"I've got developers, we do NPS? in-house"

If I had a penny for every time I heard this (... ok so I would have just a few pounds more, but still...).

Look, I get it. It makes intuitive sense to do an NPS? program in-house. Especially if you are a tech company, to use in-house developers who are already on your payroll to add a small element like adding the NPS? question to an app or web page seems like a no brainer. That's the beauty of NPS?. It is intuitively so simple and easy, that it feels like something that should be managed in-house. And a lot of companies that we approach for a sale do make a very strong case for doing it on their own.

At that point, I try to look my most knowledgeable self and usually ask 3 questions that give pause to this thought.

1. "How many people in your company access their own NPS? data on a daily basis - and how often are they able to make an instant decision based on that ?"
2. "How many people are involved in your CX program whose entire job profile is to improve your financials just by delighting your customers? And how much salary do you pay them?"
3. And the third one "How likely do you think I (as in Numr) would be in successfully launching a product like (insert the product name of the company I have gone to meet) because I have fantastic developers as well?"

NPS? is more than the question. It's what you do with that question that really matters. If all you are doing is reporting a number, then my strong recommendation is always to use your internal CRM system. You don't need any more feedback. Measure your volume of calls, analyse by segment and reason for call/email etc. and you would have a pretty good idea about what the 'satisfaction' score is.

However, if and only if you think that your customers' opinions might help you discover insights that you would otherwise not discover, should you invest in an NPS? program. But don't stop there. Use this insight in day to day decision making. Use this insight to empower your front line employees. Use this insight to know how your customer opinion is affecting your bottom line.

And if you can do all this in-house, more power to you. But if you are managing to do this in-house, could I recommend you float a separate company that implements NPS? programs because that department is a serious drain of your resource, and could instead become a profit centre in its own right.