A Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey can help you get quantitative data on your customer satisfaction, which can be extremely useful for benchmarking purposes.
However, more can be achieved through a well-designed NPS survey.
In this article, I’ll go over the different practices of NPS surveys and help you in getting the right answers.
What is Net Promoter Score (NPS)?
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a widely used system for measuring customer satisfaction, that is calculated using the answers of an NPS survey, which asks the customer whether they would be likely to recommend a product or not. This feedback system is used by the majority of digital platforms, as it is proven to help guide teams in tracking progress and improving Customer Experience.
Why should you calculate your NPS?
First off, NPS is extremely helpful in tracking the success and customer satisfaction in your company. You can even use your NPS to compare yourself to the industry leaders and see whether you’re lacking in terms of CX.
Also, with additional questions and steps added following NPS, you can:
- Encourage users to promote your business,
- Understand the reasons behind each evaluation,
- Find pain points and fix them.
READ: 5 NPS tools that are Worthy of your business
What to ask on NPS surveys
NPS surveys don’t vary that much across different industries, because it is a simple survey that customers can quickly answer to. The whole point of an NPS survey is to ask customers whether they’re satisfied enough to publicly promote the product or not.
Let’s go over the main question of NPS surveys, then see what can be added to improve the data you collect.
The Question that Matters
The first question always serves the same purpose in NPS surveys. You ask the customer a question strictly similar to “On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our product/service/company to a friend or a colleague?”.
The answers are also collected the same, on a scale of 1-10. Here’s how it looks like in a UI:
Although wording might change on different products in different industries, the answering scale and the core question stays the same.
This question alone is enough to calculate NPS, as the calculations are done only using the answers to this question. However, it is highly useful to quickly collect qualitative data following this one.
Additional Feedback is Always Good
It is a common practice to ask for additional user feedback in an NPS survey.
Companies mostly prefer to ask the reason behind the first answer, regarding their likelihood to recommend the product. If answered by the customer, this helps companies find out why users who answered with a low point are having a bad experience or why those who answered with high points were so satisfied.
What you’re doing right can be duplicated and replicated in other parts of your product, while the pain points can be smoothened through effective improvements and fixes.
Are you going “two” far?
How do you know whether you’re going “two” far with your NPS survey?
In my opinion, if you’re asking more than two questions, you went overboard. I agree that getting all sorts of feedback from users is never going to harm your business, but an NPS survey has to be quick and frictionless to get the maximum answers and the most correct data possible.
An average user, like me, doesn’t want to spend more than 30 seconds on a survey. This is why NPS Surveys have much higher participation rates than any other type of survey; because they appear right on your screen with 1-2 quick questions.
So, if you go “two” far, you’ll get users bored and many of them will skip the survey.
NPS Survey Question Templates and Examples
Let’s go over different types of questions and their variations you can ask during NPS surveys:
Common Variations of the Main Question
You can play around with the main question to deliver your message better.
- How likely are you to recommend our business to a friend or a colleague?
This is a general question that gives you insight on your whole Customer Experience.
- How likely are you to recommend our product to a friend or a colleague?
This variation however, gives you insight on the product experience.
- How likely are you to recommend this feature to a friend or a colleague?
This variation is even more specific, and can be used after a new feature launch to understand how well it is received among users.
- How likely are you to recommend our company to a friend or a colleague?
This question can be asked to employees instead of customers, to measure overall employee satisfaction.
Follow-up Questions for Getting Feedback
You can, and should optimize the follow-up questions you’re asking for receiving feedback according to your industry and audience.
- (0-10) What made you choose that score?
You can go ahead and ask the same question for each answer, however, since this question lacks personalization, it might receive lower participation.
- (10) What do you like best about our product?
For the satisfied users, understanding what they like about your product is more important; since you should replicate these features and functions.
- (0-9) How could we improve your experience?
This is also a general question that could be asked to the answers up to 9, implying that you’re open for suggestions.
- (7-9) What could we do to make you happier with our product?
This can be asked to the users who answered with relatively better answers.
- (0-6) What were you most dissatisfied with when using our product?
It’s okay to target and learn the negative experiences of users. This question shows your users you care about negative experiences, and the answers can help in fixing them.
Other Follow-up Questions
And lastly, here are a few questions I’ve been asked when using different products that didn’t want feedback.
- How would you rate your experience with our product? (1-5 Score)
I’ve once seen a company ask this, instead of a regular feedback question. This provides similar data to the main question, but no data is too much data, right?
- (0-6) Would you like to schedule a call with our Customer Success Team?
Reaching out to customers through customer success and support calls is a must if you’re into improving your end-user UX.
- (8-10) Would you like to share your positive experience?
Those who answer the main question with 8-10 are called “promoters”, so you can always incentivize them for promoting your business on their social media platforms or review sites.
Conclusion
Just because the content of NPS surveys is universal, doesn’t mean you can’t mess that part.
Replicating and then optimizing the best practices of NPS surveys is a great way to get your NPS survey questions and what you do during or after the survey right.
