7 Common Net Promoter Score Problems & Mistakes

Many big and small companies use Net Promoter System to rate customer experience, but many of them also do it wrong. Although NPS has only 2 simple questions, it doesn’t end with a simple survey.

Best implemented, NPS starts with employee training and ends with follow-up actions taken by the company. The common NPS mistakes will make sure you skip NPS problems and ensure the future success of your company to improve customer experience.

1.    Chasing the score

Once you have gathered the information, calculating the Net Promoter Score is easy.

The problem is that NPS is never about the score itself. It’s the system that matters.

You might track the trend, but what will you do if it drops or goes up? Knowing why your promoters love you or why detractors are unhappy is equally important if not more, than the trends. NPS is vulnerable to change and for you, it is beneficial to keep track of what drives it up or down.

Taking control over NPS by focusing on the follow-up responses will give you the most results out of NPS.

2.   Asking too soon/late

Don’t be that company that sends out NPS surveys right after the purchase. That could likely result in rating your website or visual designs, but not brand loyalty or customer satisfaction.

Let your customer use the product and form an opinion about it. Perfect timing depends on the nature of the product or service, however, in general, you should send an NPS survey 10 days after the customer purchase/use/delivery or 30 days after downloading the app.

At the same time, don’t ask too late either. For example, if you sell service or experience, it might be a good idea to actually ask for customer feedback right after the session. Otherwise, your customer might forget their initial thoughts of your brand.

3. Spamming with surveys

Asking too much much also be an issue. The practice of sending frequent surveys to the same customers is an absolute “no-no”. It is important not to flood the same customers with the surveys.

Solution?

Ask a small portion of your customers, then repeat the survey in some period of time by sending the NPS questionnaire to the other group of customers, repeat the process regularly.

4.   Focusing too much on detractors

Understanding detractors is important, but knowing why your loyal customers love you will drive your business to the top. You should spend at least as much time analyzing the reasoning behind promoters, as behind your detractors.

Promoters are the people who spread word-of-mouth advertising and literally will bring your business to the top. Learn how to analyze and communicate the strengths of your business, your competitive advantages that will attract more customers with the insights from NPS surveys.

5.   No follow up

Show that you care about your customer by following-up every response you receive. Ideally, this could be personalized message according to the score or the problem that your customer faced. In practice, create structured paths that customers follow depending on the feedback they give.

If the feedback is critical, then solve the problem and ensure your customer that you are listening. Following up your customer can influence your brand a lot, as the customer, who was heard, wants to give more feedback in the future and continue the relationship with your company.

The success of your NPS tracking largely depends on how you take actions based on customer feedback.

6.   Not training your employees

In order to take action, your employees must be aware of the Net Promoter System and implement it into their work routine. Educated employees, that deal with following up your customers, will produce higher results.

Organize customer experience workshops and training at your company. Although the training might be a high-cost investment, you will immediately see the results in higher morale and productivity of the employees engaged in the process.

7.   Keeping results within the survey team

Some companies keep the NPS results … within the team responsible for NPS.

The truth is that all the departments of the company influence customer experience. Both NPS and customer experience development should be visible and not be left out from the meetings.