Turn Detractors Into Promoters With In-app NPS Software

“Would you recommend this experience?”

Net Promoter Score^®, or NPS^®, has proven itself to be one of the simplest and most consistent ways to rank a brand. With a quick, one-question survey, you can quickly assess where your customers fall on a gradient from “Detractors” to “Promoters.”

Those who return the highest rankings are Promoters. These are the people who will stay loyal and refer others. Detractors are unhappy and often vocal customers. And in the middle, Passives are satisfied but somewhat meh about promoting your brand. It’s a useful ranking system for measuring customer experience and, according to many studies, predicting actual business growth.

In fact, NPS^® grading is so common today that more than two-thirds of the Fortune 1000s use this metric to gauge the success of their own brands. So it goes that NPS^® software and applications that support NPS^® data collection have also become a hot commodity in the business world. NPS^® is also particularly good for measuring satisfaction with customer support experiences.

The state of NPS^® software today

For all its simplicity, choosing a method for assessing NPS^® can be boggling for some business leaders. The most primitive route is to send NPS^® surveys manually, then tally up the results in a spreadsheet — not an ideal use of time, and certainly not scalable.

Another option is to take advantage of another tool you’re already using that offers NPS^® surveying as an add-on feature. Within the context of a CRM or other type of software suite, using an NPS^® add-on can make sense. You can also purchase specific NPS^® software — an application designed to survey customers, with relevant analytics and flexible reporting features. This more robust option allows you to customize your survey, segment your audiences, and choose from multiple survey channels such as email or text messaging.

Collecting NPS^® within an optimized customer service experience

Within customer service organizations, it’s typically easy to access reporting of a transactional nature: number of tickets resolved, average reply time, first call resolution rate. But gauging customer satisfaction can be a squishier affair. Net Promoter Score^® is a core metric for customer service organizations because it helps assess relationships versus transactions. And since promoters are the people most likely to come back and tell their friends, most customer service organizations keep a keen eye on their NPS^®.

The way that NPS^® data is gathered is essential. While it works to send a follow-up email or ask a customer to “stay on the line for a brief survey,” let’s face it, it doesn’t work nearly as well as surveying them right in the app they’re already using. Ask a question while a customer is in the moment of the experience, and you’re far more likely to get an honest, instant answer.

For brands with a strong digital presence, native customer support is ideal. And it stands to reason that surveying customers for NPS^® rankings should also happen in that same environment — while they are immersed in the experience of using the product. Asking them to open another email, answer another call, or pop into a web survey adds an unnecessary hoop they’re unlikely to jump through unless they really have something to say. And as we all know, those customers usually aren’t Promoters.

How Automation Contributes to NPS^® Data Collection

The ability to ask in-app follow-up questions within your customer service platform facilitates the quick gathering of Net Promoter Score^® metrics. At the moment your customer support experience concludes, the survey can be sent with software that enables in-app workflow automation. Choosing software that allows you to automate in-app follow-up survey questions enables you to collect NPS^®metrics consistently, immediately, and automatically. Of course, the customer service platform you choose has another influence on your NPS^® scoring. If the customer experience is better in the first place, your NPS^®will be better, too. A customer service platform that creates a connected, cohesive customer experience from first response to resolution creates happier customers with higher scores.
Creating elevated customer experience, automating the collection of feedback, and scaling that collection to any size audience will ultimately help improve your Net Promoter Score^®.