You can build the best network the area has ever seen, but do people know about it? Without adding and retaining subscribers, it’s all for nothing. Part of your broadband ecosystem must include a reliable and consistent method for measuring customer experience and satisfaction. Measuring customer experience begins with a comprehensive management tool, such as Adtran’s AI-driven Mosaic One, that shows at-a-glance customer experience scores, churn suspects, revenue leakage, and even opportunities to upgrade and improve their quality of experience.
With this foundational understanding, you’re ready to choose a method and a key performance indicator (KPI) or metric for measuring your success. Possible KPIs include online reviews, churn, flight risk, or Net Promoter Score (NPS).
NPS is regarded as one of the more consistent and unbiased metrics. It’s often a required report when applying for private funding through a bank or venture capitalist. Let’s review in detail what this metric is, how to implement it, and best practices for integrating it into your ecosystem.
What is NPS?
NPS is a widely used metric that measures customer loyalty and satisfaction. It was developed by Fred Reichheld in 2003 and has since become a common tool for businesses to assess and track their customer relationships. NPS is often used to evaluate the overall customer experience and to gauge the likelihood of customers recommending a company’s products or services to others.
How is NPS collected and scored?
- Survey: Customers are asked a single question along the lines of “On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our company/product/service to a friend or colleague?”
- Responses: Based on their responses, customers are categorized into three groups:
- Promoters (score 9-10): These are highly satisfied customers who are likely to promote your business to others.
- Passives (score 7-8): These customers are satisfied but not enthusiastic. They may not actively promote your business.
- Detractors (score 0-6): These are unsatisfied customers who may have negative opinions and could potentially harm your business through word-of-mouth.
- NPS calculation: NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. The resulting score can range from -100 (all detractors) to +100 (all promoters).
Okay, but that sounds like a lot of work. Help!
Numerous vendors and software platforms offer services to help businesses collect, analyze and manage NPS data. The choice of a specific NPS vendor often depends on your organization’s needs, the scale of your operations, and your budget. Here are some common NPS vendors and platforms as of September 2021:
- Satmetrix: Satmetrix is the co-creator of NPS and offers NPS software and consulting services. They have a deep understanding of NPS and provide tools for collecting and interpreting NPS data.
- Qualtrics: Qualtrics, now part of SAP, provides a comprehensive experience management platform, which includes NPS functionality. It allows businesses to create, distribute, and analyze NPS surveys and integrate the data with other customer experience data.
- Delighted: Delighted is a customer experience platform specializing in NPS surveys. It allows businesses to create and send NPS surveys to customers via various channels and provides analytics and reporting features.
- SurveyMonkey: SurveyMonkey is a widely used survey platform that offers NPS survey templates and tools for creating and distributing NPS surveys. It’s known for its ease of use and user-friendly survey design.
- Promoter.io: Promoter.io is specifically designed for NPS surveys and feedback management. It simplifies the process of collecting and analyzing NPS data and provides tools to automate follow-up actions based on NPS scores.
Best practices for implementing NPS
Implementing NPS effectively involves several best practices for when to send surveys, how to send them, and who to send them to. These practices can help you gather meaningful feedback and take action to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty:
- When to send NPS surveys:
- Timing: Send NPS surveys at specific touchpoints in the customer journey. Common times include after a purchase, post-interaction with customer support, or periodically throughout the customer’s relationship with your business.
- Event-based: Trigger NPS surveys based on significant events, such as completing a project, reaching a subscription milestone, or upgrading to a higher service tier.
- Consistency: Consistency in your survey timing to enable meaningful trend analysis. If possible, establish a regular cadence for sending NPS surveys.
- How to send NPS surveys:
- Multi-channel: Make NPS surveys available through various channels, such as email, SMS, website pop-ups or mobile apps. Offering multiple options increases the likelihood of customer participation.
- Clear and concise: Keep the content around the NPS survey brief and understandable. Include the required NPS question (“How likely are you to recommend us ...”) and an optional open-ended question for additional comments.
- Personalization: Personalize the survey with the customer’s name and relevant details so it doesn’t appear automated or generic.
- A/B testing: Experiment with different survey formats, subject lines and delivery times to determine what generates the best response rates.
- Mobile-friendly: Ensure your NPS survey is mobile-responsive, as many customers will access it on their smartphones.
- Who to send NPS surveys to:
- Customers with recent experiences: Focus on customers who have had recent interactions with your business, as their feedback is likely to be more relevant and accurate.
- Segmentation: Segment your customer base to target specific groups, such as new customers, long-time customers, high-value customers, or those who recently had support interactions. This allows you to tailor follow-up actions effectively.
- Regular customers: Send NPS surveys to customers with ongoing relationships with your business, not just one-time purchasers.
Still deciding if NPS is the right metric for you? Let an Adtran team member help understand your unique needs and the best measure of success for you.
References
This blog post was informed by the following resources:
Net Promoter System: For insights into customer loyalty and feedback strategies.
SurveyMonkey: Everything You Need to Know About Net Promoter Score: For info on Net Promoter Score methodology.
Qualtrics: Net Promoter Score: For insights on how Net Promoter Score can be applied in customer experience management.