You probably don't know the term NPS or what you can measure with it, but it can be very useful to measure customer satisfaction with your company or with the purchases they have made in them. Would you like to know how? We'll tell you how!
what is NPS?
The first appearance of the term NPS (Net Promoter Score) was in 2003 in the article "The one number you need to grow" written by Frederick F. Reichheld reflecting on how to maintain customer loyalty to make our company grow.
Therefore, NPS, Net Promoter Score, is a system and a universal indicator that brands have adopted to measure customer satisfaction and, therefore, loyalty towards the company. Because if there is something that especially concerns brands, it is knowing how the products or services they have acquired have turned out for customers , since it is not as important to achieve sales as to achieve good sales. In other words, what is important when a sales process is completed with a customer is knowing how the purchase experience has turned out for them, if they are satisfied, if they would return and, why not? If they would recommend us to a friend or family member.
And this is where the NPS measurement system comes into play: it allows us to know the probability that a user will recommend our brand to others or the degree of satisfaction they have with us after having made a purchase of one of our products or services.
The data needed to calculate the NPS is obtained through a simple survey that is carried out to customers, online or offline, and which has to contain some essential questions such as:
- how likely are you to recommend our brand to a friend?
- how likely are you to recommend our brand to a family member?
- what is the probability that you would recommend our brand to an acquaintance?
- how likely would you be to recommend our brand to others?
These questions will be accompanied by a scale from 0 to 10 on which the customer will be able to indicate the number they want depending on the probability of this happening, being 0 no probability and 10 highly probable. This will help us to calculate our NPS and, therefore, to know the degree of loyalty and satisfaction of our customers.
how do I find out if my NPS is good?
Before knowing if my NPS is good or bad, it is necessary to understand how it is calculated to know how a study is carried out, as saying that we have an NPS of 30% might sound bad at first, right? Well, on the other hand, having an NPS of 30% is not a bad result, far from it.
To begin with, after conducting the quality survey with the questions we have mentioned above and having obtained the answer, we must classify our customers. Yes, classify.
When the term NPS was coined, it was proposed that depending on the answers customers gave to the questions, they would be placed in one category or another, establishing three categories to frame them.
- Promoter customers: this category includes all those users who have responded with 9 or 10 to the question, and who, therefore, have obtained a high level of satisfaction in their purchase and would recommend our brand to others with a very high probability.
- Passive or neutral customers: this category includes customers who responded with a 7 or 8 to our question. They are considered passive because, although they have made a purchase, they are not overly satisfied with our brand but they do not rate us negatively either.
- Detractor customers: this category includes customers who answered between 0 and 6 to our question. They are considered detractors because, although they have made a purchase of a product or have contracted a service from our company, they are not satisfied enough to recommend us to other people.
Well, once we know how many promoters, passive customers and detractors we have, we can now calculate the NPS: a very simple calculation. Let's imagine that we have obtained the following results:
From a satisfaction survey carried out on 1,000 customers: 600 customers are promoters, 300 customers are neutral and 100 customers are detractors.
First of all, we have to take into account a very important aspect: passive or neutral customers will not be taken into account in the calculation, as they do not affect our brand either positively or negatively.
So, how do I do it? Well, you have to obtain the percentage of promoter customers and detractor customers and make a calculation. Based on the example mentioned above, the percentage of promoter customers is 60% (divide the result of promoters by the total number of respondents) and the number of detractor customers is 10% (divide the number of detractors by the total number of respondents). Therefore, if we subtract the detractor customers from the promoters (60%-10%) we will obtain an NPS of 50%.
It is important to know that an NPS of 100% means that all our customers are promoters, which would be the best possible result. If we get a -100% it means that all our customers are detractors, which would be a very bad result. Getting 50% or more is an excellent result and getting between 0% and 50% is also a good result for our brand.
Any score above 0% means that there are customers who would recommend us (and that's always a good thing!).
how do I improve my NPS?
If after calculating the NPS you realise that your company has a percentage below 0%, or a very low percentage above it, it means that you can do something to improve your customers' satisfaction after the purchase process.
Here are three tips that we recommend you to take into account to put your team to work and improve the results for your next NPS study:
- Be aware of what may have gone wrong and know how to recognise our mistakes: if customers are not satisfied after completing a purchase process with us, it means that we are failing. We must know how to recognise that we may have made a mistake (it's OK!) and work to repair those mistakes.
- The loyalty programmes we offer our customers must be as personalised and emotional as possible for each of our customers. Most purchasing decisions are generated in the subconscious and we must be able to form a close bond between the customer and our brand.
- Be clear with our products or our services: If everything we publish on our website or our social networks about our products, we will not give the customer any room for surprise when they receive it. That is why we must be honest and offer what we have without embellishments that will make the customer feel dissatisfied if it does not compare with reality.
- Be empathetic and communicative with customers: We must know the right way to communicate with our customers. Each one of them will be different and we must listen to them and give them space for doubts or suggestions so that they feel valued by our brand.
Now... It is time to calculate your NPS (Net Promoter Score) and find out if your customers think that your brand is a quality brand that they would recommend. After all, as Jack Welch said: "Quality is our best guarantee of customer loyalty".
