How to make Net Promoter Score richer
NPS is outdated, but there are ways to make it richer
What is a Net Promoter Score (NPS)?
Net Promoter Score(NPS) is a simple metric that helps businesses to identify their promoters, passives and detractors. It has been proved to be a good indicator of growth.
NPS is based on just one question to the customer. That question is, “How likely are you to recommend this to your friends or colleagues?” This question can be presented in various ways but should always have identical meanings.
NPS is a quick way to gauge how healthy your company is in terms of customer satisfaction, and it’s a great metric to use in determining the success of marketing campaigns.
Quick intro of how NPS works
Promoters are those customers who are very likely to promote your product to others, whereas Detractors are those who are not satisfied with your product or service. NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from promoters. If the percentage of promoters is higher than the percentage of detractors, then you are doing a good job, but if it is not, you need to take action.
Why NPS should be richer
1. It measures intention, not actual user behaviour.
It may say that a user is a promoter of a brand, yet the user may not purchase the product or talk about it to others. Thus, while not ideal, NPS is still a popular metric that marketers should be aware of and use for benchmarking purposes.
A survey showed that only about half the people who intended to recommend specific firms actually did so. In contrast, some people acted as a promoter as well as a detractor.
2. NPS misses the user connection.
Recommendations don’t necessarily equal happiness. If products or services get the job done, users may be willing to recommend them. However, what about the user experience? How many users were genuinely happy to use the product or service?
What to do to make the NPS richer and get more out of it?
1. Ask follow-up questions.
Asking hypothetical questions such as “would you recommend..” can create an inaccurate response. People may be willing to recommend; however, that doesn’t mean they will.
The goal was to comprehend what was user’s actual behaviour and not just their intention.
If users give a low rating on the NPS scale, that doesn’t provide any valuable information. What companies should value is why. What things need to be done to change users’ opinions and have them give a higher rating next time. Overall, the rating is not as important as the feedback from the follow-up questions.
Hence, asking users, “Have you recommended this brand?” and “Have you discouraged anyone from choosing this brand?” followed by their reasoning that drove their advocacy, would give a better estimate.
Two simple questions- but ones with a very real and potentially profitable answer.
The real value comes from the feedback in follow-up questions.
2. Combine it with user research.
Usability testing and user research can help pinpoint navigation and other issues which can lead to quick fixes.
Some techniques that can help pinpoint these usability issues:
- User testing
- Customer surveys
- Live chat
3. Find and fix issues.
NPS could include more of the whole experience — customer service included — so that optimisation teams can work on issues that customers voice on the survey.
There’s a huge opportunity to turn detractors into promoters.
The best way to go with detractors is to investigate why they had an unpleasant experience and not recommend you. Then, knowing the answer, you can solve and improve that particular aspect and, in this way, transform a detractor into a passive customer or even a promoter.
4. Market to promoters.
People who love your product will market it for free. But, sometimes, they need a little nudge to do it more often. We love to share and talk about things we love to the people we love. So companies need to make it easy for users to market to their friends.
A great example is companies that have a “refer a friend, and both get $15” the company gets a recommendation, and the user receives some cash- it’s a win-win situation.
Closing Thoughts:
More than user recommendations data that the NPS collects, companies should find more valuable customer experiences and moments to improve the user experience. The moments that make users happy to use the product are what companies should collect so that designers can emphasise those areas. The users can highlight those moments to enhance the user experience.
Understand and highlight the areas users appreciate.
The Canvs Editorial team comprises of: Editorial Writer and Researcher- Paridhi Agrawal and Anjali Baliga, the Editor’s Desk- Aalhad Joshi and Debprotim Roy, and Content Operations- Abin Rajan
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