Well, according to Forrester Research (a leading market research firm), by 2020 one of the best ways to drive business growth will be to focus on customer experience, as it is expected to outperform both price and product. It’s easy to see why, given that customer experience comprises:
How much consumers like your brand and how much they love interacting with it.
How satisfied are customers with the norway phone number library way their sales representatives treat them?
How satisfied are customers with the service/product they receive.
And one of the most popular ways to measure and improve customer experience today is to implement Net Promoter Score, the methodology used by hundreds of successful companies.
What is NPS?
NPS stands for Net Promoter Score and is a survey that businesses can use to measure how satisfied customers are with their brand, product or services. First developed in 2003, it is now used worldwide.
The NPS Survey consists of two parts. The first is a question that asks customers how likely they are to recommend your company to others on a scale of 0 to 10. Depending on the answers customers give, they can be grouped into the following categories:
0-6 - Detractors (Dissatisfied customers that you have lost or will lose)
7-8 - Passive (Customers who need a push in the right direction to become loyal)
9-10 - Promoters (Satisfied customers who love your brand and are likely to promote it through word of mouth advertising)
NPS-Poptin
Next comes a follow-up, open-ended question that asks customers what prompted them to give their rating (what they like about your brand, what they don't like about your product/service or customer service, information like that).
What is a good NPS score?
To find out what your score is, use a simple calculation formula: subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters.
What qualifies as a good NPS score ? A score below 0 would mean that your company has a lot to do to improve its customer satisfaction levels.
NPS Score
An NPS above 50 would indicate that your business has more satisfied customers than dissatisfied ones, while a score of 75 or higher is proof of customer love for your brand and great positive word of mouth from your referrals.
Therefore, a high NPS score will indicate that your customers' referrals are likely to convert into new leads and more revenue for your business.
Once calculated, your NPS can serve as a benchmark allowing you to compare your performance to that of the competition within your industry.
How to grow your business using Net Promoter Score
1. Use NPS for better marketing results
NPS surveys are a great way to improve your marketing efforts by focusing on customer satisfaction, as the methodology lets you know exactly which parts of your product/service your customers like the most. That actionable information can help your marketing team design better campaigns that focus on those aspects to capture potential customers’ interest more quickly.
For example, if you offer a spell checking product and your NPS surveys show that your customers really like that it can be used as a browser extension, you can make your marketing campaigns more focused on that.
That kind of information can be very important if you're on a tight marketing budget, as it can highlight the aspects of your sales funnel that are sure to exceed your expectations .
But beyond simply establishing a direct line of contact between you and your customer base (which is vital for great marketing results), NPS surveys can help your marketing efforts in other ways:
If you're losing customers, you can find out exactly why it's happening and what actions you should take in your next marketing campaign to reduce churn rates;
You can potentially learn about negative consumer reviews before they hit the market or social media, giving you the opportunity to address them before they can damage your company's reputation (something that will not only cost you customers, but potential hires as well );
With all the accurate, quantifiable data you have access to about customer sentiment, you can set real, actionable marketing campaign goals for your team rather than speculative ones, making it easier to track progress. This also increases your team’s productivity and can potentially reduce the time it takes to set up and run the campaign as well.
Why not just use the sentiment of social media?
While you can rely on public opinion when crafting your marketing campaigns, there's just one problem: it's not as accurate and relevant as customer feedback.
Think about it: social media sentiment gives you insight into how the general public feels about your value proposition, while an NPS score lets you know how your paying customers view it. Generally, the second type of opinion is much more valuable to your business, as it comes directly from people who have already paid for your product/service – not people who might just pay for it.
Furthermore, general public opinion does not always represent the opinion of paying customers. Disney is a good example of this; while the company is considered one of the most loved brands both online and offline, its NPS score hovers around -7, which hardly reflects the “most loved brand” image and shows that its customer base is probably not very happy with them.
The only way social media sentiment would really be useful here is if you only track what your paying customers are saying about your brand and ignore everyone else. While that’s doable, it’s much more time-consuming than sending out NPS surveys.
2. Use NPS surveys to boost your sales
By using the open-ended NPS question, you can find out everything you want to know about how customers view your product/service. From there, you’ll not only learn what improvements you need to make, but also what personal and specific pain points your sales reps and marketing department can focus on to deliver a more personalized experience.
That’s exactly what you need. Build a relationship based on trust and loyalty with your existing customers. Why is that important? It all comes down to one of the oldest business adages: that 20% of your current customers will account for 80% of your future revenue. It makes sense when you really think about it: customers who are satisfied with your business are much more likely to buy from you again than people who might otherwise show interest in your product/service.
And that’s not just speculation – the data backs it up. According to research from Frederick Reichheld of Bain & Company (the creators of the NPS framework), something as simple as increasing customer retention by 5% (which is achieved by increasing customer satisfaction with your brand) can result in a 25% to 95% increase in profits. And according to Forrester Research , acquiring new customers will cost you five times more than retaining existing customers.
