Conducting customer surveys can be very beneficial to your business. This way, you can understand the needs of your target audience better, fix things that require your attention, and strengthen elements that are working well. One of the most popular types of customer surveys is called NPS. It’s used worldwide primarily because of its universality. In this post, we will show you five good practices that will enable you to make the most of this type of survey.
If you’ve never heard of the NPS survey, here’s everything you need to know about it. Have you ever been asked by a company to “share your opinion”, and then you ended up on a website with millions of questions stretching forever? That’s pretty irritating, isn’t it? With NPS, there is only one question (plus an additional follow-up question). NPS surveys are very short because they are straight to the point.
How NPS surveys work
The question that’s being asked is this: Would you recommend our services? The answer is provided in a scale from 0 to 10.
We mentioned that sometimes, there is a also a follow-up question, and it’s this: Why did you answer this way? Here, a customer gets a text field where they can share all relevant experiences, both positive and negative. And when it comes to measuring your customers’ satisfaction and loyalty, that’s pretty much everything you need!
The next step is all about analyzing the answers.
Depending on the answer a given responded has provided, they are assigned to three groups:
- Detractors (answers from 0 to 6): These respondents are not satisfied with your company/offer. They won’t recommend you to others and can even discourage them from working with you. The fewer detractors you have, the better.
- Passives (answers 7 and 8): These people are moderately satisfied; they think your service was ok, but they won’t do anything about it (usually, passives don’t recommend you to other people).
- Promoters (answers 9 and 10): That’s the best group; they are fully satisfied with your offer and are willing to promote you to other people.
Now, of course, even though you’d like to get 100% promoters, it is likely that there will be at least a few detractors and passives in your target audience. That’s why you need to calculate your NPS score to see where you stand.
HOW TO CALCULATE THE NPS SCORE
NPS is always a whole number ranging from -100 (100% detractors) to +100 (100% promoters). To calculate it, you have to subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. Here’s an example to illustrate how to calculate NPS:
The number of answers received: 100
- Detractors: 50 (50%)
- Passives: 20 (20%)
- Promoters: 30 (30%)
NPS = 30% – 50% = -20
-20 is our result. Now, how do you interpret it? You can look for NPS benchmarks online (they differ between industries), but in general, every result above 0 is good because it means that you have more promoters than distractors. If your result is below 0, you need to work on your product or customer service because, at this point, people are unlikely to recommend you to others.
Of course, at this point, you only get the diagnosis – your company needs to do better, but what specifically needs fixing? The NPS score will not tell you that, hence the need for the follow-up question. Make sure you analyze carefully every answer you get; people will tell you things that you may not have even noticed. There are other things to consider, too.
Below, you will find five good practices you ought to employ when conducting NPS surveys.
NPS surveys: 5 good practices
1: KEEP IT SHORT AND SIMPLE
The NPS survey was designed to be convenient and to the point. Don’t ruin your survey by asking more questions; limit yourself to just two:
- Would you recommend our services [to your friends and family]?
- Why did you answer this way?
And that’s it; you don’t need anything else. A short one-minute survey has a much higher chance of getting more responses compared to long, never-ending surveys.
2: ANALYZE YOUR RESULTS WITH INDUSTRY BENCHMARKS
A -30 score may not seem great, but when you find out that the industry average is -50, your result doesn’t look bad anymore, right? That’s why it’s so important to analyze NPS benchmarks (they change annually) and look for the results specific to your industry or sector. And even if your result is not great, set a goal to improve it in a few months!
3: DON’T CONDUCT THOSE SURVEYS TOO OFTEN
In general, many customers will be willing to participate in your survey, provided it’s short and done in the right moment. You certainly don’t want to “attack” your customers with NPS surveys every week or even month. Two or three times a year is a good golden mean in most cases.
Additionally, you shouldn’t conduct those surveys just on a whim. Wait for the right moment, e.g., when a customer places an order or reaches out to customer service. Good timing will win you more surveys!
4: SEGMENT YOUR AUDIENCE
If you run a large company servicing many different types of customers, it’s a good idea to conduct surveys divided by customer segments. You should conduct surveys among specific groups of customers, allowing you to address their particular needs and improve targeted areas.
Here’s an example: If you offer a marketing SaaS tool, it may turn out that marketers are fully satisfied with your tool, but small business owners who run their own marketing themselves find it difficult to use. This feedback may trigger you to introduce a streamlined version of your platform designed specifically for SMEs.
5: ACT ON THE FEEDBACK
The last good practice ties nicely with the previous one. The NPS survey will give you the feedback, but that’s it. Now, the ball is in your court – you should analyze the responses and fix the aspects of your business that irritate or disappoint your customers. Only this way will you truly benefit from the NPS survey in your business.
Wrapping up
The NPS surveys can be very helpful, provided you use them according to the good practices outlined in this article. If you’d like to know more, watch this short video to see how you can create your own survey in a matter of minutes.
And if you’re not yet using iPresso, it’s time to change it! Start with free trial access to see how marketing automation can take your business to a whole new level, where everything you do is streamlined and more accurate.
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