What Is NPS?
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a metric used to measure customer satisfaction and loyalty. It is a single question that asks customers to rate how likely they are to recommend a business's product or service to others on a scale of 0 to 10. Customers are then categorized into three groups based on their rating:
Promoters are those who rate the company a 9 or 10. They are happy customers likely to recommend the company’s products or services to others.
Passives are those who rate the company a 7 or 8. They are happy customers but not enthusiastic about the company’s product or service and aren’t likely to promote the company.
Detractors are those who rate the company a 0 to 6. They aren’t happy with the company and are unlikely to recommend its products or services to others.
The NPS is then calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. The resulting score can range from -100 to +100 and the higher the number, the better.
What Are The Benefits of Increasing Your Net Promoter Score?
NPS is a valuable tool for businesses to assess customer satisfaction, identify areas for improvement, and track changes over time. We all want our business, products, and services to be well-liked by our customers. When your customers are satisfied with what you provide, your business yields many benefits. The more you can increase your NPS, the further the benefits, including:
Word-of-mouth marketing
Customer loyalty
Reduced churn rate
Positive brand reputation
Organic growth
Competitive advantage
NPS Best Practices Learned from Gathering this List
Regularly monitoring NPS enables companies to act on feedback proactively.
Root cause analysis should be used to identify business improvement opportunities.
Implementing customer-centric changes is important.
Closed-loop customer feedback improves customer satisfaction.
Better business practices lead to higher Net Promoter Scores. However, if you're not at the top of your industry, there are specific NPS best practices that can drive up your score. Here’s how five companies used NPS to improve their businesses:
These 5 Companies Show You How They Use NPS to Improved Their Businesses
Apple uses NPS for systematically listening to customers and managing its business in response to what they hear
Not surprisingly, Apple has one of the highest NPS scores of any sector but, “it was earned by them the old-fashioned way: through careful listening to customers and responding to what they heard.”
Apple uses NPS to listen to its customers daily
NPS takes a pivotal role in the day-to-day operations of Apple's retail stores. The central NPS team at Apple systematically analyzes customer feedback from all stores, aiming to comprehend the factors driving promoters' enthusiasm and the reasons behind detractors' dissatisfaction.
Apple’s Goal
The goal of Apple’s retail stores was to encourage an ongoing relationship with customers. They wanted happy customers to tell their friends and colleagues about their amazing experience at the store and they used NPS to measure this.
Apple’s Response
The store managers call every detractor within 24 hours.
The Results
“Studies showed that detractors they got in touch with purchased substantially more Apple products and services than the others. Further studies showed that every hour spent calling detractors was generating more than $1,000 in revenue or additional sales of $25 million in the first year.”
Read the full article here.
Caseable employs NPS as a tool for quality control and as a foundation for customer-centric practices
Using zenloop, Caseable has crafted a feedback strategy, aiming to maintain consistent high-quality standards across diverse international markets. Actively seeking customer insights on its product range, Caseable has implemented NPS feedback requests since May 2019, strategically placed at three website touchpoints.
The challenge
With more than 750,000 customers globally, Caseable needed an integrated experience management solution that collects feedback and analyzes it internationally and automatically to ensure consistently high product quality and speedy delivery.
In addition, a uniform, global feedback strategy needed to be developed and customer-centring promoted. Their goal is to understand customer needs in terms of product and delivery and to incorporate them into business development.
The solution
Caseable uses zenloop to gather NPS scores to compare their quality, processes, and product satisfaction across different countries. To enhance its feedback strategy and customer-centric approach, Caseable implements internal "closing-the-loop" measures, ensuring swift visibility of customer opinions within the company. These measures play a pivotal role in integrating feedback into process and product development while minimizing response times to customer input.
The result
Using zenloop, Caseable was able to increase its NPS, identify detractors to win them back and introduce process and product improvements and quality assurance.
Read the full case study on Caseable here.
Entelo monitors customer satisfaction to reduce churn
Entelo, a recruiting analytics software company, prioritizes customer success by maintaining a dedicated team monitoring NPS, addressing daily issues—ranging from significant product improvements to small changes—and placing a primary focus on swiftly responding to complaints to reduce churn.
The issue
Entelo was collecting NPS data bi-annually, making it difficult to track how customers were doing in real-time. They were having difficulty getting survey responses and when they did, “serious customer satisfaction issues could go unidentified and unaddressed for months.”
The solution
They implemented an in-app NPS tool to present the survey question to their customers, which means customers can easily share their feedback, and receive a response from the Entelo team on the same day. With enhanced accuracy, the customer success team can now predict which customers are most likely to churn and proactively take measures to prevent it.
A bonus
Entelo's sales department has also been using the results to track the promoters. “They've found that these customers are more likely to be profitable targets for cross-sells and upsells. And, the marketing team can identify their most satisfied customers for future case studies and use cases.”
Read the full article here.
Four Seasons improved their NPS by +7 by creating outstanding customer experiences
Four Seasons, a hotel and resort company, was gathering customer feedback through several different platforms making it difficult for employees to see their feedback in real-time and providing a risk of losing detractors.
The challenge
Four Season’s paper-based and web surveys made data siloed and unactionable leading to difficulty in understanding customer experience trends across the different properties, regions, countries and brands.
The risk
This lack of real-time and comprehensive data lead to difficulty connecting with customers post-stay. Without a way to systematically close the loop, Four Seasons risked losing at-risk customers, and its brand promise of ‘experience excellence.’
The solution
Four Seasons hired Medallia, a customer experience management company, and used their platform to solicit feedback from all guests via web and comment cards that are all imported and viewable in a single platform. This provides them with a complete view of the entire customer journey. With Medallia, the right information is presented right away to the right people in the organization to take action. Ultimately real-time net promotor scores enable them to understand and connect with their guests and strive to exceed their expectations before it's too late.
Read Medallia’s full case study on Four Seasons here.
Mannheim turned NPS feedback into business improvement initiatives
Since launching their NPS program in May 2016, Mannheim, has sent out 40,000 surveys with a 24% response rate, garnering 10,000 valuable insights from customers. Their response team quickly addresses scores between zero and six, aiming to transform negative experiences into positive ones.
Using root cause analysis
Mannheim used seller NPS surveys, targeted efforts to address high-value detractors and passives, NPS for retention and upsell programs, and set churn targets for both buyers and sellers. Through a thorough analysis of these surveys and customer comments, they've implemented numerous targeted initiatives using root cause analysis, focusing on enhancing specific aspects of their business.
The results
Mannheim’s NPS program has driven many business improvement initiatives and improved customer experience. They have also seen positive results in reducing customer complaints, decreasing inbound calls, and increasing customer loyalty.
Read the full case study on Mannheim here.
NPS and Customer Experience
Apple, Caseable, Entelo, Four Seasons, and Mannheim showcase the importance of NPS in driving positive changes within businesses. These companies utilized NPS not just as a metric for customer satisfaction but as a strategic tool for growth. While simple, NPS can be harnessed in numerous ways by support teams and companies of all sizes to improve customer loyalty, minimize churn, and increase organic growth through word-of-mouth marketing.
As businesses navigate evolving customer expectations, customer support software can be a catalyst for continuous improvement and sustained success. To learn more about x your support process to improve your NPS, get in touch!
