Surveys are an excellent resource to talk to and get responses from your customers. However, what if you could not only get responses from your customers but learn about who are your advocates at the same time?

Asking the right question

Surveys are great because they can help you talk to your customers and get their answers back rapidly and with fairly little effort on both the author’s and participant’s part. There are some great tips and tricks out there to help you write good surveys but there is one question which many companies large and small are asking to help pinpoint their advocates faster. 

Some large corporations only use this single question as their survey. What is the question you ask?

“How likely are you to recommend [this product or service] to colleagues or friends?” 

You’ve probably seen this question before but never thought about it in this context. Asking this -question and then allowing your customers to answer with a scale (i.e. 1-10 or Very Unlikely – Very Likely)- not only tells you about their view of your product/service but also helps you build out a profile of your customers and find those who are most loyal.

Responses

If you have a customer rate you anywhere from 1-6 they are what’s qualified as a ‘Detractor’, or someone who isn’t really satisfied and probably is telling their friends either negative things about your product/service or not talking to their friends at all about you. 

A rating of a 7 or 8 are given by those known as the “Passives/Neutral” group, they are people who might appreciate your offering but probably aren’t talking about it on social media or with their friends or family. 

Then you have those who respond with a 9 or 10. These are your “Promoters”, they love what you sell and are eagerly, naturally, your advocates to the trolls on the comment sections as well as putting your logo sticker on their laptops or tumblers. 

Now you can calculate your brand Net Promoter Score (NPS). Take the percentage of Promoters and subtract it from the percentage of Detractors. This will give you a score between -100 and 100.

Click below for a free tool to help you calculate your NPS!

Focus

Once you have the responses, what do you do with it? The answer is, “a lot”. 

First, the main goal of the Net Promoter Score is to give you an indicator towards business growth. If you have a high number, 80-100, you’re probably on the right track towards knowing your customer base, what they want and how to bring it to them. 

Second, you now know who is loyal to your brand. You can learn who those Promoters are (by asking for their email in the survey) and give them early access to opportunities, discounts, products, etc. These people are marketing for you for free so continue to treat them right.

Third, you also know who NOT to focus on. If you have a high NPS you can still reach out to your Detractors and see what it is they think you should fix. Their suggestions could make your brand even better but don’t spend a lot of time with them and take what they say with a grain of salt. 

Review

Now you know the right question to ask in some of your surveys. You don’t need to ask them this question all the time to your customers, but only strategically through their experience with you. 

Capturing the individual and their response to the NPS question can be easy and yield a lot of information for your company. You’ll learn your overall NPS and you’ll find which customer base to spend a majority of your time on.

More could be said about NPS and how it can help build customer profiles, contribute to engagement, and profit your marketing but this is meant to be a simple overview and help give you another tool in your toolbelt.

Download my FREE tool to calculate your NPS!