We believe every organization should run their marketing initiatives from a playbook.  One of the most powerful plays to run for existing customers (we also use it in the sales process once a proposal is sent) is an NPS survey process.

Why you should be using NPS as a critical component of your Marketing Playbook. from 454 Creative on Vimeo.

What is NPS?

On a scale of 0 to 10, what’s the likelihood that you would recommend us to a friend or colleague?

That is the basic Net Promoter Score (also known as NPS) question that was created by Fred Reicheld and Bain & Company. It’s a powerful way to measure overall customer sentiment. Did your team do a good enough job to get a 9 or a 10? 

We normally follow up this question with a simple, open response box that says “Tell Us More.”

The number on the scale that a customer chooses is then classified into one of the categories: Detractors  (0 – 6), Passives (7 – 8),  and Promoters (9 – 10).

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The objective of this process is to capture the two opposite ends of the bell curve with regard to customer happiness; the unhappy and the overwhelmingly happy customer set.  Giving unhappy and upset individuals a chance to have direct access to a senior level executive who is interested in hearing candid feedback and addressing performance issues can frequently be a catalyst for changing the customers perception of the company from a negative to an overwhelmingly positive experience.

Two really great questions to come back with (respond personally with a phone call or email) respond to a sub-10 score is “Why?“ and What would it take to raise our score just by one point?”  Both of these questions engage the customer in a real conversation oriented in values and relationship.  These are critical to the long term health of any significant client engagement.

On the flip side, most businesses report that their greatest source of leads and greatest close rate of new deals happens with existing client referrals.  It’s profoundly astounding that many of these same companies do not have a single disciplined process to solicit referrals from happy customers.  NPS is a great first step in the process.

For every Promoter that responds with a 9 or 10 response, we follow up in two ways.  The first is to take any great feedback or testimonial quote and leverage that for internal recognition (Rachel, great job with Mark Beamish Waterproofing!) at staff meetings.  Second, we ask the client to post the feedback onto our website or social review site of their choosing.  This drives social proof for other prospects and clients.  An additional extra bonus is to leverage this process to build a referenceable client list that can be sent along with any proposal segmented by type of work or industry segment.  There is nothing more powerful in building loyalty than a person hearing themselves tell others how happy they are with your team’s performance.

• How to calculate NPS
• Tips on NPS implementation practices
• Great example of how Mark Beamish Waterproofing is using NPS as a key differentiator in the sales process (scroll down to “We actively track customer satisfaction”)
• 2018 NPS Company Benchmarks – See how you stack up!