Part of a fanatical focus on client satisfaction has to be a tool to analyze the relationship your company has with your customers. Gut feelings and Google reviews are both metrics that deserve some consideration, but they tend to be skewed by clients that are either cheerleaders or harsh critics.
After years of sending dozens of surveys to clients—multiple questions for executives and end users about their experience during a hardware install project or a help desk call—we recognized that we weren’t seeing the full picture. We’d receive several “attaboy” accolades and the occasional complaints, but it was clear most respondents weren’t giving the surveys much thought. They were busy, and a dozen-question survey wasn’t their priority.
The Net Promoter Score gets right to the point
In 2016, we began using the Net Promoter System (NPS) to analyze NetGain’s reputation among our clients. Simplicity is the key to the Net Promoter score. It’s a one-question survey and only one individual responds.
On a scale of 1 to 10, would you recommend NetGain Technologies to a colleague or friend?
The person receiving the NPS survey is the decision-maker at the client company. This is important, because that’s the person who will make the call whether to renew their contract with us.
The idea of NPS is that some clients (those responding 1 to 5) are detractors. At best, this group is mildly unhappy; at worst, they’re trashing your name to leaders of other companies. A middle group (6 to 8) is passive. They’re the ones that may be lured away based on price or the desire to try something new. And those clients who respond with a 9 or 10 are promoters—they’re actively advocating for you. (More than two-thirds of Fortune 1000 companies use the Net Promoter management tool. Learn more about NPS here.)
The Net Promoter score is something so important to me that I personally send out the surveys and respond to our clients every quarter! I take pride in knowing they can respond directly to me, even if they have suggestions for improvement.
