By Colin Walker
What makes you loyal to a company or a brand? And what makes you take an extra step to recommend their product, service or experience, to friends and family?
Do you expect a certain level of customer service before you’ll go the extra mile, or if the product or service is excellent in itself, is it enough for you to recommend or refer?
They’re interesting questions and ones worth considering from your personal perspective, as it may give you a different kind of insight when you think about what it would take for your customers to refer your business?
Do you know? Have you asked them? When you asked, did you listen and respond?
If you answered no to any of the above, you’re certainly not alone. Seeking feedback can be a little scary, mostly because it may not tell the story you’d like to hear, but seeking and using feedback can be a vital business opportunity.
And before you tune out because you simply don’t have the time to develop a 10-page survey or run focus groups, I’m talking about gathering meaningful feedback by asking one simple question:
Would you recommend us to a friend?
This critical question, which gauges the propensity to recommend on a scale from one to ten, can help you determine:
- How many of your customers are ‘promoters’—someone who’ll typically buy more from you and will recommend you to others
- How many are ‘detractors’—customers who typically buy less, make negative comments and won’t recommend you
- And finally, those who are neutral towards your business.
There’s a little more to the process, but in a nutshell, by making the following calculation you can determine your Net Promoter Score—the percentage of promoters (scoring 9 & 10) minus the percentage of detractors (scoring 0 – 6). The passives (scoring 7 & 8) are not counted for the sake of measuring the Net Promoter Score, but are still worth noting as you want to know how many customers you need to move into the ‘promoter’ category.
Using the Net Promoter Score to better understand and harness the value of your customer base is a really exciting prospect. I look forward to sharing more with you about getting a Net Promoter Score process up and running in your business and how it can help you to genuinely improve your customers’ experience and ultimately, drive growth and customer retention in your business.
If you’re attending FILEX in Sydney next month, drop by the PaySmart stand and one of our Business Development Managers will be happy to talk you through the Net Promoter Score in more detail and provide some great advice to get you started or contact PaySmart today.
