Businesses worldwide rely on Net Promoter Score (NPS) to track customer experience and enhance CX. A couple of decades ago, NPS was mainly used by leading B2C companies, but now even small and mid-sized B2B companies use NPS to evaluate the customer experience.

NPS is a key customer loyalty metric to compute customer satisfaction levels. Customers are asked to rate your brand on a scale of 0-9. The score identifies promoters, passives, and detractors. Promoters are loyal to the brand and more likely to recommend you to others, whereas detractors are unlikely to refer you to others. Passives are generally neutral and are eliminated when calculating the NPS score.

The NPS metric is more accurate than other measures of customer satisfaction because it represents a great customer relationship and a clear prediction of customer advocacy. More forward-thinking B2B service providers are adopting NPS to leverage this information and turn the data into a concrete plan to maximize customer loyalty and business advantage.

Customer Loyalty vs. Customer Satisfaction

Often, there is confusion between customer loyalty and customer satisfaction. They are not the same. Customer loyalty is slightly different than customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction only measures how happy a customer is at that particular point in time. Customer loyalty, on the other hand, measures the customer’s fondness of the brand. Customer satisfaction fluctuates with various touchpoints and can disappear with a change in service, pricing, etc. Customer loyalty is more consistent and results from customer satisfaction over time. And in the long-term, loyal customers tend to buy more, stay longer with the brand – even despite issues with service, or pricing and so on. So knowing who your advocates are helps you identify your best customers today and in the future.

How is NPS connected to CEM?

NPS is closely related to CEM (Customer Experience Management). CEM’s goal is to establish value through customer experience. In a crowded market and in a world of copycat products, customer experience will be the sole differentiator of brands, leaving behind price and product. Customer experience is defined as the number of interactions, whether direct or indirect, throughout the customer journey. The customer lifetime value also takes into account various touchpoints and achievements and includes various moments before and after purchase. Customer experience doesn’t stop at the external customer. It involves internal customers, stakeholders, senior management team, and all those involved in building a steady customer-centric environment. That’s why NPS is considered the key performance indicator (KPI) metric for customer experience management programs and is determined by everyone involved in the customer journey.

How does NPS benefit business?

NPS captures a wider market range, and companies can increase business value and maximize customer retention by effectively using NPS and making it a part of the customer experience program. When the feedback is positive, it usually means more business from that customer. When the feedback is negative, it translates into worse business performance, increased call volumes, more escalation support tickets and so on.

The biggest competitive advantage of using NPS is converting loyal customers into brand advocates. who give you that ultimate endorsement: great word-of-mouth. So not only do they themselves buy more, bring in revenue, and so on, but because they have an emotional relationship with the brand, they’ll be your brand evangelists, and research shows that customers are likely to purchase if referred by a a trusted friend, family member, colleague or influencer.

The data generated from NPS also helps businesses prioritize their resources to tackle customer issues effectively. NPS and CEM are often used when companies launch a complex service or IT upgrades that might increase operating costs and reduce customer satisfaction.

With a systematic approach to NPS, companies can drive success and increase customer loyalty, customer satisfaction, and customer retention and increase the likelihood of getting recommended.

How to make NPS more effective?

1. Set-up a robust technology platform

Establishing a systematic NPS program is crucial. And the first step is setting up a high-level technology platform and preparing the backend work. Understand NPS from the customer’s point of view and model how it should function. It would be best to spend on a robust NPS platform.

Getting the technology right will assist businesses to effectively capture data from NPS across all customer’s touchpoints, and across all channels of communication. The right NPS tool will help provide accurate customer data that will help reach the spectrum of customers’ pain points. You can then dig deep into the customer data, analyze it, and enhance your services and products.

2. Customer satisfaction levels

The more data, the better the NPS report. To identify the root cause of an issue, ask questions about recent interactions with your business’s representatives, pricing, product, or services. It’s an open-ended way to identify the underlying cause of the problem and suggest remedies to improve business performance.

3. Maintain hierarchy

A well-maintained hierarchy leads to a well-executed NPS program. It’s important to set up the hierarchy and define roles for people well in advance, like setting up survey tools, deciding on custom questions, calling customers, requesting feedback, and understanding customer pain points.

Maintaining a strict hierarchy level ensures a high level of control and ensures work is done on time. In the absence of a deadline, work might be delayed, and NPS may be affected.

4. Use feedback data effectively

The data collected from NPS can be effectively used to change existing processes or create new ones according to the customer needs and demand. NPS is in itself is a dynamic process that will allow you to tweak how feedback is gathered and analyzed.

The survey results may bring up many challenges and issues that were not addressed in the past. These must not be ignored: It’s imperative to know every nuance of the customer pain points and come up with solutions for great customer experience.

Is your NPS score reliable?

NPS is as good as the data it represents and produces excellent results if CEM is calculated accurately and measured effectively. Before rushing into an NPS implementation, businesses have to look at the bigger picture: what or who is eating your business and revenue? Many service providers already have an NPS program in place, but are not sure how to use it to drive business success.

Conclusion:

To conclude, it’s vital to find the right NPS methodology and tools before you start surveying customers. Businesses must take a well-planned approach to NPS to get the information they need to improve customer experience and ultimately, business performance.