Are you looking to learn how to drive more sales using NPS?
It is a simple question that you ask your customers. But there are so many benefits to asking about it. It is not only a metric to find out loyalty and customer satisfaction, but it can also play a significant role in your sales and lead generation.
But, much before that, what is NPS?
Net Promoter Score helps your business retain customers and convert your prospects to leads.
Customers’ expectations of service have changed drastically over the past few years. With the proliferation of social media, they feel much more empowered.
With word-of-mouth marketing getting more mainstream, it is high time that you improve your customer service game.
Using Net Promoter Score or NPS for sales is a topic we’ll cover in this article.
What does NPS Stand for?
NPS stands for Net Promoter Score. It’s a metric used to gauge customer loyalty and satisfaction, calculated by asking customers how likely they are to recommend a product or service to others. NPS scores range from -100 to 100, with positive scores indicating good customer loyalty. Typically, respondents are grouped into Promoters, Passives, and Detractors based on their feedback, which helps businesses understand and improve their customer experience.
How to Use Net Promoter Score (NPS) to Drive Sales?
One would ask how are surveys and sales related in any way. Well, they aren’t, but that doesn’t mean it is not possible to use NPS to drive business growth. Here’s how you can use NPS to drive sales:
1. Understand the expectations of prospects
Tune your survey so that your prospects will find it closer to what they expect about your product. Do not run the survey for both prospects and customers at the same time. Well, there is no harm in doing them simultaneously, but we would advise you not to use the same set of questions.
Create a template for the prospects in such a way that you will have a better understanding of what they want from your product. This will help you anticipate the demands of your prospects with ease. Once you have a substantial amount of feedback from your customers, you can use this treasure trove of information to build products that are closest to the expectations of the customers.
By posing the right set of questions, you will also be able to gauge the reasons why a potential customer is not buying from you. It will give you enough leeway to offset the damages caused earlier which happened because you didn’t have insights available.
When potential customers know that the entire exercise of your survey was to make improvements to your product, they would be more than willing to overlook the fact that your product wasn’t satisfactory to their expectations. They would be willing to give you a chance now.
You can get the attention of your Detractors who left your business for a competitor. They will be looking at the progress that you make based on the survey and might be willing to come back to you unless they left you because of issues with customer service or delivery.
2. Engage with low-raters
Anyone who gives a rating that is less than a 9 or 10 is a flight risk for your business. They would leave you at first sight for a better opportunity because you aren’t the best one yet. Also, don’t forget the fact that your detractors will surely bad mouth you to their friends and family, some of who might be your prospects. You can use NPS to do as much damage control as you can. If you pull the right strings, you can even make them stay put by creating a fantastic loyalty program that appeals to what they want.
You can help the passives by offering them an opportunity to see the improvements that you are making with the product. They’re not loyal to your brand and the only thing they want is a product that gets work done according to their expectations. If the NPS survey and the subsequent process of closing the feedback loop happens, then you can even expect your passives to change into staunch supporters of your brand.
3. Tap into passive leads
There are promising leads that get ignored after a point of time either because of poor communication, or the lead dropped plans of purchasing a solution for their problem.
If you push the right buttons, you will always be able to stem them into taking action. One of the best ways to reconnect with such a crowd is to send an NPS survey so that you can get back on the burner.
Here’s what you need to do. Do not send the same NPS survey to this set of leads that you send to your customers. Create a list of leads that were active at one point and were showing interest. After you group them together, ask them about the improvements they would like to see in your product so that they would be willing to take a look at your offer again.
Not only will you be able to understand why there was inaction from the lead’s side, but you will also open a new stream of communication that can be used to refine your pitch and, more importantly, your product. Connect with each of the leads this way and create a communication strategy that is unique to each of their needs.
The passive leads that will respond to you are more likely to buy from you or you can at least use it as feedback for the future that will help your brand immensely. The onus should be on your sales team to craft a pitch that will appeal to the business of your prospects.
4. Leverage promoters with NPS management
We know we can convert our passives into promoters and our detractors into passives and even promoters using the right strategy. You can also use the help of your existing promoters to amplify your business’ growth. This is where you need to create an extremely lucrative customer loyalty program.
While your brand advocates would be more than happy to refer you to their friends and family, you should also give them an incentive to do so with full enthusiasm.
If there is one clear thing that you will get to know from using the NPS feedback survey, it is being able to identify who your Promoters are. Once you find out the ones who gave you a rating of 9 or 10, divide them into different groups. They are the ones who are more likely to be a part of your referral group.
Tip: Please send your referral program to passives and detractors as well. They might become a part of it just to cash in on the incentives that you offer. But your promoters will be the ones who spread the word about you with more vigor.
Having a customer loyalty program in place exclusively for your promoters will increase their loyalty towards your brand. If they happen to know that they have been selected exclusively, then they are bound to be more open towards your brand and its activities.
5. Use it to build relationships
Do you know that it is 5x costlier to get new customers when compared with getting business from an existing customer? 5X. That’s a lot of money and a lot of effort. Even after knowing the ramifications of this number, most businesses only concentrate on going after newer customers while completely ignoring the plight of existing customers.
If you want a steady income that keeps increasing, do you know the answer to that? It is the same thing- keep your existing customers close to you.
The onus should be on the after-sales and customer service teams to ensure that the existing customers are looked after well. By sending them an NPS survey, you are confirming that they are allowed to vent their feelings, whether positive or negative.
The best option you can give yourself if you want to keep your existing customers happy is to have dedicated account managers for your clients. If the value of each account is high, then you can have individual account managers. Otherwise, you can split it based on different characteristics.
NPS also allows you to send personalized messages to your clients and a chance for them to interact with them. You can use this instance to build a great rapport with your customers, maybe even cross-sell or up-sell if you see the right moment. When you do this consistently, you can put your business in a completely different league, as not all companies do this.
6. Better your value proposition
What is the value that you add that your competitors don’t? If your client asks a question like this, you should be able to answer it objectively. Thankfully, the NPS question and the ensuing feedback allow you to know this from your customer. Most businesses assume that the value they provide is unparalleled.
Most businesses fail because they are not exactly aware of the customers’ requirements, which in turn means that they will not be able to fulfill their expectations. Unless you know the problem, you will never be able to give the best solution.
With NPS, you will get customer feedback, which will help you create solutions that are closest to the customer’s expectations. Surveys give you that kind of insight because you hear it directly from your customers. It will help you refine your offering in a way that nothing else can.
It is important that businesses don’t work on hunches or assumptions, but there should be a clear-cut strategy for everything that is done. If there is a plan A, then there should also be a plan B if the former fails. Your plan should be based on solid data points that will emerge after the results from the survey.
7. Use NPS as a growth metric
If there is a smart move that businesses can make when using NPS, it is employing it as a growth metric. It is a clear indicator of where your business is going, how happy your customers are with you, a predictor of your churn rate, and the percentage of loyal customers you have.
Since it is also a measure of customer satisfaction, it will also tell you if your existing customers will purchase from you again. Remember this- recurring income, either through subscription or from up-selling or cross-selling, is the best way to keep your income steady.
So, why is NPS the most amazing?
NPS is amazing because it tells about customers’ feelings about your brand. If someone responds with a 9 or 10, then it means that they are pleased with your brand and are even willing to recommend your services to people closest to them. It is a validation of your efforts as a brand.
Now, if you take the customers who have given you 1 or 2, you will find out the blatant flaws in your company. If you make changes according to the feedback given by those who gave you a score between 2 and 8, then you can create a brand that will be phenomenal.
When you calculate NPS as a growth metric and use it to measure your growth, you will see how much percentage of the detractors left and how much of the passives turned into promoters. Follow up with your promoters, keep them close to you, and discover what they love about your brand. Once you know what works with them, try implementing them more effectively across different segments of customers.
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8. Create a customer-first culture
If you keep conducting NPS surveys on a regular basis, you will be able to create a strategy where you keep improving your business prospects just by listening to your customers. For this purpose, you can even automate your surveys using NPS software.
When used correctly, you can uncover issues that plague your business as well as persistent problems that were not realized earlier. This will help you make bold business decisions that will benefit your company.
By tracking your NPS score regularly, you will be on top of the issues that your customers face, and you will be able to make minute changes to decisions that will be a major pivot. It will help you streamline your marketing efforts as you will be able to figure out where the majority of your customers gather.
It will help you refine your customer persona which makes it much easier for you to target your potential leads. Therefore, your marketing messages will be more targeted, lethal, and effective.
Why NPS over other metrics?
Like the different customer satisfaction measurement tools available in the market, NPS has pros and cons. While anyone would advise you to choose a tool based on your business objectives, there is much more to NPS than what meets the eye.
It is measured by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters, and it is measured on a scale of 0 to 10, which makes it extremely easy for the respondent to make a statement.
It is an easy indicator of loyalty and will tell you clearly if a customer will likely buy from you again. So, it forecasts your cash flow. It is easy for all stakeholders to understand the results.
Since NPS can be used at any point in the customer journey or during any interaction checkpoint, it is extremely useful to gauge the effectiveness at each place. It is an indicator of brand health.
When measuring NPS, let your employees know that you will track it over time as you consider it a KPI. From your frontline staff to your marketing team, every department’s effectiveness can be gauged with the help of NPS.
If you see that there is an issue where the scores are usually less than 9 for a particular department, then there is a problem that needs to be solved there.
Set Your Benchmark Standards High with NPS
NPS can be used as a benchmark against your competitors and your position in your industry. When your NPS score keeps improving, it indicates how well you are progressing. If your NPS score is more than your industry has score, it is a sign that you are one of the better-performing companies.
It helps you look at the bigger picture as you can measure it every week, month, quarter, half-yearly, and yearly. You can also measure it across different teams, areas, customer segments, etc. It also binds everyone together because all the stakeholders speak the same language.
NPS helps you unearth the strengths and weaknesses of companies based on the score. You can even predict customers who will quit your business and go to a competitor.
Poor service? NPS will tell you.
Poor communication with customers? NPS is the answer.
Terrible delivery of the product? NPS.
Sloppy customer onboarding process? NPS is your answer.
There are no limits to using NPS for your business’ benefit. It tells you where you perform best and areas that need a lot of improvement. NPS asks a simple question, but deep inside, you will get a goldmine of insights that can shape your company’s future.
Winding Up
NPS surveys tell you how your customers feel about your brand and are an excellent indicator of your growth and useful for driving more sales. It will also prod you to be more careful with your existing customers lest you only concentrate on sales and don’t provide an excellent after-sales service for your existing customers.
It gives you the right kind of information that will make you a brand that is loved both by your existing customers as well as the new ones who are about to choose you as a vendor.
By sending NPS surveys at different stages of the customer channel, you will be in a position to be able to understand where you are good and where you can excel. You will be able to make decisions that your customers were hoping you would and be in a position to offer them the exact service that they were looking for.You will shape into a company that cares about its customers and takes active steps to ensure that customers are always the priority of the business.
In a nutshell…
When businesses care about their customers, the latter is more likely to stick with you without any qualms. Great businesses comprise loyal customers who keep spreading the word about you. The simple kickstart you need to drive sales, change your business, and push it into a growth phase can be done by sending NPS surveys.
When you embark on the all-important task of sending NPS surveys, use online survey tools like SurveySparrow to power it.
Now that you are aware of NPS best practices and how to use SurveySparrow to leverage your sales using NPS, it’s time for you to try it.
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Net Promoter, Net Promoter System, Net Promoter Score, NPS, and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., Fred Reichheld, and Satmetrix Systems, Inc.
