What is the Net Promoter Score (NPS)?

Content:

  1. What is the NPS?
  2. How many reminders should you send when asking for a review?
  3. How many email reminders should you send to complete an online survey?
  4. But which survey tool to use?
  5. Our conclusion.

 

Collecting customer feedback is crucial for all sized companies, and it provides you with an insight into your customer’s mind. 

NPS is short for Net Promoter Score. It measures customer loyalty and how likely they are to recommend your business to a friend or colleague. 

Just imagine yourself when you are about to make a purchase. 

Let’s say you want to buy a new mobile phone, and you are likely doing your research on the internet. This primary research will give you a good indication, but you are probably going to ask your friends about their phones or their recommendations.

Being recommended is such a powerful way to keep in your customers’ minds, and it only happens when their experience was kind enough to share. Only one lousy exposure from one of your clients can damage your business massively.

And let’s be honest, it’s much more likely you’ll tell your friends about your bad experiences than your good ones.

Nowadays, it doesn’t take much to share a bad review on social media or Google, and it is visible for everyone. Potential customers will see them and might think twice about using your service.

Here is where an NPS survey comes in handy because it makes collecting your customers’ feedback much quicker and more comfortable.

It is necessary to identify your brand ambassadors as well as your unsatisfied clients. It not only detects your promoters, passives, and detractors it also allows you to act quickly regarding their score. For example, you could ask your promoters to leave a review on Google, Facebook or other platforms.

So what is the NPS question?

NPS is a key growth metric, and it doesn’t matter the size or the years of your business. 

On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend our business or service to a friend or colleague?

The responses are categorised according to their score.

  • Promoters: Customers who answer the question with 9-10
  • Passives: Customers who answer the question with 7-8
  • Detractors: Customers who answer the question with 0-6

It might already be easy to guess that the promoters are your brand ambassadors. They are happy with your service and passionate about your brand or product. These customers are loyal and would tell their friends about their experience and bring new customers through your doors.

Passives are in the middle and give your service a neutral or average score. They can be indifferent but could become promoters if you keep nurturing them. These people could also change to a competitor because their experience wasn’t impressive enough to repeat the service.

And well there are the detractors. They are unhappy customers, and you are at a high risk of losing them. But they could also damage your business by leaving a review and sharing their bad experience online and with friends.

How many reminders should you send when asking for a review?

You are sending out the first reminder within 2-4 days after the initial email. Only one reminder might not be enough, and it is essential to keep nurturing your contacts/customers.

Often it takes two or even three reminders before they leave a review. You need to contact your customers at the right time and in the right channel, e.g. think about a combination of emails and SMS reminders.

How many email reminders should you send to complete an online survey?

Email reminders are a common strategy as it may boost the response rate — first reminder within the early 72 hours after initial send.

Most of your customers would respond to the survey within the first 48 hours.

Any time after 48h is typically a good time to send the first reminder, but that also depends on the type and length of your survey.

Limit any additional reminders (after the first one) to a maximum of 4 rounds in total. Be careful, as you don’t want to spam your customers.

Sending out reminders doesn’t guarantee you more responses. Reminders can only do so much for you, and we suggest to not rely on numerous send-outs.

You might need to tweak the initial survey invite to increase the responses. The contact will count the most. Be personal and follow the trend towards mini-surveys rather than a lengthy survey with too many questions. 

Depending on the contact details you have in your CRM, think about the right channel to contact your customers. If you have only a name and email, you will look into sending emails, but if you also have a mobile number, maybe it is worth testing the waters with SMS.

Determining the right channel for your audience is something you may need to test. It is also worth considering combining different channels, e.g. sending the initial invite as an email and one of the reminders as an SMS. But again, this is a scenario you need to test. 

But which survey tool to use?

Yes, we agree that each customer is different, and you might need to adjust your strategies and test them until you have found the right kind of reminders. You might need to test the subject lines or consider that the length of the copy within the reminder email is not compelling enough to take action.

Rest assured, there are plenty of survey tools that are out there, and they are all doing quite the same.

You might need to do a bit of diligent research beforehand as it also depends on the CRM or emailing system you are using to combine with the right survey tool. Depending on that fact and on the budget you have available, you want to find the right fit to have seamless integrations with all your marketing tools. 

Here are just a few survey tools you might want to consider researching:

Survicate 

SurveySparrow 

SurveyMonkey 

Wootric 

AskNicely 

If you ask us…

Keep your eyes open to every survey that comes your way, and learn from them.

Maybe put yourself in the shoes of a customer and think about which and how many questions you would like to answer.

It doesn’t matter the size of your business, and you should always listen to your customers’ feedback. Give them a voice, and they will feel that you care about them.

We at 4DP can help you with your NPS setup, your send out, and your ideal customer journey.

Contact us today to talk about possible strategies.

You can also book a free initial meeting with our CMO Sonja Ceri. She is a wizard when it comes to all marketing.