In today's competitive business landscape, understanding customer satisfaction and loyalty is paramount to success.
One metric that encapsulates these vital aspects is the Net Promoter Score (NPS).
In this blog post, we delve into the significance of NPS as a measure of customer loyalty and satisfaction, exploring why businesses of all sizes must improve their NPS.
By understanding the value of NPS and implementing effective strategies to enhance it, companies can not only foster stronger customer relationships but also drive sustainable growth in an increasingly customer-centric market.
Why Is Net Promoter Score Important To Businesses?
Conducting a net promoter score study provides key data about how likely customers are to recommend your product and services to others.
This metric is important to track because it allows brands to understand if they're connecting with customers properly.
Additionally, negative feedback (or in this case, lower customer scores), can be used to tweak existing strategies for improvement.
Overall, this metric works to increase customer loyalty directly based on their authentic feedback, providing companies with a large book of repeat business for years to come.
Watch our video to learn more about what NPS is and its benefits.
How To Calculate Your NPS
Before discussing how to improve it, let's briefly review how to measure your NPS.
In a survey, an NPS question is asked via a Likert scale, where respondents will rate from 0 to 10 their satisfaction with your brand's products/services.
Based on a customer response, they are grouped into three categories:
- Promoters (ratings 9 or 10)
- Passives (ratings 7 or 8)
- Detractors (ratings 0 to 6)
To calculate your NPS simply subtract the % of detractors from the % of promoters.
How to Improve Your Net Promoter Score
Once you have this data sorted out, you can take steps to improve your NPS.
This all depends on the type of feedback you receive. This is why our net promoter score company recommends asking a follow-up, open-ended question.
A percentage can only tell you so much. It's important to also measure why customers score you a certain way.
For instance, you may notice that the NPS question yielded a significant amount of detractors. But why?
Instead of viewing this negatively, use it as a chance to improve your services based on the reasoning they provided.
And once you improve your customer's most common complaints, your net promoter score is likely to improve too.
Below are a few specific steps you can take to improve your net promoter score.
Establish an NPS baseline
Setting an NPS baseline is essential for tracking your success over time.
This term simply refers to the first net promoter score and how that sets the foundation for future research.
Think of it as a benchmark for you to compare future ratings. The goal is to never dip below this baseline and always work on improving your NPS.
Additionally, NPS is great for measuring your brand against competitors as well.
When you have this score, you'll be able to compare it to other brands in your industry. This will allow you to see where you're excelling and what you can work on to get ahead.
Notice key detractor themes
What are your detractors saying? Is there a main theme in their responses? There likely is, and this is a great way to make changes.
However, this group can take some time to please, so don't spend all your energy trying to get them 100% satisfied. That will come with time as you tweak your services.
Take action on feedback
Once you've gotten this customer feedback from your NPS questions, you can start putting it into action. This will depend on how your customers respond, but chances are, there will be areas for improvement!
Negative responses are always the ones you want to work on first.
While it's good to acknowledge positive customer feedback, the real change lies in the less favorable responses.
Making changes within your company without any kind of customer insight is tricky, which is why their feedback is so valuable. That way, you're not making changes that will cost you time and money with no results.
For example, your NPS questions may reveal your brand is lacking in customer service efforts.
Now, you have a clear objective when it comes to improving your services. You can be sure that if you improve this service, this will likely lead to happier customers.
What do promoters love about your brand?
Learning what turns someone from a passive to a promoter is key to understanding what your brand is doing right. By analyzing this group, you'll be able to see what you can do to turn passives into promoters through future brand improvements.
Incorporate a feedback loop
Establish a continuous feedback loop where you collect, analyze, and act upon customer feedback in real time. This iterative process ensures that your strategies for improving NPS remain dynamic and responsive to evolving customer needs.
Prioritize customer satisfaction
While this is a broad term, customer satisfaction relates directly back to how you can boost your NPS over time. Learning about the ways your brand affects customers (negatively and positively) is a sure-fire way to improve their satisfaction levels.
Foster the employee/customer connection
Happy customers = promoters. But happy customers are often a result of productive employee efforts. Therefore, employees play a critical role in attracting and keeping customers.
Nurturing employee relationships and how they handle customer services is key to your NPS, especially since 81% of customers link good service with repeat purchases.
Getting employees on board with this is the first step to ensuring things run smoothly. Make sure your staff are aware of your NPS tracking plan as well, so they can stay informed.
A great way to work with your staff on this is to ensure they have a clear understanding of your brand and the overall message.
Employees who aren't connected to their brand are less likely to be passionate about it, leading to poor customer experiences.
Additionally, proper treatment of employees is essential if you want them to perform well and handle customer interactions properly.
Brands that value employee well-being naturally have a better-functioning business, thus affecting how they treat customers.
Improve communication
The way your business values communication with customers will determine the level of your NPS.
Customers appreciate brands that value this relationship by continuously keeping the lines of communication open.
This means...
- Customers feel comfortable coming to your brand with inquiries and concerns
- Customer service teams effectively manage customer questions and issues
- Maintaining brand transparency to gain customers' trust
Of course, there are other ways in which communication can benefit the customer/brand relationship, but the above points sum up the main idea.
Brands that remain consistent with their communication strategies can expect to see high NPS results as a natural result of customer trust.
Make the customer experience a priority
Ensuring a smooth customer experience naturally leads to high rates of customer satisfaction, which all come together to promote a high NPS.
Understanding customer experience depends on who your customers are. One customer experience strategy may work well for certain target audiences but not for others.
This is why, aside from NPS surveys, it's a good idea to invest in customer surveys to gather additional data.
This survey data will help create an overall view of how customers interact with your brand.
Much of the customer experience revolves around services, user experience, proper marketing, and related factors. Thankfully, all of these topics can be addressed by customer surveys.
The more you improve the customer's experience with your brand, the higher your NPS will be!
Frequently Asked Questions About Improving NPS
To summarize, below are some common questions about how business can improve their NPS.
What internal strategies can brands use to improve NPS?
Businesses seeking to improve their NPS will find that the answer to a higher NPS lies in many different areas. These often include customer services, employee relations, and marketing techniques. Prioritizing each of these will lead to a better customer experience, often leading to a higher net promoter score.
Will tracking my NPS more than once improve it?
Yes! Net promoter scores should be measured more than once to observe consumer trends. This will allow your brand to navigate the ever-changing landscape of customer needs. We recommend running NPS surveys on a quarterly or yearly basis, depending on what your budget allows.
How can I use the data from my NPS to improve future scores?
Understanding what led your customers to rate your brand will allow you to address underlying issues that impact customers.
Once those changes have been made, this will likely be reflected in the future, higher net promoter scores. This is another great reason why they should be conducted more than once!
Final Thoughts
Net promoter scores reveal key data about your business and how services affect customers.
As we discussed in this blog post, it's important to pay attention to all promoters, passives, and detractors. That said, your detractors hold the key to lasting business improvements you can make.
Based on what your detractors reveal, you can make positive changes to your company, improving future scores. What's more, this will likely shift detractors to passives to ultimately becoming promoters.
Improving your net promoter score can be done by improving existing customer services, implementing new ones, boosting employee communication, and tweaking other factors. Some of these may include marketing strategies and even pricing models.
Overall, improving your NPS doesn't have to be a difficult challenge. With the proper data and tools, it can be a way to continuously adapt to changing trends within your audience.
Contact Our Net Promoter Score Company
Need assistance or advice on your upcoming net promoter score survey project? Our team of experts can help develop a custom plan for you with an approach, recommended critical metrics, a sample plan, and much more.
Drive Research can walk through your objectives and develop a proposal.
Contact us through any of the four channels below.
- Message us on our website
- Email us at [email protected]
- Call us at 888-725-DATA
- Text us at 315-303-2040
Lark Allen
As a Content Marketing Specialist, Lark has a strong background and passion for creative, professional, and journalistic writing. She is also a self-proclaimed music freak and 90s enthusiast.
Learn more about Lark, here.
