What is a Net Promoter Score (NPS) Survey?

Loyal customers—they’re the secret weapon of your business.

You know how you and your friends have those funny brand debates that turn into serious friendship feuds (even just for a while) because nobody wants to give up on why their pick is better?

It can easily start with…

Apple or Samsung Nike or Adidas McDonalds or Burger King

nps system for companies — Which is your pick?

Well, why do people even bother to defend a brand? Because they love it so much they want to shove it down the throats of their loved ones. These people are your unpaid promoters and can contribute to the growth of your business.

But how do you know if you have them?

You can run the NPS Survey on your customer base. If you don’t know what this survey is, just read on.

Let’s hope you have these people and let’s hope that your brand doesn’t go breaking friendships.

What is an NPS Survey?

A Net Promoter Score Survey or NPS Survey as it is popularly called, is a customer loyalty metric that measures how willing your clients are to recommend your product or service.

It is determined by asking a single question: How likely are you going to recommend [insert your company name] to a friend or colleague?

Companies are fond of measuring their NPS Scores because the score has been linked to revenue growth. According to a study conducted by the London School of Economics titled “Advocacy Drives Growth”, an average NPS score increase of 7% correlates to an average revenue growth of 1%.

nps score calculation — NPS Score, the number that you need to grow

An average NPS score increase of 7% correlates to
an average revenue growth of 1%.

If this is the case, shouldn’t all companies just focus on growing this number?

Probably, but in order to increase the number, you still need to go through a lot.

What is it that your detractors don’t like about your service? How can you solve it? Would it be worth investing in? Does it align with your company’s long-term vision? How can you turn the passives into promoters? Should you improve your onboarding? Should you give coupons to entice them? How can you keep your promoters? Should you send them an annual gift or a thank you card?

See what I mean?

The Math behind NPS

Don’t worry, NPS score calculation is easy. It’s elementary math. Again, you start by asking your clients this.

nps survey tools online form — The most important question that you need to ask

You then classify your clients according to their answers with this NPS scale:

0-6 = Detractors
7-8 = Passives
9-10 = Promoters

nps respondent classification — Aim to turn most of your customers into promoters

Detractors are unsatisfied customers who have something negative to say about your brand, your products or your services. These are the people who can most likely harm your brand through negative reviews.

Passives are the okay customers who are generally satisfied with your products or services. They don’t dislike you, but they don’t patronize you either. So, when they encounter better offerings from your competitors, they’ll most likely go without a doubt.

Promoters are your loyal customers who are enthusiastic about your brand. They are immensely satisfied with your service or product that they feel the voluntary obligation to promote your product or service.

Now that you have classified your customers, count the total number of detractors, passives, promoters, and the overall respondents. Once you have these 4 numbers, you’re ready to calculate NPS.

This is the simple formula to calculate your NPS score:

NPS = (Promoters - Detractors)/Total Respondents x 100

Let’s have an example, shall we?

Say out of 100 respondents, you have 10 Detractors, 30 Passives, and 60 Promoters. Your NPS Score will be:

NPS = (60-10)/100 x 100 = 50

This results to an NPS score as 50. Not so bad.

Usually, the NPS Score is displayed just as an integer (that’s why you need to multiply the fraction by 100).

The Ideal NPS Score

You might be surprised. There’s really no ideal NPS score that your company should strictly achieve.

It is recommended, however, that you focus your efforts in increasing your NPS score over time. The increase will be indicative of your company improvement.

check your nps scale — Happy clients, thriving business

Companies with higher NPS Scores tend to retain happy customers,
ensuring excellent revenues and faster growth.

To give you an idea, let’s see how the big brands with the tops NPS scores fare.

Apple has an NPS of 72, which is 40% above the 32 point average of companies in the computer hardware industry.

Amazon comes second with a score of 69. That’s 30% above the average of the industry they’re in.

Lastly, Netflix. They have an NPS of 68.

If you plan to measure your NPS score in the future, you can go back and check on this report, the 2016 NPS Benchmark Scores of Industries to see where you stand in the market.

Why should you measure your NPS score

Once we at EmailMeForm started sending out NPS emails, we were happy to know that most of our users have and will recommend us to friends and colleagues.

Not only that, we have discovered how our clients use our products, how our tool helps them manage their everyday workflows, and what they love the most about our tool. Of course, we also get negative comments once in awhile but we take them as constructive criticisms.

Oh, if you’re wondering how we discovered this, we placed an optional box on the next page asking them, “What’s the reason for your score?”. Nifty, huh?

answer nps survey on mobile — Happy customers will be willing to share more feedback with you

Most clients will answer it, so just add the extra question. They wouldn’t mind going through your forms as long as you live by the commandments of a successful online form.

If you’re still not doing NPS Email Surveys, you’re missing out a lot. To sum it all up, here are the things that you can get from using the NPS system: