If you are the owner of a sports training facility, yoga studio, or other business in the sports and fitness industry, then no doubt you understand the importance of maintaining a good reputation among your customer base. People talk, text, Skype, and communicate in dozens of other ways; and you want the majority of your customers to speak well of your company.
However, you may wonder how you can best determine the overall level of customer satisfaction with your service, and how to act on that information. Net Promoter Score (also known as NPS) can provide a key piece to that puzzle.
NPS Defined
Net Promoter Score is a customer satisfaction metric based on a fundamental question:
“On a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being most likely and 0 not likely at all, how likely are you to recommend us to a friend or family member?”
NPS surveys come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, but at their core they are built around this one key question. Once the survey’s data has been compiled, NPS is often calculated within a range of -100 to 100. Every “promoter” of your company (9 or 10 responses, for instance) ranks on the positive side of the ledger; “detractors” (0 to 6 responses) register as minus points. The final tally indicates where your company resides on the customer satisfaction continuum; generally speaking, a score of +50 or above is considered to be excellent.
While NPS offers a simple premise, there are several benefits associated with tracking and analyzing this high-level metric.
5 Reasons to Track NPS
1. It Provides a Succinct Overview of Current CX Trends
While NPS is by nature a simple metric, it is useful at providing a bird’s-eye overview of where your company currently stands with regards to customer experience and satisfaction, as well as the direction in which your company is heading. High NPS indicates that your business processes are successfully generating good customer experiences, whereas low (or negative) NPS signals that there is an urgent need for improvement.
2. NPS Surveys are Customer Friendly
Very few people (if any) enjoy taking surveys that last 15 or 20 minutes. This simple fact illustrates why many surveys have such low engagement rates. On the other hand, the NPS survey could take as little as 15 seconds to complete. This makes it extremely appealing to the average consumer.
Of course, you may want to add a question or two onto your NPS survey in order to glean deeper insights into customer responses, which leads us to point #3…
3. NPS Surveys Allow for Additional Feedback
While NPS is by nature a simple metric, it is useful at providing a bird’s-eye overview of where your company currently stands with regards to customer experience and satisfaction, as well as the direction in which your company is heading. High NPS indicates that your business processes are successfully generating good customer experiences, whereas low (or negative) NPS signals that there is an urgent need for improvement.
4. NPS Allows You to Focus on the Entire Customer Experience
Some surveys are specifically geared towards quantifying customer satisfaction with regards to one interaction. (Such as a phone survey taken after an interaction with a customer service representative). NPS is designed to be different. Although previous customer-company interactions may play an important role in the ultimate response given, an NPS survey is at its heart a measure of how the customer feels about your company as a whole, instead of an individual employee.
5. NPS Correlates with Business Growth
It’s no secret that there is a strong correlation between high NPS and exceptional business growth. For example, one study found that a 12-point increase in NPS leads to, on average, the doubling of a company’s growth. Another study of Net Promoter Score in relation to CAGR (compound annual growth rate) demonstrated that NPS accounted for 92% of the variation in future revenue for several major US airlines.
Clearly, NPS is an important metric to track.
3 Ways to Use NPS to Improve Client Experience
While there are several ways to leverage NPS into growth opportunities, the following 3 points may prove to be especially helpful:
1. Add Strategy Informed Questions to Your NPS Survey
You want your NPS survey to give customers the freedom to provide insightful feedback. At the same time, you want to provide enough structure to encourage responses that are, first and foremost, actionable. For instance, if you are looking for ways to enhance the client experience you may want to add a multiple choice question that focuses on which area(s) your customers would like to see improved (e.g., check-in process, quality of equipment, quality of instruction, and so forth).
2. Act on Feedback Received From Customers
Once you’ve received actionable feedback, don’t delay: promptly make the suggested changes, or at least explore options that will help you meet your customers in the middle. For the most part, an NPS survey that doesn’t prompt action is useless.
3. Reward Promoters and Pursue Passives and Detractors
NPS surveys can also help you to segment your customers according to their satisfaction level. This will allow you to reward loyal customers, and entice passive users through discounts, promotional offers, or free trial extensions. It will also let you pursue indifferent or unhappy customers (an apology and “peace offering” can go a long way). Whether it’s mitigating damage to your brand or building up your advocate base, NPS segmentation is a helpful tool when used properly.
In whatever business you’re in, NPS can play a key role in the marketing decisions you make, the business processes that you adjust, and the overall customer experience that you provide. Ultimately, all this feeds into your bottom line.
If you are a business leader in the sports/fitness industry, and would like to learn more about the advantages that come from tracking NPS, reach out to Upper Hand today for a free demo of our innovative sports and fitness management software.
