Every business wants to know how their customers really feel about their products and the quality of their customer service. Although there are many ways to measure the performance of a business, customer satisfaction is where you really want to focus your efforts. Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a great way to measure this. No matter how effectively the rest of your company operates, if your customers aren’t happy, you’re in big trouble.
One popular way of measuring a company’s customer relationship is NPS. Over two thirds of companies listed in the Fortune 100 have used the NPS metric to assess customer loyalty and customer satisfaction. Used as part of a comprehensive customer feedback program, it’s proven itself to be a useful and valuable tool. The problem with NPS is that businesses rely on it to do more than it can realistically do. If you want business growth, then other online metrics to track customer satisfaction are needed. Another key metric that NPS should be used alongside is Google reviews.
What Is NPS?
Despite the popularity of NPS, a significant percentage of business owners have never heard of this customer feedback method. NPS is a customer survey tool used to gauge customer satisfaction and customer loyalty using a simple and reliable method. This is by simply asking customers their level of satisfaction on a scale of 0-10. It was conceived and developed back in 2003 in a collaboration between business guru Fred Reichheld, management consulting firm Bain & Company, and software company Satmetrix. The score is derived from customer responses to this question: “How likely is it that you would recommend our company to a friend or colleague?” Customers will be given an option to rate the business on a scale of 0-10 and are encouraged to comment on their reasoning for their score.
How To Calculate NPS?
NPS is fairly easy to calculate, but first you need to understand what categories are represented in the NPS calculation. Responses fall into three categories for NPS:
- Advocates – Also known as promoters, are those who leave a rating of 9 or 10 and are considered to be loyal and satisfied customers who will continue to do business with you and give positive referrals to others.
- Passives – A rating of 7 or 8 indicates a customer who is generally satisfied but lukewarm and could be persuaded to go elsewhere.
- Detractors – A 0-6 rating means a customer who is slightly to seriously dissatisfied with your product or customer service.
The overall NPS score is calculated by subtracting the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Advocates. NPS = Advocates % – Detractors %. Some of the benefits of NPS include:
- It’s quick for customers to use and easy for them to give valuable feedback. It’s a simple metric for businesses to understand as there is nothing confusing or frustrating about it. Some surveys ask a customer to answer multiple questions, which can often be interpreted incorrectly, which makes it less likely a customer will respond.
- The NPS findings are easy to understand. The valuable metric gives you a straightforward percentage score that is easy to comprehend, rather than a number rating, which is always great to use as a business metric.
- NPS is standardized and comparable. You can search for the NPS scores of other businesses in your industry and get a sense of where you stand in comparison. You can also compare your own results with your own customer base over a period of time.
What Is A Good NPS Score?
When measuring NPS it is important to aim for a particular score (0-10) so you have an indication if you are underachieving or overachieving. Realistically anything above 0 is a great score because it shows that you have more customer loyalty than not. A score of 5 (or 50%) or greater is considered a good score because it shows a higher proportion of your customers are loyal. Every business will aim for a different benchmark score as determined by their type of business. No matter what percentage of loyal customers you aim to have, NPS is a great benchmark. This can help show your overall customer loyalty levels related to your business which give you an indication of customer retention level.
NPS VS Google Reviews
As mentioned above, many businesses have a tendency to rely heavily on NPS results as a standalone metric. A great alternative to NPS is by collating customer reviews. This can help to collect social proof through Google reviews and other popular review sites. There is a perception that managing customer review sites is too difficult and time consuming. This isn’t really true given the prevalence of review management software that can help with the positive review collation process. NPS is just a number and maybe a comment, but it doesn’t give you the depth of insight that customer reviews provide. You learn that a certain percentage of your customers are happy, unhappy or indifferent, but you’re not really learning why. And from the customer’s point of view, reviews are way more useful. A happy customer review can be very beneficial for your reviews profile, whereas an unhappy customer can cause some headaches. Recent customer feedback surveys have consistently shown:
- 97% of consumers have studied online reviews before making a purchasing decision
- 85% trust online reviews as much as they do feedback from family and friends
- 36% say that Google reviews and other review sites are the top factors in their buying decision
Google reviews are independent reviews posted by customers, for customers. They can be prompted on your website and other social channels, giving the customer more confidence in the business.
Google reviews have a significant impact on your page rank, according to Google themselves. This helps with search rankings in Google and can further help increase your business’ exposure online. An NPS survey cannot provide the same sort of benefits that reviews can bring to your online reputation and your website.
AddMe Reviews – NPS System
AddMe Reviews uses the NPS score within the review management platform , as seen below. NPS can be a great way to measure the level of customer satisfaction for any particular business. The Net Promoter Score features makes this process easy to implement and NPS marketing can begin right away to start the process of improving your business.
AddMe Reviews – Collecting Google Reviews
AddMe Reviews is a comprehensive platform helping businesses manage and collect business reviews. It helps businesses find new customers, improve their services, and increase sales by collecting valuable customer feedback. Reviews form a vital part of online reputation strategy and is a form of word of mouth marketing that businesses often neglect, but definitely should not. Click the button below to begin a trial of the platform in action and see firsthand the benefits you can bring to your business.
The Bottom Line
NPS is a valuable indicator of the general health of a business, but it needs to be used in conjunction with other valuable metrics and marketing tools. The benefits of Google reviews are too great to be neglected. Not utilising and managing the feedback from your customers can have a big impact on your business.
