Do Your Customers Recommend You?

Business owners will be familiar with the old adage that a happy customer will tell 1-2 people, but an unhappy customer will tell seven. Know your organization’s NPS. If one customer is passionate about solving a particular problem, there are likely others who are less vocal yet have similar opinions.

Customers are more enabled than ever to give specific and actionable feedback about what they love or hate about a business. By leveraging digital listening tools, businesses can collect and review voice-of-the-customer (VOC) data across digital and mobile channels. This data can then be analyzed to calculate NPS levels.

Brand advocates, along with the critics of the business, need to be identified to understand customer lifetime value. Commentators and feedback providers are categorized as Passives, Promoters, or Detractors for NPS calculations. It is important to understand that not all Promoters are equal – and the same applies to Detractors too. Commentary and feedback from Promoters and Detractors that have stronger source influence are weighted accordingly in NPS calculations.

“Many business owners don’t realize how powerful NPS can be when mixed in with their other business strategies.”

The simplest way to calculate NPS is to subtract the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters. So, if 50 percent of the VOC data originated from Promoters and 10 percent were Detractors, the Net Promoter Score is 40. Measuring NPS using VOC data allows for easy benchmarking against competitor NPS. Insights from such comparisons can guide businesses towards narrowing competitive gaps or reinforcing the presence of their established brands.

When NPS results are presented, almost always the first question asked is, “Do we have a good score?” The straightforward answer is that, by itself, an NPS score is meaningless unless you compare that score against the NPS results of the competition. The business that controls more advocacy and mindshare within the industry it serves will recognize direct benefits to their bottom line growth and overall customer retention.

NPS, when considered in the context of other key marketplace variables, provides companies with the powerful measure of the true voice the customer. What is yours saying?