Guarding Against The Cons of Net Promoter Scoring (NPS)

The Net Promoter Score remains the strongest methodology available to measure customer loyalty and how likely a customer is to recommend a product or service to a friend but as with every metric there are potential pitfalls to be aware of.??

Understanding these pitfalls is vital to making the most of the information from your NPS, using it to drive better customer experience and improved customer loyalty. Within this article, we explore the main pitfalls to be guarded against in relation to Net Promoter Scoring.?

An NPS is only a snapshot in time of your customer satisfaction?

Customer experience improvement should be a continuous initiative at every company. Regular NPS and customer satisfaction surveying should be used to monitor customer loyalty and to understand the issues behind customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Upon remedying any negative issues, NPS should be carried out to ensure that remedies have had the desired effect on both the customer and the NPS score.?

Loyalty isn't earned within a score. Loyalty is earned by creating continued authentic relationships with customers post-survey.?

The NPS does not provide a remedy to customer dissatisfaction issues.?

While utilising NPS in conjunction with customer satisfaction surveying will provide the customer loyalty score and insights, it does not provide a remedy to move detractors and passives to the promoter level.??

Therefore, when a customer issue arises, follow-up actions pre-determined by the company should be triggered within the customer satisfaction solution, and/or the CRM.?

The follow-up actions should be auto-assigned to a specific department or individual within the company. The completion and outcome of the follow-up actions should be time-limited and visible to all customer-facing employees and business managers. It is very important to have auto-assignment workflow automation in place.?

The NPS does not provide data on what needs to be improved?

While an NPS gives a customer loyalty score, it does not detail the reasons behind the score. This leaves the score itself wide open to misinterpretation and can also cause frustration to the customer if they cannot share their reasoning for the score with the company.??

Therefore, when using an NPS it is advisable that it is used in conjunction with targeted and specific customer surveying and ideally via a solution that allows for drilling down into the reasons behind a customer’s NPS score. It should also give the customer the ability to explain in detail the issues they wish the company to address.?

Building a customer satisfaction survey to accompany the NPS??

The length of the survey matters– a classic mistake made by companies. By trying to get all the details behind the NPS score, and the customer’s experience, they fall into the trap of having too many questions on the survey.?

This potentially can have a negative effect; increasing customer frustration and reducing the completion rate of surveys.??

Cultural differences can be a disadvantage for companies using NPS in a global market.?

This is because in some countries, the cultural tendency to provide higher or lower scores based on satisfaction levels can vary wildly.?In country A they may score a 9 for satisfaction, whereas in other countries they may score a 6 for the same level of satisfaction.?

Therefore, it is prudent to be aware of these cultural tendencies and to include tailored secondary questioning that factors in these cultural tendencies to allow for a truer NPS score.?

Summary?

In summation, Net Promoter Scoring will not solve your customer knowledge issues or guarantee happy customers. NPS is an important metric, but it is essential to collect more precise information about your customers and their experience with your company to understand their needs and maintain loyalty.?

Your Net Promoter Score gives you the opportunity to have an open conversation with customers, improve your business, products, and services, and then perhaps see your satisfaction score grow.??

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