Are Net Promoter Score℠ Surveys Better Than Other Customer Surveys?
Your company wants to gather customer feedback. A discussion follows. Does this sound familiar?
Software company: “Do our customers like us? Are they happy? Will they renew?”
Me (as a new team member): “Well that all depends, where is all of our Voice of the Customer analysis? Do we have any?”
Software company: “No. We have churn and renewal metrics but that’s all. Let’s do a customer survey!”
Me: “Yes! I love surveys! Customer Satisfaction here we come!”
It seems like any time I’m fairly new to a company or team, some version of this discussion comes up. Once upon a time I was heavily invested in Customer Satisfaction Surveys (CSAT). When the topic of Net Promoter Score℠ (NPS®) vs. CSAT would come up you could hear me speak about my dislike for Net Promoter (at the time, I didn’t see a compelling use for it). Here’s how I used to view the Net Promoter Score methodology:
My Company: “How like are you to refer our product/service to your family or friends?”
Our Customer: “5!”
Me: “Is that a yes or a no? Why are you a 5?”
The truth is, I simply didn’t see how a numerical value was going to help my company or my Customer Success efforts. It’s funny, I look back on an old thought process and it cracks me up to be singing a different tune today: Thankfully age (AHEM!), and continued years of industry education and experience has worked its magic. So…
Is Net Promoter better than my formerly beloved Customer Satisfaction Survey (CSAT) or even a CES (Customer Effort Score) survey? The short answer is, yes and no. It depends on what you want to know and what you want to do with the information once you get it.
I’ve experimented with many types of surveys in my career; my bias is to use Net Promoter Score and Customer Satisfaction in tandem:
Net Promoter: To measure the overall loyalty of my end users. Couple NPS scores with renewal rates, upsell events, and other company metrics to drive individual accountability for improvement.
Customer Satisfaction: Gauge satisfaction levels of technical support events (e.g. speed and accuracy of first time resolution).
Overall, feedback surveys are an excellent tool for the Customer Success arsenal. It’s not a question of one kind of customer survey trumping others, but the context (or situation) you would utilize one over the other. In this way, you can be incredibly flexible and can lead your team into many facets of improvement for your company. I’d encourage any leader to leverage multiple types of customer surveys to improve.
