Boost your Net Promoter Score – increase customer loyalty

The Net Promoter Score (or NPS) is recognised globally as the number one way to calculate customer loyalty and satisfaction.

It is based on asking your customers one question…

“On a scale of 0-10, how likely is it that you would recommend [company name] to your friends, family or business associates?”

How to calculate your Net Promoter Score

Based on the answer that the customer gives they are split into three categories.

Customers who give you a score of 6 or below are Detractors, a score of 7 or 8 are Passives, and a 9 or 10 are Promoters.

0 – 6: Detractors

7 – 8: Passives

9-10: Promoters

To calculate your NPS you’ll need to subtract the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters. So, if 80% of respondents were Promoters and 10% were Detractors, your NPS would be 70.

What is a good Net Promoter Score?

More important than considering your score in isolation is comparing it to your competitors (if possible), industry benchmarks and to your own previous scores.

Unless your score is 100 then you should always be looking for ways to improve.

How to implement a Net Promoter Survey

The whole point of the Net Promoter Score is that it is fast and easy to get the results, so don’t try to overcomplicate the process or spend too long designing a survey.

There are two types of surveys to choose from – a relationship survey or a transactional survey. A relationship survey will gauge customer loyalty to your brand or business, thinking about the overall experience, whereas a transactional survey will concentrate on a specific transaction or interaction like a sale or how a problem was dealt with.

The purpose of the survey

The survey should seek to find out more about why the customer feels the way they do about recommending you but it needs to be short. The ideal number of questions is three, five should be the maximum.

Always add an option for people to give more comments if they want to, you could also give them the option to be contacted to find out more.

Follow these tips to implement your survey:

• Use a free tool like Survey Monkey or Google Forms to create and send your survey and to get the results.
• The best ways to send out your survey are via email or SMS.
• Personalise your surveys with the customer’s name for better response rates.
• Keep your email subject line and introduction text short and simple and let people know that the survey won’t take long to complete.
• Test your survey first with friends or colleagues.
• The bigger your sample size the better but don’t worry if you have to start small.

How can you improve your Net Promoter Score?

The best way to improve your NPS is to ask for feedback and act on it, so conducting a Net Promoter Survey is a great start. What are your customers telling you that they’d like you to do more of and how could you differentiate yourself compared to others? Always think of feedback as a good thing, it’s an opportunity for your business to grow.

Consider implementing some of these tools and tricks to improve your customer service efficiency and your client engagement:

• Social media platforms can be a really good place to interact with customers, deal with queries quickly and get feedback.
• Live chat software on your website can decrease your support costs and increase conversion rates.
• Make sure all email addresses you give out are to speak to a real person and not generic and impersonal help@, info@, accounts@ type addresses.
• Have a policy in place for how long it will take you to respond to client queries.
• Be consistent across the whole company with your service delivery. Conduct regular training sessions to help with this.
• Make sure your website FAQs are actually written based on the questions you most frequently get asked.
• Reward loyal clients (it doesn’t have to be a monetary reward) and thank all of your customers. 
• Make sure you let your customers know about any changes that you’ve made from their suggestions.

The closer your relationship with your customers or clients, then the better you should be able to gauge their needs.

They are then more likely to stay loyal to you and recommend you to their business contacts, friends and family.

Take note of seven more ways that bookkeepers and accountants can increase customer loyalty.

Sophie Cross is the Editor of Freelancer Magazine and a freelance writer and marketer at Thoughtfully.