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The Net Promoter Score® is a valuable metric to track and observe customer feedback.
Once deployed, it can provide valuable insights into how customers feel about your product or business and what changes and improvements they would like to see. Over time, this metric can become the valuable tool you didn't know you needed.
NPS reflects how customers feel about product releases, design or feature improvements, and changes in customer service. The Net Promoter Score is an index that measures customer satisfaction and is used as a relationship-building touchpoint.
Ultimately, collecting NPS leads to actionable feedback that improves product quality and customer loyalty when you follow up on the feedback.
If you listen and use NPS feedback properly, you can increase overall customer satisfaction over time.
A typical NPS survey looks like this:
"How likely are you to recommend this company to a friend, colleague or family member?"
The respondent is asked to answer on a scale of 0 to 10 and then given an open-ended follow-up question, e.g.
"Please explain your answer" or "What can we do to improve?".
The rating helps you to divide your customer base into three categories:
- Promoters
- Passives
- Critics
At first glance, a survey based on NPS may seem like a basic tool that only provides some basic data. When used strategically, the Net Promoter Score is so much more.
What an NPS survey can do in terms of customer satisfaction quickly becomes clear in the course of use.
NPS and customer satisfaction
In product development
For example, let's take a SaaS company that just implemented a new feature. Of course, after the long planning and implementation of the new function, it is convinced that the new function will please customers and add value.
But how can the company be sure?
An NPS survey will give you a fairly accurate answer. You can ask users how likely they are to recommend your brand based on this feature, and then let them share their thoughts using the comments box.
You'll find that your new feature gets mixed reviews. Some customers love them while others have no use for them and still others want to go back to the original design.
By getting feedback quickly, you can address customer needs, make necessary adjustments to the feature, ensure dissatisfaction doesn't go unnoticed, and prevent those customers from churn.
In customer support
You can also use an NPS survey to respond to a specific customer experience, e.g. a bad interaction with a service representative.
You can ask, "Based on your recent experience with our support team, would you recommend us to a friend?"
If the respondent was unhappy, review the case directly and then contact the customer to reassure them that you won't be closed until they're happy again. By contacting you, the customer realizes that their opinion is important to you. This creates a positive experience and strengthens the bond.
On the other hand, if the respondent was satisfied or even impressed, don't miss out on doubling down on this positive experience with your company. Contact these users personally to inquire in detail about the areas of application of the new function.
This gives you even more feedback on your development, strengthens loyalty and turns the customer into an enthusiastic brand ambassador.
Reading recommendation: If you would like to know more about the topic of NPS and customer satisfaction, we recommend our blog article "NPS: The successful path to measuring customer satisfaction"
NPS over time
The NPS will change over time and will increase or decrease depending on the customer experience at the respective touchpoint, i.e. your product, your website or the support team.
Make sure to segment the respective touchpoints and set the frequency of a follow-up survey so that you don't survey your customers too often.
By comparing changes in NPS over time, you'll learn how you've improved at driving customer loyalty. Gain insight into how your business decisions impact product performance and overall customer experience.
In this way, you can continuously optimize your company and offer new and existing customers lasting added value.
Example of NPS in the customer lifecycle:
The new customer bought your product, gave immediate feedback and even left a raving review. You've successfully converted a lead and landed a happy new customer.
The customer may not make another purchase or otherwise engage with your brand for a while. In this case, implement another touchpoint in the form of an additional NPS survey.
This gives the customer the opportunity to let you know what they think of your product after a few months of use.
For example, the NPS question might be,
“Based on the performance of our product, how likely are you to recommend our brand to a friend?”
If the customer is dissatisfied, react directly to their feedback and make the necessary adjustments. Then close the customer feedback loop by reaching out to the customer and informing them of the adjustments.
If the customer is satisfied, take the opportunity to ask them for a review on your website, social media presence or an external rating portal to share their positive experience.
This increases the organic reach of your brand, ensures an increased number of new customers and strengthens the loyalty of your existing customers.
Recommended reading: A good way to monitor the customer lifecycle with NPS is described in our blog article "Implement NPS surveys in your customer lifecycle emails".
Follow all measures related to an NPS survey in order to constantly increase the satisfaction of your customers, to always be able to make adjustments where they are necessary and to win many new customers thanks to the large number of positive reviews.
Recommended reading: If this article helped you and you would like to learn more about the role of NPS in shaping the customer experience, continue reading here: "The role of NPS in customer experience (CX)"