What is NPS & How Can it Take Your Company to the Next Level?
NPS, or Net Promoter Score, is a new growth management tool that is starting to get a lot of recognition in small and large companies alike. Once you learn how to implement it into your own company, you will see how it can help shape your customer experience and help the growth of your business dramatically.
What is Net Promoter Score and how can it take your company to the next level? Net Promoter Score is a proven metric which is based around one question: How likely is it that you would recommend our services to a friend or colleague? Usually using a scale of 1-10, and only focusing on the “promoters” (score 9-10) and “detractors” (score 0-6). The scores of 7 and 8 are considered passives because “they are satisfied but unenthusiastic customers who are vulnerable to competitive offerings” (What is a Net Promoter? 2017). The passive scores go to the total number of respondents, and the percentage of detractors is subtracted from the percentage of promoters. You will come up with a percentage which will be between -100% and 100%. If you have more detractors, your percentage will be negative, and vice versa.
Once you have your Net Promoter Score, you can put it into action. You will want to reach out to as many of the respondents as you can. When reaching out to the promoters, you can then put that positive feedback into action to get more promoters. Let’s say all your promoters tell you the reason they keep coming back is the customer service. Then you can see a trend that customer service is very important to your customers and you should focus in on training so that your customer service department is second to none.
Reaching out to the detractors and passives will be how you get the constructive feedback you need to grow. You will then know what you must work on and can even talk out the issues with the customers. Getting to the bottom of where the issues lie is the first step to making those low detractor scores turn into promoters. It may have just been a one time issue that the detractors have that you are able to fix right over the phone. That kind of customer service and follow up could turn your score of a 4 to a 9. Figuring out where the issues are is how you can turn all your customers into promoters, and in turn grow your business.
With everyone being a promoter, you will start seeing the growth. You will start having personal references and word-of-mouth marketing. “According to Nielsen, 92% of consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all forms of advertising.” (Forbes 2014) The more positive talk about your company you have circulating, the more people you will have reaching out to you for your services and the higher your sales will be, thus leading to growth.
JC Grounds Management currently uses NPS internally and plans to use externally for our first time this year. Jon Crandall, Chief Visionary of JC Grounds Management, explains how NPS is used internally and externally to enhance the company: “Internally we use it to gauge our employee satisfaction. During our quarterly all employee town hall meetings, we pass out a survey which includes a NPS question, ‘From 1 to 10 what is the likelihood you would refer JC as a place to work to a friend or family member? Also, what is your current satisfaction level working at JC Grounds?’ Then we ask they list anything we could do better to bring that number up. We collect the information and look for trends. Items that are suggested by more than one person, we either come up with a solution or an answer as to why we are doing a certain thing the way we are or can't meet the request. Lastly, we share the items and solutions at the next town hall. Externally this will be our first year using NPS, but this is how we plan to implement. We will provide an annual survey to our clients with an NPS question from 1 to 10 ‘What is the likelihood of you referring JC to a colleague? What is your current satisfaction level from 1 to 10 overall with JC Grounds.?’ We then ask what we can do to make that score higher and again the leadership team comes up with solutions, executes on them and then share them with the clients.”
Brian Scudamore of 1-800-JUNK has grown a $200 million business out of $700 and a single truck. Though it takes more than one single system to create such a successful company, Scudamore does credit a part of his success to using NPS: “World-class companies have an NPS of 20 to 50; 1-800-GOT-JUNK? has an NPS of 83! The NPS system has focused us on turning around our detractors and eliminating systems problems in the business. At 1-888-WOW-1DAY! (Scudamores new company) we’ll measure our NPS from Day 1. Anyone can haul junk. Anyone can paint houses. But few people can create sustainable growth companies. The difference between the winners and the also-rans? Winners adopt guiding principles, then stick to them.” (Scudamore)
You will most likely see NPS more frequently throughout your day to day, whether it be your local convenience store asking for a brief survey, or a company you frequently do business with professionally. Knowing why a company is asking this question helps to identify that they are trying to get the lines of communication open and improve your experience as the customer.
What is a Net Promoter? (2017) Retrieved from www.netpromoter.com/know/
Why Word of Mouth Marketing is the Most Important Social Media (July 17 2014) Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimberlywhitler/2014/07/17/why-word-of-mouth-marketing-is-the-most-important-social-media/#4ded761e54a8
Scudamore, Brian. (February 15 2011) The Fantastic Four Retrieved from https://www.canadianbusiness.c...
