The Incredible Value Net Promoter Score (NPS) Can Bring to Your Company
Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone you do business with would tell their colleagues and friends to use your company? Would you at least like that to happen more often?
For many years, companies have studied consumer behavior to understand who is in their target audience, how customers think, and what drives them to purchase one product or service over another. Researchers have employed a variety of strategies to uncover the motivations, attitudes, and issues which drive decisions, while marketers have struggled to translate this into the 4 P’s – Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. However, it was the question which was asked by C-level executives (What do consumers think of our brand?) which lead to development of the Net Promoter Score (NPS) process.
NPS is basically a simple measurement.
It is based on the premise that if enough people recommend you, you should be able to grow your business. In case you are not familiar with it, NPS in its most basic form asks the customer two questions:
- On a scale of 0 to 10, what is your willingness to recommend our company to friend or colleague?
- Why do you give that rating?
To get the actual score, respondents are classified into three groups based on their rating of willingness to recommend:
- Respondents giving a rating of 9 or 10 are classified as promoters
- Respondents giving a rating of 7 or 8 are classified as neutral
- Respondents giving a rating from 0 to 6 are classified as detractors
The percentage of respondents that are promoters minus the percentage of respondents that are detractors gives you the NPS.
However, we have found that valuable NPS is not that simple.
Based on the work we’ve done at SRA, we have devised additional questions to really understand what each respondent would say if someone asked them about your company. We use these responses to validate each respondent’s classification. In doing so, we’re looking for distinctions between:
- Active promoters
- Passive promoters
- Those who are happy, but specify why their needs fit your offerings
- Those that are truly on the fence, giving bad points along with good points
- Then there are customers that might like you to some extent, but prefer a competitor
- Those that are not satisfied, but won’t tell everyone they know
- And finally, customers who are active detractors or trolls
This also lets us suggest ways to address customer issues.
More importantly, we know how to identify what needs to improve so you can be a better partner to your customers. By clarifying where a customer truly stands on the promoter/detractor scale, it becomes much easier to determine what needs to be done to improve your score. In our NPS work, we don’t just provide a score and move on. We help companies focus on the “low hanging fruit.” We can help identify what needs to happen in order for passive promoters to become active promoters and fence sitters to move up to passive or active promoters. We also recommend targets for subsequent measurements and evaluate goal achievement to improve products and services.
This is the difference that makes NPS a valuable tool rather than just a number.
About SRA
SRA Research Group is a solution-based consultancy with the vision for our clients based upon the fundamentals we continue to deliver – Strategy, Results and Achievement – since our founding 30 years ago. Our firm provides research services and support to organizations geared toward understanding and measuring how to best keep their customers and clients satisfied. We are a trusted partner that helps frame issues, develop solutions, and refine opportunities.
Contact SRA at (561) 744-5662
Visit our website at www.sra-researchgroup.com
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