10 NPS Best Practices for 2023

1. Understand the basics of NPS surveys and what they can do for your business 

The NPS survey is a valuable tool as it provides a clear picture of customer loyalty and satisfaction. By understanding how customers perceive their experience with your company, product, or service, you can make informed decisions about how to improve and grow.

However, the first step is to understand what the NPS score means for your business and what you can do with it. You can benefit from knowing the metric in the following ways:

1. Identify areas for improvement: NPS surveys provide you with a clear measure of customer satisfaction and loyalty, allowing you to identify areas where improvements can be made. For example, if you have a high percentage of NPS detractors, you can investigate the reasons behind the low score and make targeted improvements to address the issues.
2. Increase customer retention: By identifying your most loyal customers thanks to the NPS metric, you can focus on retaining those customers and turning them into brand advocates. This can be done through targeted marketing campaigns, loyalty programs, or personalized customer experiences.
3. Improve customer service: Net Promoter Score can be used as a tool to measure the effectiveness of customer service. By tracking NPS for customer service interactions, you can identify areas where customer service can be improved and provide targeted training to customer service representatives.
4. Monitor competitor performance: NPS can be used as a benchmark to compare against industry standards and competitors. By tracking NPS for competitors, you’ll be able to identify areas where you need to improve to stay competitive.

2. Set a benchmark and track progress

There are two basic types of NPS benchmarks: internal NPS benchmarks (your own NPS data collected over time) and external NPS benchmarks (the average scores of various companies in your industry).

One of the first steps to evaluating your performance should be to establish an internal baseline score and track progress over time. You should also check how you compare to the Net Promoter Score benchmarks for your industry, for instance by referring to Survicate’s NPS Benchmarks Report. 

However, do not compare NPS benchmarks across different industries or companies, as customer expectations vary.

3. Use open-ended questions to gain insights

While the NPS score provides a quick snapshot of customer sentiment, it is important to gather more detailed customer feedback to identify areas for improvement. Ask an open-ended question to get the respondent to elaborate on their choice of score. 

For this purpose, you can use this template with a follow-up question: 

4. Analyze your data to uncover insights and find opportunities for improvement 

To get the most out of NPS, you need to analyze the data you collect and act upon it. For instance, if your customers are consistently giving you low scores, take steps to find out why. You could ask an additional question in your NPS survey, send another survey, and or follow up via email to get more context. 

5. Actively follow up with customers

Following up with customers who have provided feedback is important to show that their opinions are valued. It also provides an opportunity to address any issues they may have had and improve their experience.

Once you’ve got their responses, you can, for instance 

• provide updates to let the customers know how their feedback helped you improve your product or service and close the feedback loop at the same time; 
• offer a reward in the form of freebies, vouchers, gift cards, or access to special product features;
• share the results of the survey with your customers;
• implement the changes requested by the customers, if relevant, and let them know about it. 

Following up shows your customers that you care about building relationships, appreciate their feedback, and that they matter to you. It also goes a long way toward building a customer-centric culture at your organization. 

6. Use NPS surveys in combination with other metrics

Net Promoter Score is a valuable metric for measuring customer loyalty and satisfaction, but it is not the only metric you should be using to understand your customers. 

In fact, NPS works best when used alongside other metrics that provide a more comprehensive view of the customer experience. 

Some of the additional customer satisfaction metrics you should be tracking include:

• Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), which gauges your customers’ satisfaction with your company’s products and services. The main Customer Satisfaction survey question is“How satisfied are you with our company’s products/services?”

The respondents have to pick a score from 1 (completely unsatisfied) to 5 (very satisfied).

You can measure CSAT using this free template:

• Customer Effort Score (CES), which measures the ease of completing a specific task or interaction. This metric is particularly useful for businesses that have a self-service component, such as online retailers or subscription services. By measuring CES alongside NPS and CSAT, you can identify areas where customers are struggling and make improvements to reduce customer effort and increase satisfaction.
• Retention rate, which measures the percentage of customers who continue to do business with you over a specific period of time. By measuring retention rate alongside the NPS score, you can gain a better understanding of how customer loyalty is impacting your bottom line and make targeted improvements to improve retention.
• Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) to measure the total value of a customer over the course of their relationship with your company. CLV takes into account factors such as customer acquisition costs, retention rates, and average purchase value to determine the long-term value of a customer. If you measure CLV alongside NPS, you can gain a better understanding of how loyal customers are impacting your overall revenue and find ways to improve the metric. 
• Customer churn rate to measure the percentage of customers who stop doing business with you over a specific period of time. A high churn rate could suggest that customers are leaving for reasons such as poor service, pricing, or competition. 

7. Use automation to streamline the process

Using automation tools can help you streamline the NPS process and increase response rates. 

For instance, with Survicate, you can set up your integration workflow and receive continuous NPS customer feedback automatically. Besides, you will be able to automate sending follow-ups to respondents and analyzing the results in our intuitive dashboard. 

8. Continuously review and improve NPS practices

You need to continuously review and improve NPS practices to ensure they are effective. This includes regularly reviewing survey questions and customer feedback processes, as well as monitoring trends in customer sentiment. Before you send out your next NPS survey, ask yourself the following questions:

• Are you collecting NPS data through multiple channels? With Survicate, you can launch contextual NPS surveys by email, on websites, in-product or in mobile apps. 
• Are you collecting data at the right time to capture the customer's experience? Sending NPS the survey too late or too early can skew the results. 
• Are you collecting NPS regularly? Running a survey once every few months is not enough to get a good sense of your customers’ experience.  

9. Share the results with stakeholders

Sharing NPS survey results with stakeholders can help you increase transparency and foster a sense of accountability and trust. It also provides a sense of ownership and encourages everyone to work towards improving customer satisfaction.

You should share the results of your NPS survey with your:

• employees, to help them stay up to date with the score and motivate them to deliver a better customer experience as well as foster a culture of continuous improvement;
• internal stakeholders, including board members and investors, to inspire trust;
• customers, in the form of a thank-you email, via a newsletter, or any other channel you deem relevant, to increase your credibility and build better relationships.

10. Understand the limitations of NPS

While NPS can be a valuable metric, it has limitations. It is just one data point and does not provide the whole picture of customer sentiment. Therefore, you should take other metrics into account. 

It is also important to note that NPS is not a predictor of customer behavior. Just because a customer gives a high NPS score does not mean they will remain loyal to the business or recommend it to others. 

Implement NPS best practices effortlessly with Survicate

Although the NPS methodology is straightforward, both for you as a business and your respondents, there are certain standards to keep in mind before you send out your surveys.

If you follow the NPS best practices outlined in this blog post, you’ll be setting yourself up for success. 

Experience the magic of customer feedback analysis with a free Survicate account. Try our 10-day trial with access to essential features by signing up and visit our pricing page to find the perfect plan for you.