Top 10 NPS best practices to make visible in 2020

“I am a big believer in NPS. Provide a north star so everyone in the company understands how well we're doing and how many people are actively recommending us. It's a big gold bar. We're not happy if someone signs up and starts using Slack. We are not satisfied if they become customers. We are not even satisfied if they are renewed. Our bar is "Will you recommend us?"

Bill Macaitis, prior CMO of Slack

What is NPS?

Net Promoter Score is an indicator of customer experience and a predictor of business growth. All you do is ask the customer a simple question.

"How likely are you to recommend our brand to a friend or colleague?"

It has transformed the business world like no other, as it tells us more than it tries to convey.

The respondent can choose any number between 0 and 10, with 10 being very likely to recommend the brand. Respondents are grouped into three sections based on their scores.

• Promoters: those who have given a score of 9 or 10. These are loyal customers who will not only buy from your business but will go out of their way to recommend your products.
• Passive: Score between 7 and 8. Although they are satisfied, they are not excited about the prospect of doing business with your company. There's a good chance you'll be dumped for a competitor.
• Detractors: Score between 0 and 6. These are customers who are completely unhappy with your brand and won't mind damaging it by spreading the word about their experience.

In short, the NPS score gives the perception of your brand among your customers. It is also a great indicator of growth that can be understood simply by the increase or decrease in the NPS score. The NPS question is direct, simple, and doesn't take long for someone to answer.

<<< How to turn your customer experience into a competitive advantage >>>

10 NPS best practices

Now that we know the importance of NPS and the kind of impact it can have on businesses, here are the top 10 NPS best practices for 2020:

1. Frequency.

Don't send a survey as soon as someone becomes a customer. Remember, NPS gives you a customer's general emotion toward your brand and it's too soon for them to have strong emotions (which can be good or bad) towards your product...unless they've experienced it for a few days.

The frequency and timing of your NPS survey depend on your goals, the type of industry you're in, and the type of customers you have.

It's important that you have specific actions that, when performed by your customer, automatically receive a survey question from NPS. Timing is always the key when it comes to sending out these surveys. But here's another thing about NPS, it's not something you send once a year for a customer, but something you have to do regularly.

Why regular intervals? Because your customer's emotions change based on their experience of your brand. A customer who gave you an insignificant 1 on the NPS survey might give you an 8 next time if you take care of your issues. Ensuring that the number continues to grow will be the goal of the most successful companies. When you regularly send NPS surveys at the right times and continue to improve the experience for your user, your customers will fall in love with your brand and before you know it, they might even become advocates for your business.

Do you plan to send NPS surveys to all your customers as an email blast? Sending mass emails will only make you appear impersonal. The problem with these email blasts is that you will be sending NPS emails to customers who will be at different stages in their journey.

Instead, sending NPS surveys to those customers who are in similar stages for consistency will give you insight into who is a promoter and what made them one. If a customer is a detractor, then the business can investigate what might have gone wrong at that particular stage, and what caused them to get a low NPS score.

2. Are you closing the cycle?

The moment you get great feedback from your customers during the NPS survey, where most of them even took the time to fill in their feedback, it's imperative to close the feedback loop, otherwise, it's useless as you would end up wasting everyone's time.

Closing the feedback loop is everything when it comes to surveys. It is even more important than the survey itself. Ask any NPS professional and they will also tell you about its importance.

One of the biggest advantages is that you can repair the barriers with those customers who are not happy with their experience with your company. In other words, when you close the feedback loop, you're essentially solving the problem your customer had with your brand, which means they'll now end up having a better experience and might even recommend you to their friends and family.

Believe it or not, customers are not used to many companies solving the problems they would have complained about in the survey. Therefore, you would end up delighting your customers. Show that you care about them and that you are ready to change things if you mess up.

When you close the feedback loop, you can use it as an opportunity to improve your relationship with complaining customers. When you act quickly on feedback and provide a friendly solution for your customers, you are more than likely to convert them from a detractor to a promoter.

3. NPS surveys in the app and with transactional emails.

Send NPS surveys to your customers when they have completed a transaction. Your brand would be fresh in their minds and it's the perfect opportunity for the business to assess their experience with a particular action. You can also send NPS surveys in the app when a transaction happens, it doesn't have to be just through emails. It's much easier to get a user to respond to NPS surveys in the app itself.

In-app surveys get higher engagement because users have the right context and it's fresh in their minds.

If the customer doesn't reply that day, don't worry, you can send the NPS survey email the next day. Email surveys have a lower response rate, but customers don't mind since emails aren't as intrusive. With in-app surveys, you're hampering customer flow while email requests for NPS surveys don't have the same effect.

Best Practice: Send the in-app survey as soon as the user transacts if they don't respond, then email the survey the next day.

4. Share the NPS survey with the entire team and respondents.

Well-oiled machinery works better. The same goes for your company, where everyone in every department knows what's going on in the business so there's a sense of teamwork and unity for everyone.

Before you share your NPS score with the entire team, you need to explain to them how important it is to the business. Your team members need to know how and why NPS matter. Understanding benchmarking is important, not only against competitors but also against your score.

Conduct regular NPS reviews with your team. Use this score to motivate them. Compare it to the industry and the competition.

Once you work through the issues your customers raised in the survey, the next step is to reassure them that their issue has been resolved. This can be a huge boost for customers when they know that the problem they had with the company is no longer something that should bother them.

When customers realize that you care about resolving any query they have, they won't hesitate to open up the next time they want a review or complete another survey. Why? Because they know you mean business and are more than happy to give you their time.

5. Regular communication with your customers:

Any company, no matter how big, can make mistakes. No business wants to be in that position, but it happens. It's okay. But how do you handle that situation? That is the question. Do you apologize to your customers and assure them that you would not do it again? The answer to the above question will determine your longevity in the business world.

Communication is everything, no matter where you are in the customer relationship. Most companies don't have a communication strategy and that's a big mistake. Are you a company that contacts the customer at regular intervals or only when you want them to complete an NPS survey or do you want something from them?

Customers would like to be aware of matters that concern them. Not only should you communicate with customers about how you're solving their problems based on survey feedback, especially NPS, but you should also have a strategy for internal communications so your employees know customers are being listened to. This helps boost employee morale as well as develop a sense of purpose in them.

6. NPS benchmarks:

You should know that NPS scores in all industries are different. A telecommunications company would fare compared to a company in the online entertainment industry.

For example, Satmetrix calculations for the average NPS score across various sectors in the United States show numbers that stray widely. The NPS score for the health insurance industry is 14 while it is 52 for tablets.

NPS scores differ between companies. Just to give you an idea, here are some numbers that will interest you. JetBlue has an NPS score of 71 while Allstate has 40. You might think that Allstate scores low compared to JetBlue because its service is poor. Well... it's wrong.

JetBlue's NPS score is the highest in the airline industry, while Allstate's score is the highest in the life insurance category.

This is what you need to do: What is the best NPS score for you? Measure your NPS score against companies that are in the same industry and against yourself, this will help you see how you are progressing. Your goal should be to keep improving your NPS score so your customers can be happy. If your score improves, it means your customers are happier.

7. Customize your NPS surveys:

If you're not customizing surveys based on your customers, what are you doing? Understand your customers to such an extent that you can personalize surveys after segmenting them based on their characteristics. Remember that there is not only one type of NPS survey template that you have to send.

The NPS survey you send must be aligned with your company's brand. After the end of the question, you can add "Why are you willing to share?" based on your answers.

Customize surveys with different subject lines and use the ones that perform the best. Make sure the subject line you use is intriguing enough to get the customer to open the email and answer the questions. We have already talked about this, it is called segmentation. Divide customers based on it and run A/B tests for the same customer segment using different subject lines and follow-up questions.

8. Ask open questions:

Have you noticed that open-ended questions allow the recipient to pour out their hearts? Ask open-ended follow-up questions based on the customer's score. This will cause them to send honest responses that you might not have expected.

If the score is between 0 and 6, you can ask:

• "What made you give us such a low score?"
• "How can we help improve the score?"

If the score is 7 or 8, you can ask:

• "How can we improve your experience with us?"
• "Is there any way we can improve our services?"

If the score is 9 or 19, you can ask:

• “We are happy that you are enjoying your experience with us. What do you think is the best about us?
• “If we could improve one thing about our customer service or product, what would it be? If there is more than one, feel free to tell us about it.”

9. Send the NPS survey to your employees:

Customers should be your priority but employees should feel that way too. Keeping your customers satisfied can have a dramatic effect on your company, and if you take your employees lightly, it will have an equally dramatic effect, but for all the wrong reasons. Only employees can make sure customers feel satisfied and happy all the time.

Sending eNPS (Employee NPS) will allow you to understand the employees who are most satisfied with your company. While it's good to feel validated, you should look for detractors and passives. Detractors are those who are at risk of flight, that is, the employee who can be expected to leave the company as soon as possible.

Your promoters are the ones who will recommend your company to others, be proactive, act as team players, complete surveys, participate in your events, etc. Submitting eNPS will give you ideas on how to improve employee satisfaction and increase employee happiness.

10. Take advantage of your promoters:

While they care deeply about detractors, many companies forget the fact that you have promoters who are happy to do so much for you. But the burning question is are you doing things to take advantage of their presence? Remember, promoters are happy to recommend your company to their friends and family, so use them for your campaigns and get video testimonials, for your LinkedIn posts, etc.

<<< They used the customer experience as a competitive advantage>>>

Conclusion.

If you're about to send out NPS surveys, first, deliver them everywhere you can, from social media to using customer loyalty programs.

Ask them the most important question: "How likely are you to recommend our brand to a friend, on a scale of 0 to 10?" Also, make sure there is space for customers to add comments so you can get more information that you can use later when you close the feedback loop.

If you implement NPS surveys well, you have the power to completely change the way you run your business. You will change the way you communicate with and train your employees, the way you operate, and how you create experiences for your customers. You have the necessary power to change your company once and for all.