it that you would recommend our company to a friend or colleague?"

Customers are your best assets, and you should focus on them. The NPS is a great way to do so. But who should you contact? When, and why? How can this simple survey help you improve customer experience?

Here’s a quick and dirty guide to implement the NPS in your company:

Use the NPS to grow your business

You may be asking yourself  “are our customers going to recommend us to friends or colleagues?’

We previously wrote about customer feedback being awesome. Well, this is your way to get customer feedback and strengthen your word of mouth strategy.

The NPS is a is an excellent key performance indicator to measure customer loyalty. This score will help you make advised decisions on the path your business is taking.

You need a clear strategy when using the NPS. Why do you want to use it? How will it help to grow your business? You need to think about the data you need and how it can improve your business and loyalty.

But like any type of feedback, you need to be able to receive it and commit to making changes. Thus, having a team reviewing feedback regularly and informing the whole company is essential. Collecting the data will make you figure out areas of improvement and upgrade your customer experience. You can see how powerful your word of mouth is and make changes accordingly.

Target the right customers

There are two different types of surveys you can send:

• Relationship-based surveys to collect the data on the overall customer engagement with your brand. You could send your customers emails every few months and ask them if they would recommend you to a friend.
• Transactional surveys which are specific to a customer interaction and usually send out rapidly after the interaction happened. For example, if someone calls your company, you should promptly ask them what they thought of this interaction.

You need to figure out the touch points with your customers to make the survey more efficient and understand their experience. Whenever the customer comes in contact with you, you should ask them about what they thought of the interaction.

Determine your survey plan

NPS scores for products or services are collected by sending surveys through email, sms or in-app to existing customers.

Email surveys are sent to customers even if they have not used your website recently. They will give you a global view of your customer's feelings towards your company. On the other hand, in-app surveys are displayed on your website or application when the customer is on your platform. They give you feedback on how customers feel at that moment. So asking the customer to rate their interaction with the company is essential.

SMS surveys are a great option. They are personal and very quick to answer to providing you with a high response rate. On this note, in-product surveys usually get a higher level of response for the simple reason that the user is already engaged and doesn’t have to interrupt their workflow. Calling the customer after an interaction is also a great, more personal way to build a relationship with them.

Whichever method you use, make sure to thank them for their feedback and/or ask further questions.

Be strategic with your surveys

The frequency of NPS surveys depends on your customer and your company’s strategy. However, it is never a good idea to send too many surveys. You need to be strategic about it.

People are at different stages of their experience with your brand. So, instead you should send surveys at the same point in their user journey: they have tried the same feature and used your products for the same amount of time. This will give you a more accurate depiction of your NPS score.

For instance, if your customers are on a trial period, you might want to send them surveys regularly to measure their experience throughout. If you already have long-term customers, the surveys need to be sent out less frequently. In case of an in-product prompt don’t send them too early: customers need to get the chance to experience the service or product to form an opinion.

To get a more precise and rigorous score, you need to send out surveys at a comparable point in the user journey, so the data you collect becomes relatable.

Opinions evolve all the time, so make sure you send follow up surveys every once in a while to stay on top of customer interaction and engagement. If you change a feature in your products or services, give the customers time to experience it and then send out surveys to evaluate their reaction to the new features.

Here’s what to do when you get the results

The NPS is the starting point of conversation for future improvements. The insights you gather from NPS surveys impact every team in your company  - from sales to product teams. They will help you identify who the detractors and who the promoters are, what their experience is, and how to improve it. It’s essential you have a team to review NPS scores that informs the whole company about customer feedback.

As we have already discussed, you need to establish a feedback loop with customers after they’ve provided feedback. You should follow up to clarify the feedback provided to gain insights and build a better customer relationship. You could ask them for instance “why did you give us this score?” or “what would be your preferred solution?”. You should check their score regularly to see if your relationship with them is improving.

The real value of the NPS is in what you do with the data you collect and how you use the customer engagement.

This is especially true for engaging with detractors. They give you an opportunity to learn about how you can improve. Asking them what they appreciate about your product and what they don’t or what they want from your product are great starting points. You will create a personal connection with them by making them feel valued.

If you want to learn more about the Net Promoter Score or get started today, signup for our free trial or get in touch for a demo. We also regularly host interactive and educational webinars.