What allows you to measure the nps. NPS: what is Net Promoter Score and how to start counting it. Clients for life. How to build a long-term relationship with a buyer. Video

Knowing how satisfied and loyal your customers are is important for any company, because satisfied and consistently using customers are the source of future revenue and profit growth.

The problem is that most consumer research is complex, expensive, and difficult to interpret. That is why the net promoter score (NPS) was developed - "the only number you need to know" - based on answers to a single question: "What is the probability that you will recommend (company A, or product B, or service C ) to your friend or colleague?

The key question this metric helps answer is how satisfied and loyal are our customers?

The ideology of the customer loyalty indicator is based on the assumption that all customers of the company can be classified into one of three groups:

1. loyal customers;
2. passive clients;
3. disloyal customers.

This approach allows organizations to keep track of these groups and get feedback on their performance from customers. Moreover, studies have shown that there is a strong correlation between grouping customers and their actual consumer behavior - repeat purchases and recommendations to other customers.

Further research has shown the relationship of high NPS values ​​with the growth rate of companies when compared with competitors. In most industries, this single simple metric explains most of the variance in relative growth rates, i.e. companies with better ratios of loyal to disloyal customers grow faster than competitors.

Developed (and trademarked) by Fred Reicheld, Bain & Company and Satmetrix, NPS measures how companies and their employees treat their customers. The use of this indicator, together with appropriate diagnostics and resulting actions, improves customer loyalty and ensures profit growth.

How to take measurements

Information collection method

Data collection is carried out using questionnaires (by mail, telephone or Internet). There are two methods of collecting information to calculate the customer loyalty score.

1. top-down method. The survey is conducted anonymously among the company's customers. Each client is asked two questions. In the first one, it is proposed to evaluate the relationship "client-company", in the second - to give a similar assessment to competitors. The result is an easy and direct comparison between your customers and your competitors' performance.
2. Measurement of NFS during the most important transactions with clients. This approach provides feedback on operational efficiency.

Formula

Using a scale from 0 to 10, organizations can calculate NPS as the difference between the percentage of loyal and disloyal customers.

• Loyal customers (on a scale of 9 to 10) are active customers who buy the company's products and recommend you to others.
• Passive (on a scale of 7 to 8) are satisfied but inactive customers who are willing to consider competitors' product offerings.
• Disloyal customers (on a scale from 0 to 6) are dissatisfied customers who, with their negative statements, can damage your brand and impede the growth of the company.

To calculate NPS, from the percentage of loyal customers (who scored 9-10), the percentage of disloyal customers (who scored 0-6) is subtracted.

Most companies don't conduct surveys very often. Instead of an annual mass multi-page customer survey, companies can use the suggested single-question approach with greater frequency. It is recommended to conduct surveys constantly among a part of your customers or at least once a month (selecting 10% of all customers). In this case, you can follow the trend and avoid wrong predictions and conclusions.

The source of information is customer surveys.

The ease of obtaining the indicator makes it more cost effective than traditional customer satisfaction surveys. However, even in this case, the costs can be significant. The costs are especially high when conducting surveys on paper or by mail. Automation of information collection reduces costs.

Below is information (provided by Satmetrix) on the leading companies in terms of customer loyalty.

Customer loyalty index in US and UK companies in 2011

Top Companies in the US in 2011		Leading companies in the UK in 2011
Company	NPS, %	Company	NPS, %
USSA - banking services	87		67
Trader Joe's - grocery store	82	First Direct - banking services	61
Wegmans - grocery store	78	LG - TVs	39
Costco - warehouse and retail trade enterprise	77	Samsung - TVs	35
Apple - computer hardware	72	Sony - computer hardware	30

Example. Let's consider a company that conducted a survey of 1,000 of its customers. To the question "What is the probability that you would recommend this company's products to your friend?" could be answered using a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 means "definitely would not recommend", 5 - "probably recommend", 10 - "definitely recommend". Below are the survey results:

Customer Loyalty Score = Percentage of Loyal Customers – Percentage of Disloyal Customers.

Percentage of loyal customers = [(300+400) / 1000] × 100% = 70%

Percentage of disloyal customers = [(1 + 2 + 0 + 0 + 2 + 5 + 10) / 1000] × 100% = 2%

Customer Loyalty Rate = 70% - 2% = 68%.

Remarks

NPS will give a simple and understandable number, but it does not indicate the reasons why customers recommended or would not recommend you, or your products, or your services. A powerful support for a single-question study is a set of open-ended questions roughly as follows.

• What do you particularly like about this company or product?
• What or what areas could be improved?

In this case, companies will get an idea not only about the number of loyal and disloyal customers, but also about areas that need improvement. Let's take the Canadian online store Zappos as an example. The survey to determine the customer loyalty indicator is conducted here twice: after the order is made and after the customer's conversation with the store's customer service representative.

The question on the Zappos online survey is (with a 0-10 scale) "How likely are you to recommend Zappos to a friend or relative?"

To obtain information that would help the store increase the number of loyal customers at the expense of passive and disloyal, another question is also asked: “What is the most important area we need to improve?”.

Moreover, after the client makes contact with a customer service representative, he is asked the question: "If you were the owner of the company, what is the probability that you would hire this person?" And the next two questions: “Generally speaking, how would you rate the level of service provided by (followed by the name of the store’s customer service representative): good, bad, great?” and “What specifically did you like and dislike about the service?”

It should be noted that some experts believe that the methodology of the customer loyalty indicator is statistically insignificant, since the answers are distributed into only three groups. It is possible that the presented methodology somewhat simplifies the calculation, so companies can rely on the actual distribution of answers on a ten-point scale and track its change over time.

/ NPS customer loyalty index as a company reputation metric

NPS customer loyalty index as a company reputation metric

Customer loyalty indexNPS (NetpromoterScore, net support index) - This is an easy-to-calculate metric aimed at assessing the loyalty of a company's customers or buyers of a product. It is believed that the NPS index is closely correlated with the company's revenues and a company with a high NPS score tends to grow much faster than its competitors. This indicator is based on the assumption that customer loyalty to the company consists of:

• Willingness to make repeat purchases
• Positive attitude towards upselling (buying additional accessories)
• Recommendations of the company in the circle of their acquaintances and friends
• Honest and open feedback about the company's products and services

The NPS index is considered by many foreign and domestic experts to be one of the best indicators of loyalty to a company or product. The standard approach to measuring the consumer loyalty index usually consists of several stages. At the first stage, immediately after making a purchase, buyers are invited to participate in a short survey and the following question is asked:

The answer to this question is given on a ten-point scale, where the minimum score of 0 means “Categorically I will not recommend under any circumstances”, and the maximum of 10 points corresponds to “I will definitely recommend”. Based on the ratings collected, all buyers are divided into three categories:

• Those who put 9 or 10 points are supporters (promoters, promoters). This category of people is loyal to a company or product and with a probability of more than 90% will recommend the company or product to other people, as well as make repeat purchases. "Promoters" are often "overwhelmed" by the quality of the products and/or services they provide, which exceeded their wildest expectations, so they are willing to actively recommend them.

• Those who gave a score of 7-8 points are neutral buyers (neutrals). This category of people is quite supportive of the company or product, but the likelihood that these people will consistently recommend the company or product is much lower than the category of promoters. In addition, members of this category can easily prefer competitors if there is a discount or better conditions offered to them for making a purchase.

• Those who rated 0-6 points are critics (detractors, detractors). Representatives of this category are dissatisfied with the company and are unlikely to ever use its services again. And those who put the lowest scores can go as far as writing negative reviews on the Internet or in a complaint book. Given the availability of information on the Internet, criticism and negativity from this category can cause significant reputational damage to the company, negatively affecting sales and demotivating its employees. The company can be especially troubled by active Internet users, who, by their actions, can “drive away” many potential customers from the company, replicating the negative on company review sites, social networks, blogs, and product aggregator sites.

The final step is to carry out the calculation, the NPS calculation formula is as follows:

For example, we collected a total of 100 reviews from our customers, of which 5 reviews were received from "critics" (0-6 points), 10 reviews were received from "neutrals" (7-8 points) and the remaining 85 reviews came from "promoters". ”, who gave us high marks of 9-10 points. From 85, we subtract 5, 100 by 100 falls under the reduction, and we get a total NPS value of 80. The indicator can be from -100 (extremely low value, when all buyers are "critics"), up to 100, when all buyers are " promoters."

In addition to the main question, one or more clarifying questions can also be asked, for example, “Why did you give this particular rating? Please answer in as much detail as possible and preferably give an example. Or, depending on the scores, one or another clarifying question is asked. For example, if the buyer put 9 or 10 points, then he is invited to additionally answer the question “What did you particularly like ...”, and those who rated 0-8 points are asked the question “What do you think should be improved ...”. In some cases, NPS research can be conducted to assess the loyalty of business partners and even among their own employees, who are asked the question “Will you recommend working in our company to your acquaintances, friends?”

How to correctly interpret the resulting calculationNPS?

How to collect customer reviews?

How to keep the NPS at a high level?

NPS

NPS

NPS

NPS and why

The history of the creation of the techniqueNetpromoterScore

How to correctly interpret the resulting NPS calculation

Knowing the NPS indicator clearly demonstrates the “reputational weight” of the company in the eyes of customers, and the calculation of this metric is a good indicator from the category of “are we all right”? Thus, ease of calculation, fast data collection speed and comparability with major industry players are the main advantages of this method. The general rule of the NPS methodology is: "The indicator must not be negative".

A positive value of the indicator indicates that the share of supporters of the company's "promoters" exceeds the number of "critics", therefore, there is a certain potential for a natural growth of the client base solely due to customer loyalty, in the very case when a satisfied client brings another client.

A zero or negative indicator indicates that the number of "critics" prevails over the number of "promoters", and this, in turn, is a clear signal that there is no potential for growth in the client base and even a possible outflow of buyers due to the company's low rating.

Because The NPS loyalty metric is quite simple to calculate and understandable to everyone, it can be taken as a benchmark as a generally accepted standard and used as a comparison with the performance of other companies in the same industry, catching up with the leaders or increasing the gap from competitors. An NPS index of about 50 and above is considered good. Some experts believe that at this level, you can even do without advertising, because. the client base grows by itself, but this is not the case in all cases. If the index is significantly less than 50, then this is not a reason to panic. For example, if your company's index is only 20, but on average competitors in the industry have even less (10 and below), then in this case your index will be high compared to competitors.

NPS studies conducted for various corporate business segments show that different industries may have their own norms (so-called reference values) of customer loyalty. For example, among Western companies, digital retail may have a figure of 30 or more, and in the banking sector from 10. For airlines, this figure is at the level of 15, and for grocery retailers, about 49. In different countries, these figures may also differ. Therefore, it would be logical not to compare the performance of companies operating in different markets.

It should be noted that the index needs to be updated periodically. Recalculation of the index is usually recommended to be done no more than once a quarter and no less than once a year.

How to collect customer reviews

A modern way to collect customer feedback at points of sale or service offices is to use mobile devices, in particular tablets, which are optimally suited to the size of the display and can be compactly located, for example, at the checkout. The NPS survey uses specially designed applications that display response options on the tablet screen and save data on the selected ratings. A tablet with a running survey can be placed in a special stand with a theft-proof holder on a short or long “leg” for convenient location in the room.

Some companies (especially in banking and insurance) keep cards with colored "smileys" at the customer service counters. The green smiley is taken by "promoters" satisfied with the service, "yellow" - by neutral customers, "red" - by dissatisfied "critics". Customers are invited to drop the cards taken into a special box at the exit.

To collect reviews in an online store, special plug-ins are usually used, if some well-known “boxed” CMS acts as the “engine” of the online store, or the refinement is carried out by the company’s full-time specialists. It is also possible to use third-party web services that offer the installation of an NPS counter on the company's website and provide the functionality of conducting surveys to collect feedback along with the provision of final reporting. The disadvantages of self-collection of feedback through the site include the potential for incorrect design of the survey form, which can be implemented in the form of an annoying “pop-under” banner that pops up when entering the site, which users can instinctively “shrug off”, mistaking it for advertising and immediately closing, often without even reading what they are asked to do.

There are also "telephone", "email" and "sms" methods for collecting customer feedback, if a contact database is available. “Ringing” customers is usually carried out by call center operators some time after the customer has made a purchase or provided a service to him. IVR (Interactive Voice Response) pre-recorded voice message systems are also used, which can carry on a dialogue with the buyer without the participation of an operator. These methods are often practiced by large online stores and mobile operators, because. they own the contact information of their customers. The disadvantages of collecting feedback via e-mail and by phone include the fact that a “critic” can simply refuse to participate in the survey, having received a questionnaire on his email (or hanging up the call) due to dislike for the company or product, so he will simply drop out of the total respondents. In the same way, an email that accidentally falls under the spam filter on the email of a promoter client will exclude him from the total number of respondents. Thus, technical overlays and incorrect contact information can seriously affect the final calculations.

In addition to using the above methods, some companies further extend the functionality of their CRM systems to solve tasks like data collection and NPS calculation. True, it is worth noting that not all “boxed” CRM systems can be modified in this way without the help of key developers.

How to keep the scoreNPS at a high level

We will look at how to set up a feedback collection system and systematically, at the proper level, control NPS using the example of one of our customers, who is one of the leaders in digital retail in Russia, operating on the market for more than 15 years. Hundreds of the company's stores operate in almost all regions of the country, offering customers the widest range of digital and home appliances from well-known brands from leading global manufacturers.

We launched a system for collecting reviews on mobile devices for calculating NPS in the company as part of a project for a quality control system for a chain of stores called Retailika. The implementation of the Retailika cloud service was aimed at enabling the company's employees to quickly perform any type of on-site and cross-checks in all stores of the company's network using electronic checklists on their own mobile devices, thereby identifying possible flaws in work, violations and deviations from accepted corporate standards.

The quick reaction of the management to the information received on violations in real time, the systematic identification and elimination of shortcomings, the constant work on errors was aimed at creating an ideally built interaction with customers, control of the display of goods, cleanliness and tidiness, general order, which, as a result, is extremely positive affects sales and NPS growth.

Many of our clients note that due to the systematic conduct of checks on electronic checklists, sales consultants begin to demonstrate thorough knowledge of their job duties over time, because each repeated check is a kind of training, filigree honing compliance with company standards and the ability to maximize yourself a potential buyer, leading him to make a purchase. And each satisfied customer is highly likely to return for shopping again and will advise the company to his friends. And if we return to the formula for calculating the customer loyalty index, which says that the more “supporters” (promoters) we have in the numerator and the fewer “critics” we have, the higher the final NPS will be and the longer it will be maintained at a decent level. level.

Eliminating possible violations when working with clients through self-checks and systematic improvement of the processes built in the company, based on the use of innovative methods and technologies, has a significant positive impact on Company NPS.

Our solution for collecting feedback for the NPS study compares favorably with other solutions in that the work is carried out in a single information space with the company's quality control service. The customer feedback collection system is not a separate mobile application, but the same application of the Retailika quality control system, but with a special interface in which each review made by the buyer is a separate “check” according to the NPS checklist, which automatically closes after the survey is completed and re-created automatically to receive feedback from the next client.

Another distinguishing factor is that the mobile application of the service works on any modern smartphones and tablets running Android or iOS operating systems, so our clients did not have to purchase exotic “devices” of certain models or be limited to using mobile devices of only one platform. To collect feedback, tablets can be temporarily used during any limited period of surveys, being released later for other tasks. Also, in addition to the “main” question “How likely is it that you will recommend purchases in our company…”, we have included a number of additional questions in the feedback collection system that are displayed on the tablet screen depending on the scores. For example, if a buyer is a "promoter" and gives a score of 9 or 10, they will be shown the following question like this:

And if the buyer turned out to be a "critic" or "neutral", estimating the work of the store at 0-6 or 7-8 points, respectively, then he will be asked to answer another question:

It is worth noting that the “main” NPS question takes scores as an answer, and the above “clarifying” questions take a value from a given list of criteria for the attractiveness or disadvantages of the store in the eyes of buyers as an answer. As we mentioned above, a survey in our Retailika system is a checklist with a special interface, which is created in the same way as the rest of the "standard" checklists using the checklist constructor. The checklist constructor allows you to create checklists of any complexity with different types of ratings (“Yes/No”, “Points on a scale”, “Value from the list”, “Numeric value”, etc.)

All collected information from NPS surveys and other “standard checks” of stores (which are performed by employees on their mobile devices) is automatically accumulated in a single database and immediately becomes available in reports to managers. The advantage of this approach when calculating NPS is that the survey results of each customer immediately fall into a single database and, accordingly, into reports, and the NPS index is recalculated in real time on the fly. While other methods of data collection require first to carry out the stage of collecting information, and then the stage of additional processing, before providing the final result on them.

Additional maintenance measuresNPS

In addition to systematic “working on yourself” through self-checks using electronic checklists on mobile devices, as described above, there are many additional ways that positively affect the level of NPS. This may be the introduction of standard discount loyalty programs with various discounts, bonuses, sales. Discount cards with a "cashback" function, when up to 5% of the purchase price is returned back to the card and can be used to cover the next purchase or even cashed out. Online stores, by analogy with cashback cards, can use the so-called. loyalty bonuses, accruing a percentage of the order value to the personal account of the user account, which can be spent on the next purchase. “Referral systems” are widely used, when a buyer who has made a purchase in an online store for the first time receives a personal referral code, which he distributes among other buyers as a discount code and encourages them to make a purchase, he receives bonuses to his account. It will not be superfluous to issue and distribute gift cards and certificates, as, for example, the companies Eldorado, Sportmaster, Letual do.

The so-called. "coalition programs", when companies cooperate, giving a discount on purchases from those who are part of the "coalition". For example, when buying a product, the buyer can receive a discount if he pays with the cards of the bank that serves the company from which the purchase is made. This is beneficial for all participants involved in the purchase process - both the bank and the company, together with the buyer, who ultimately receives his discount.

An important role is played by a competently built pricing policy using competitors' price monitoring services and the provision of discounts and special conditions to VIP clients. All of these methods also affect the NPS score.

Economic and emotional customer loyalty

The above methods of motivating and retaining customers, based on bonuses and discounts, undoubtedly work and encourage buyers to make repeat purchases. But do they actually make them loyal in the fullest sense of the word? If a company is only working on improving its bonus system and pricing policy, ignoring everything else or acting on a residual principle, then in this case loyalty is based only on economic factors in the form of acceptable favorable prices that the buyer is willing to pay for a product or service, or receiving additional preferences in the form of bonuses and discounts. If it is impossible to implement a bonus pricing policy to maintain economic loyalty during a crisis in the company itself or in the economy as a whole, the relationship between the company and the buyer, based solely on economic loyalty, can be easily destroyed and the client will go to competitors, or stop making purchases, waiting for the "difficult days" to pass. This is because, apart from relatively favorable prices, the buyer is no longer tied to the company.

It can be assumed that it is enough to bind a client to himself with some unique product that simply has nowhere else to purchase. However, as world practice shows, no matter how technically complex the product is, sooner or later the same Chinese will copy it, unless it is a rocket engine or a fifth-generation fighter.

You can emotionally (strongly) bind a client to yourself only by providing a high-quality service in which there is no room for error and where streamlined technological and business processes are combined in the right proportions, multiplied by the high competence of the company's employees who comply with the prescribed internal standards and rules from "A" to "I". All internal mechanisms of the company work "like clockwork" and gears are well lubricated and fitted to each other. All this together creates that very unique atmosphere of a “cool company”, in which the client feels as comfortable and “protected” as possible, and in which that very strong connection is established in the form of “emotional loyalty”.

A vivid example of the formation of emotional loyalty is the American shoe company Zappos, whose employees, wanting to please their customers as much as possible, could consult on the phone for 5 hours without a break for a hesitant buyer who could not decide which shoes suit him. In his book Delivering Happiness, Zappos founder Tony Shay recounted how, as a joke, he called his company's support service and, in a drunken altered voice, tried to find out where he could order pizza. Within five minutes, he had contacts for several nearby pizzerias. No less informative in terms of the formation of emotional loyalty is the story of the formation of Carl Sewell's car dealership, described by him in the famous bestseller "Customers for Life".

Criticism of the effectiveness of the indicatorNPS

Despite the simplicity and effectiveness of the NPS index, there are a number of weighty arguments aimed at criticizing this metric. It has already been mentioned above about the need to divide loyalty into economic (weak) and emotional (strong). The indicator is also often criticized for linking loyalty only to probable desire recommend but not firm intention make a specific action (purchase), repeat purchase or make a repeat visit to the point of sale. The very form of posing the question, when the buyer is asked to evaluate probability,"Psychologically" relieves him of further responsibility for the seriousness of his intentions. At the same time, important facts from the company’s point of view, such as the presence / absence of purchases from competitors, the presence / absence of criticism of the company or product, “turning a blind eye” to minor flaws and shortcomings in work, etc. are not taken into account. The buyer may be an ardent supporter (promoter) of a company or product, but this does not mean at all that he has never bought anything (and will not buy anything in the future) from competitors, or that he cannot criticize the work of the company (product quality) at the same time. In addition, one must take into account the factor that a person by nature is a poor predictor of his own future, and what he promises now (I will or will not recommend) does not mean at all that after some time factors that cause him to change his decision or opinion. As the saying goes, "man proposes, but God disposes."

It should be noted that loyalty and satisfaction buyers are not always directly proportionally interconnected and often do not go, as they say "nostril to nostril". Although, it would seem, the more satisfied the client, the more loyal he is and vice versa. It is clear that a dissatisfied customer is unlikely to be loyal, however, there are situations when a satisfied customer will not be loyal within the framework of the NPS methodology. For example, when buying a new car of a brand, 90% of buyers are quite satisfied with their purchase, but according to statistics, only 40% of them will show loyalty and re-buy the same car model. Therefore, customer satisfaction and loyalty in some cases should be considered separately.

A lot of important information is lost if you ask the buyer only one “main question”, and this clarifying information is also extremely important for the systematic work on improving the level of customer loyalty, because how else can you find out what exactly the consumer is dissatisfied with if he rated 9 points? Why not 10? Why was one point deducted? That is why the standard NPS survey should be expanded with a number of additional clarifying questions in order to get to the root of the problems. In addition, when conducting surveys, it is necessary to ensure the maximum “sparseness” of respondents (“fans” and ordinary buyers) and sometimes take into account additional factors that can distort real estimates. For example, the start of sales of a new model of a popular smartphone generates a temporary rush demand, fueled by which the most devoted “fans”, who are ready to rate “11 out of 10” without looking, sweep away everything that is from the shelves of company stores with a hurricane. But after some time, when the raised hype and "hype" subsides, and buyers with a "sober view of the world" come to the store, "real" reviews and points will come from them in surveys.

Additionally, it is worth considering the factor of when exactly the review is taken, because the positive from interacting with the company tends to naturally decline over time. In some cases, even the onset of disappointment or indifference in the client is possible, which ultimately directly affects the calculated loyalty indicator. For example, a review from a buyer who purchases something from a company for the first time is taken in the store immediately after buying a new monitor. If everything went smoothly, a polite consultant, an attractive democratic price, a discount, no broken pixels on the monitor display during testing, and a satisfied customer, being under the influence of positive emotions in anticipation of the joy of owning a new thing, puts the company at the exit of the store with a score of 10 points. After a week of operation, it suddenly turns out that there are "lights" at the corners of the monitor, which are visible only in complete darkness from a certain angle of view, which is a manufacturer's defect. There is no fault of the company that sold this product in this, and it is ready to fully fulfill its warranty obligations up to the return of money, but the buyer will be clearly disappointed, because the product was sold to him in the company's store (they are to blame, not the manufacturer!) and he will at least have to spend time returning the product, waiting for it to be repaired or replaced, or even looking for another monitor again. And if at that moment the buyer gets a call from the call center for a survey for NPS analysis, the buyer’s assessment under the influence of negative emotions may turn out to be completely different than the 10 points that he gave immediately after buying in the store a week ago. Although the store in terms of sales and work with the client worked as clearly as possible, deserving the initially set 10 points. It should be noted that the buyer's assessment may change again if the company went to meet him halfway and solved his problem with defective goods as painlessly as possible. As we can see, the timing of collecting feedback in some cases can make significant adjustments to the estimates.

Some experts rightly point to the existing "distortions" in the logic of dividing buyers into unequal groups, because even within the same group of “critics”, the loyalty of a buyer who has given 0 points can differ significantly from the loyalty of a buyer who has given 6 points. The NPS formula prescribes to completely "throw overboard" neutrals, thereby losing very valuable information. There are studies indicating that a customer who scores 6 and is not inclined to recommend a company and buy something from it "offline" is highly likely to make a purchase from the same company on the website "online". For example, a company has stores that are inconveniently located for a particular customer in terms of transport accessibility, or in which the work of employees is poorly organized and queues are observed even with a small crowd of people. But with all this, a very convenient order from the site is organized and there is a fast delivery of goods to your home. The company's website is well-designed, has a beautiful functional design, the search for goods has been successfully implemented, painstaking work has been carried out to improve the usability. A “critic”, who once “burned himself” buying goods offline (in a store), but “tasted” orders through the site, receiving goods by courier delivery, easily turns into a “promoter” online. Therefore, the NPS index often has to be calculated for each “touchpoint” of the client company separately, which will be discussed in the next subsection of this article, which describes “advanced techniques”.

The NPS metric may not be suitable for everyone, because. there are companies or even entire industries on the market in which buyers do not have the desire to recommend the company or its products to everyone, even if they are one hundred percent "promoters" in body and soul. For example, it is unlikely that a normal person would recommend toilet paper to all his acquaintances and friends, based on his daily pleasant tactile sensations after going to the toilet. However, following the algorithm for calculating NPS, it must be written in "neutrals". For this reason, a low index does not mean that a company has serious problems with customer loyalty if it brings a specific product to the market or operates in an industry where people do not tend to make recommendations.

Advanced techniques for using and enhancingNPS

Taking into account the above criticism about some "one-sidedness" of the NPS indicator, many companies perform calculations for different "points of contact" with the client, resulting in the final total NPS rating, which is formed from the calculation of separately collected indicators, each of which may have a certain "weight coefficient ", for example:

• The customer has just made a purchase at the point of sale
• The buyer revisited the company's point of sale
• The buyer continues to use the product after the specified period
• The buyer has contacted the technical support service
• The buyer went to the company's website
• The buyer made a purchase on the site
• The buyer left his feedback on the Internet or in the book of complaints and suggestions, etc.

Above, we have already mentioned that in addition to the main question, you should ask an additional “clarifying” question “Why did you give this particular rating? Please answer in as much detail as possible and preferably give an example. Or, depending on the scores, "What did you especially like ..." or "What needs to be improved ...". Using additional clarifying questions will allow you to collect more useful information about the client and his attitude towards the company, and the client will be forced to take his evaluation of the company's work more seriously. Some experts recommend expanding the survey to 5 or even 8 additional questions.

The NPS survey can be applied not only to the company's clients, but also to its own employees, who are asked the question "What is the probability that you will recommend a job in our company to your acquaintances and friends?" In addition, questions are asked clarifying what exactly attracts or repels employees in the company (the level of salary, the atmosphere in the team, adequate management, work space, etc.) This question will allow you to assess the loyalty of your own employees in relation to the company, the level of loyalty to which in some cases, it can be an unpleasant surprise for managers. Also, the survey can be conducted among the partners of the company, who are asked the question "What is the probability that you will recommend cooperation with our company to your business partners?".

As a measurement of loyalty, many companies use not only NPS, but also a number of other metrics - ASCI (American Customer Satisfaction Index), CES (Consumer Effort Evaluation), CXi (Consumer Experience Index), CSat (Customer Satisfaction), RAPid, and, on in our opinion, the most interesting one is WoMI. WoMI (Word of Mouth Index) - the word of mouth index is a refinement of the NPS methodology. The authors of WoMI argue that the NPS index artificially inflates the number of "critics" who are ready to actually discourage other people from buying from a company or its products. The WoMI metric proposes to adjust the number of real “critics” by adding an additional question to the NPS survey “How likely is it that you will dissuade your acquaintances and friends from shopping in our company? The creators of this technique believe that this will identify "fake critics" who fell into the category 0-6 on the standard NPS question, but also responded with low scores on the WoMI survey (0-6), in fact refusing to dissuade other people from cooperating with company. Thus, the WoMI index adds another category of buyers who are intermediate between "critics" and "neutrals", not recommending a company or product, but also not discouraging others from interacting with a company or product.

Some companies, not being able to obtain statistics on the level of NPS from competitors in the "open access", independently calculate these indicators among their customers, adding to the NPS survey to the main question a tricky question about the competitor's company - "What is the probability that you would prefer a purchase in our company buying from another company? If the respondents on this question give a score of 9-10 points, it doesn’t matter if they are “critics”, “neutrals” or “promoters”, an additional clarifying question is asked in order to find out which competitor is in question. The statistics collected in such a simple way allows you to roughly “estimate” the NPS rating of the closest competitors.

In addition to using various customer loyalty research metrics and introducing various bonus systems, which we have already mentioned above, another additional “advanced technique” for increasing NPS is the widespread use of innovative software products and services that have recently been massively created not only abroad, but and in our country. We will dwell on this in more detail.

In addition to scheduled NPS surveys, which collect data using mobile devices, phone calls and email, companies can use systems to analyze “natural feedback” from the Internet. Natural reviews come from the buyers themselves on their own initiative, they can be both sharply negative and extremely positive. Review analysis systems collect information on an ongoing basis from aggregator sites for goods and services (Yandex Market, price.ru), social networks, blogs, forums, video content sites for reviews or references to a particular company or product. The collected information is combined into a single whole, giving an “information squeeze” at the output, which shows the “reputational weight” of the company and can be automatically interpreted using machine learning algorithms, including as part of the Net Promoter Score calculation. At the same time, especially "advanced" systems allow you to determine who left this or that review, a real person or a "paid bot", which operates as part of an unleashed campaign to denigrate a competitor. Thus, "bots" can be thrown out of the NPS calculation, and at the same time, the company will additionally receive a signal about an information attack being carried out against it through "stuffing". Having received up-to-date information about potential threats and reputational risks, the company can respond in a timely manner and take measures to prevent a drop in the level of customer loyalty and maintain its NPS level.

Other software products include "intelligent assistants" - artificial intelligence programs that can conduct rather complex dialogues with a company website visitor around the clock, in the absence of a human consultant. These can be various recommender systems that make useful tips and recommendations to the buyer during the purchase. It can also be quality control systems for the company’s work, like our cloud service RITEILIKA, in which, with the help of systematic self-checks on electronic checklists, it is possible to qualitatively improve compliance with the company’s standards and positively influence the building of effective processes of interaction between the company and the client.

If a company has an industry average NPS rating, then the higher it tries to raise and maintain it, the more effort it will have to spend. And this means that in the arsenal of such a company should be all possible tools to achieve this goal.

Who actively uses the loyalty indexNPS and why

Net Promoter Score is widely used by many companies around the world, from small start-ups to huge multinational corporations. ease of calculation, fast data collection speed, direct correlation with income and comparability with major industry players are the main advantages of this method. All these advantages make it possible to widely use this metric as one of the assessments of a company's movement in the right direction. Based on this metric, important management decisions are often made, KPIs are calculated, entire areas are opened or closed, bonuses are paid or “cut off”.

Many companies use the metric because NPS tracking will allow you to quickly identify imbalances and “skews” in the company-client relationship. And the high level of competition, when in Western markets the client has a huge choice of where to leave his money, and the ever-increasing cost of attracting a new client, lead to the fact that a quick reaction to abnormal fluctuations in this indicator to a lower side can not only “level the situation ”, but also in some cases to return the business back from the “point of no return”. A company's current earnings can be a universal indicator of its overall "success" in the market, but this indicator can be a poor indicator of future growth, especially when the NPS index has plummeted for any reason. In the modern world, taking into account the almost complete accessibility of the Internet to the population, information is spreading rapidly and any “blunders” in customer relations by well-known companies can lead to grandiose scandals that, savoring and replicating in the yellow press and various Internet tabloids, bring significant financial and reputational losses.

Among Western companies, NPS is used almost everywhere, in Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Zappos, Dell, Walmart, Procter & Gamble, Sony, Costco and tens of thousands of other lesser-known companies, becoming in a certain way a kind of “de facto standard”. Amazon, for example, has an NPS of about 70, while Apple has 72, Costco has 77, while USAA, a financial and investment company little known in Russia, has an indicator of 87.

In the Russian market, the method of calculating the customer loyalty index has also been successfully adopted and is used by many well-known companies operating in the field of retail, insurance, telecommunications, banking services, restaurant and hotel business, air and rail transportation. Among them are MTS, MegaFon, Beeline, Ingosstrakh, Rosgosstrakh, Alfa-Bank, Aeroflot, etc.

The history of the creation of the techniqueNetpromoterScore

This technique was developed by American marketer Frederick F. Reichheld, who is the author of the bestseller The Ultimate Question. Fred Reicheld is widely known in the business world for his innovative approach to customer loyalty. The methodology for calculating the net support index under his authorship was first published in 2003 on the pages of the Harvard Business Review. With the goal of identifying which metrics had the most impact on customer loyalty, Reicheld processed and analyzed a gigantic amount of collected data from over four hundred companies, concluding that the most strongly associated with loyalty was the willingness of customers to recommend a company or product to their friends and relatives. and acquaintances.

For the first time, twelve years ago, customer loyalty index(NPS, Net Promoter Score) described by Frederic Reichheld in the Harvard Business Review.

The method itself is simple - the company asks customers to answer just one question: "What is the probability that you will recommend us to friends and colleagues?" on a 10-point scale. The answer "0" means "in no case", "10 points" - "definitely recommend". Based on the ratings received, consumers are divided into three groups: 9-10 points are supporters, 7-8 points are those who do not care, and 0-6 points are critics. All shares are calculated as a percentage.

The customer loyalty index is the difference between the shares of supporters and critics. Sometimes NPS can even be negative. In the West, they are used to measuring NPS. Whoever has more is better at satisfying customers. Those who have less clearly do not want to work on themselves.

• Customer Loyalty Program: Examples and Tips for Business

The client is authorized to declare

Zappos, an online clothing, footwear and accessories retailer that was bought by Amazon six years ago, knows how to listen to the consumer like no other. One day, an employee of his was answering questions from a client for five hours straight. He could not decide whether the shoes fit him or not, or whether it is better to take moccasins, although sneakers look prettier. In any Russian store, they will hang up after 10 minutes of such doubts. But at Zappos, every customer is valued, even if they're boring, and they never record the average call time.

In Microsoft - the same story: everything for the client. In the company, a whole department is engaged in feedback with the audience. More than 300 specialists in different representative offices around the world ask consumers if they are ready to recommend the product line to their friends, and then, based on the answers, calculate the customer loyalty index - NPS. In the West, this indicator is like a barometer: it determines the KPI of the entire corporation and the salary of employees depends on NPS.

Advantages and disadvantages of calculating the customer loyalty index

The main advantage of the customer loyalty index is simplicity and accessibility for any company. All questions asked to clients are precise and specific. To answer them, buyers do not need much time. But, despite its simplicity, this method is very informative, because it allows you to find out exactly whether customers are satisfied with your work.

Marketing experts believe that the method has a drawback. It lies in one-sidedness, since in the course of the study information is obtained from supporters and critics. At the same time, the vast majority of buyers are not included in either the first or the second group.

Determining the customer loyalty index allows you to objectively evaluate business performance. According to experts, when developing a marketing campaign and making important decisions in the management of a company, one should rely not only on this method, but also on the results of larger-scale and in-depth studies.

At the same time, loyalty indicators should be calculated regularly, with a certain frequency. This allows you to learn about changes in the attitude of customers towards the brand and, if necessary, urgently make the right management decisions.

Which companies regularly use the customer loyalty index

Companies around the world use the NPS (Net Promoter Score) index. These are both small start-ups and transnational corporations. The reasons for such widespread use of NPS are simple - simple calculations, rapid collection of information, direct correlation with income and comparability with competitors in the field of activity. All this makes the technique easy to use. Based on the calculations, it is convenient to conclude in which direction the company is moving, make important management decisions, calculate KPIs, open or close entire areas, pay or cut bonuses to employees.

Almost all large companies use NPS in their work: Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Zappos, Dell, Walmart, Procter & Gamble, Sony, Costco and others. In some ways, the NPS has become a kind of "de facto standard". Amazon's NPS is approximately 70, Apple's is 72, Costco's is 77, and USAA's little-known financial and investment company in Russia is 87.

Russian companies operating in the retail, insurance, telecommunications, banking, restaurant and hotel business, air and railway transportation industries are also actively using the index. Among them are MTS, MegaFon, Beeline, Ingosstrakh, Rosgosstrakh, Alfa-Bank, Aeroflot, etc.

What exactly will give you a customer loyalty index

1. Stable development and customer retention

The results of extensive research have shown that NPS is one of the main indicators of growth. If this indicator outperforms competitors, then your company owns the most significant market share.

Research by Gartmer has shown that 65% of startups already have an established customer base. It costs five times more to acquire new customers than it does to retain old ones. Thanks to the loyalty index, it is possible to objectively assess how satisfied customers are with the work of the company and how many customers remain with it after the first interaction.

The Loyalty Index score can be used as a development method to turn a company's current growth into sustainable growth.

2. Sales management

Based on the NPS indicator, decisions can be made regarding the company's products themselves.

The Loyalty Index allows you to set the right priorities based on customer needs. It is easier to receive feedback, thanks to which the order of sales of goods is quickly changed.

3. Marketing

Based on Verizon research, 85% of new customers discover a brand through word of mouth. If your NPS is high, you won't have to spend a lot on advertising and marketing campaigns. Clients will come by themselves.

With the help of NPS, marketers can measure the mood and opinions of customers, and then give feedback to the entire staff of the company. This ensures the coordinated work of all departments of the company in achieving a common goal - customer satisfaction.

If you use the customer loyalty index together with analytical tools, you can predict how customers will behave, that is, create so-called behavioral patterns.

4. Personnel capacity management

NPS allows you to measure how satisfied your employees are with their work. This is especially true for businesses operating in the service sector.

The customer loyalty index can be used to choose a new vector of corporate culture. This indicator also allows you to find out what the staff thinks about the new corporate policy.

5. General KPIs and reporting

NPS scores can be used as the only customer satisfaction metric. To do this, you need to regularly calculate the loyalty index and keep quarterly reports. This will allow you to get meaningful insights and build long-term business development plans.

If you correlate NPS with financial statements, you can evaluate how the company is developing. For example, with an increase in profits and a decrease in NPS, it is worth worrying about the long-term development prospects.

How to survey customers to calculate NPS

Many companies install tablets in service offices and points of sale so that customers can evaluate the quality of work. At the same time, companies receive NPS (customer loyalty index). Calculation examples are different. For surveys, special applications are often used that show answer options on the screen of a mobile device and store information on customer ratings. A tablet with a running application is installed on special stands with a holder that protects the device from theft.

Banks and insurance companies put cards with multi-colored "smileys" on customer service counters. If the client is completely satisfied with the service, then he takes a green card. The yellow color of the emoticon means a neutral attitude towards the service, the red one means dissatisfaction with the quality of work. At the exit, customers are offered to put their cards in a special box.

To obtain a loyalty index, online stores use special plugins if the resource engine is some common “boxed” CMS, or if the company’s full-time specialists are refining it. Some resort to the services of third-party web services that offer to install an NPS counter on the company's website. Thanks to this counter, it is convenient to conduct surveys and receive reports on their results.

Self-collection of reviews has certain disadvantages. With this way of obtaining information, it is possible to design the survey form incorrectly and implement it as an intrusive pop-under banner that pops up when entering the site. Such tools annoy users, and many mistake them for advertising. That is why they unconsciously try to brush off unnecessary information, often without even delving into the essence.

You can collect customer opinions through phone calls, e-mail newsletters and SMS if you have a contact database. Customers are usually called by call center operators some time after the sale of a product or the provision of a service. They also use systems of pre-recorded IVR (Interactive Voice Response) voice messages that communicate with customers without the participation of an operator. Such methods are often used by large online stores and mobile operators, who have the contact information of their customers.

The disadvantage of receiving information through phone calls or emails is that a negative customer can simply refuse to participate in the survey after receiving the questionnaire by e-mail or hang up the call because they feel bad for the brand. As a result, he will not express his opinion and will not become a respondent. At the same time, even if we are talking about a supporter of the brand, he can also ignore the information if the letter accidentally ends up in the spam folder in his mail. That is, the results of the survey are largely affected by technical problems and incorrect information.

Many organizations use not only the methods listed above, but also further expand the functionality of their CRM systems in order to successfully solve tasks such as collecting information and calculating the customer loyalty index. But here it is worth emphasizing that not all “boxed” CRM systems can be finalized in this way without the help of third-party key developers.

How to interpret the customer loyalty index

The NPS indicator shows how customers relate to the company, what kind of reputation it has in the eyes of the audience. When calculating the loyalty index, firms want to know if everything is in order, what needs to be worked on. In the NPS methodology, there is a general rule according to which the indicator should not be negative.

If the result of the calculations is positive, then there are still more supporters than critics. Accordingly, expanding the audience, companies should work primarily on loyalty so that satisfied customers bring new people with them.

If the result is zero or negative, then there are more critics than supporters. Consequently, there are no prerequisites for expanding the audience, and an outflow of buyers due to the company's low rating is not ruled out.

How to understand that your NPS (customer loyalty criterion) is satisfactory

It is impossible to objectively assess the position of a business on the basis of indicators alone. It is necessary to consider what place the company occupies in its field. For example, a large store may have a customer loyalty index of 30, while occupying the lowest line in the rating among competitors. However, a telecommunications company can have an index of 32 and be the industry leader.

What determines the criteria for assessing the customer loyalty index? How do you know if you have a positive NPS? Let's consider three factors influencing the criteria for assessing the customer loyalty index.

Level of competition

The main factor is the number of competitors in the business and the uniqueness of your selling proposition. If you're in the banking, insurance, or healthcare industries, the average is the norm. However, if there are not so many competitors in your segment (for example, you produce wireless headphones or electric cars), the index should be quite high. This will indicate the uniqueness of your offer and the positive perception of the brand by consumers.

From the figure below, you can learn about the optimal NPS indicators for various business industries.

Tolerance

Another factor on which the NPS evaluation criteria depend is customer tolerance. This is due to the fact that consumers are very categorical about the quality of works or services that they regularly use.

Let's give an example that will allow you to more accurately understand how customer tolerance affects NPS. The Vid company has an indicator of 38. At first glance, the figure is average. At the same time, the company is one of the market leaders. The indicators of its competitors, firms A and B, are 15 and 22. The low index of the Vid company is not due to the low quality of work. This means that it operates in a highly competitive industry, where customers are open to even minor gaps in service.

barriers

As a rule, in order to improve an already purchased product or switch to the services of another company, the client must incur certain financial costs. In order to appear consistent in decisions, the consumer often stays loyal to the same brand.

SaaS companies encounter these kinds of problems on a regular basis. According to the conditions, a person must first deposit a certain amount and only then become a full-fledged client. Because of this, it is difficult for organizations working in this field to retain customers and maintain their loyalty. That is why the customer loyalty index of SaaS enterprises is below average.

What is a good NPS score?

It is impossible to give an exact number. It all depends on the area of ​​your activity. However, the questions below can give you an idea of ​​how high your score is.

1. Does my NPS outperform my direct competitors? If so, the company is doing well. But, to talk about the success of the business, this is not enough.
2. Is my NPS increasing? If after 3-6 months NPS increases, this is a good trend.
3. Is my NPS above zero? If it is -40 and exceeds the rate of competitors, you should not jump to conclusions. Such a figure directly indicates the dissatisfaction of your customers.

It should be understood that NPS is not measured literally. Many companies are overly concerned with growth performance and try to improve it in every possible way. At the same time, the customer loyalty index is not a quantitative metric. Rather, it is a qualitative indicator that allows you to objectively assess the state of the business.

NPS aims to be the new standard for measuring customer loyalty, but its simplicity is constantly criticized. According to some experts, NPS cannot give a clear picture of the degree of customer satisfaction. Experts believe that firms with the same NPS may have a different number of supporters, clients with a neutral position, and critics. In this regard, businessmen should pay attention not to the numbers, but to what the indicator indicates.

How to increase customer loyalty index

How to Reach Out to Critics

About 70% of consumers will again agree to cooperate with the company if it resolves the controversial situation in their favor and eliminates the unpleasant aftertaste. With dissatisfied customers, you need to maintain feedback, that is, establish trusting relationships and demonstrate your interest in cooperation. Many companies make the mistake of thinking that critics can't turn into customers.

Here are some ways to solve consumer problems:

• Providing a free manual on the use of products - for this, a download button is installed on the site.
• Extend your free trial and unlock additional features.
• An offer to use the services of third-party companies that can provide support to your customers (even if these companies are not associated with your products).

If you actively try to solve people's problems, it is likely that critics will turn into supporters who will gladly talk about the actions you have taken to increase their loyalty (for example, if you have changed the products in some way).

How to reach neutrals

Brand-neutral customers are quite an interesting group. They don't like your product, but they don't feel negative about it either. It may seem that they are waiting for something good or bad in order to finally decide. Clients of the neutral group, as a rule, do not give any feedback and do not get in touch. That is why it is quite difficult to work with them. It was possible to determine that only 37% of consumers from the neutral segment are ready for feedback.

At first glance, neutrals cannot harm the company's reputation. But this opinion is wrong. There are almost as many clients of this segment as critics and supporters. At the same time, critics act decisively, and neutrals are in search of the best opportunities for themselves. They are able to stay near the brand for a long time, but if they are not involved, their number will increase.

Here are some steps you can take to get feedback from neutrals:

1. Offer them discounts or improve the quality of service. Neutrals can be re-engaged provided they receive exclusive discounts and improve the quality of service.
2. Make an e-mail newsletter, pointing to updates in the assortment. Probably, the clients of the neutral group were not interested in the product, since the first impression was negative. They had no desire to visit your site again and get acquainted with the new products. Regular mailing of notifications about innovations and new features will increase the loyalty of neutrals.

How to thank the "promoters"»

"Promoters" is the segment that generates the most revenue. However, many businesses do wrong when they ignore their presence, taking it for granted. That is, the companies do not express gratitude enough or not at all to supporters. At the same time, they do not seek to find out the opinion of "promoters" about the quality of service, what exactly they like about the brand, and rely on this information in further development. Companies that pay due attention to supporters and thank them for their feedback set the stage for further cooperation and increase their income.

You can get feedback from "promoters" if:

How to reach unanswered

Let's omit the three categories of clients - "promoters", neutrals and critics, and consider another segment, the most numerous. These are the people who did not take part in the survey. Considering that 60% of respondents participate in the customer loyalty survey, it can be estimated that at least 40% of customers will not respond. That is, those who ignored the survey, even more than the critics and neutrals.

In practice, it is easier to re-engage a critic than a client who has not responded. There is only one way to attract such a consumer - to contact him. The NPS score is independent of people who didn't complete the survey. However, they can negatively affect the further development and income of the enterprise.

Why is the customer loyalty index negative?

Companies with high NPS:

• produce reliable products;
• offer a decent level of service;
• provide unique offers.

But now we will consider the "leaders" in terms of customer churn. It will be interesting to compare the mistakes of companies and understand why customers turn away from them.

Complex billing

At the forefront of Apple's advertising campaigns is the brand. Perhaps that is why the company became the leader in the loyalty rating in 2013. Apple's score is 65 for the iPad, 70 for the iPhone and 76 for the laptop line. The outsider was McAfee with an NPS of 2 points. Other antivirus programs, such as Kaspersky Lab, had a fairly high customer loyalty index.

Based on the McAfee result, you can judge the quality of customer service, and not the overall picture. User complaints about McAfee are identical to complaints about brands with a low level of loyalty. For the past six years, customers have been complaining about the automatic debiting of funds from bank cards. It's not certain that McAfee is doing the same, but often companies with a low customer loyalty index are behind the scenes billing and aggressive sales.

Brands with low NPS often practice "cancellation billing" - automatic cancellation of a subscription before the fact of refusal. After the conclusion of the contract, the consumer automatically receives invoices until he himself refuses the product or service.

"Rejection billing" is not such a bad move. Well-known world companies resort to it. For example, Netflix with a high customer loyalty index offers a free demo version, which automatically converts to a paid subscription. But, as a rule, brands with good loyalty indicators do not create additional inconvenience for users. In the case of them, it is clear at what time and in what order the invoice is issued. Brands with a low rating, on the contrary, do not conduct a direct dialogue with the client. Their billing is incomprehensible and opaque.

If recurring charges, such as a monthly subscription, are one of the conditions for the existence of your business, take care of transparency of payments. If billing is confusing and aggressive, customers will leave you.

Weak customer support

Companies with low NPS don't serve their customers well enough. In Temkin Group's 2015 NPS Benchmark, Comcast TV received the lowest score. The company's customer loyalty index was -17. In the US Senate, where plans to improve the brand's image were discussed, Comcast TV's poor support was said. This is not to say that the company has poor service. But it can certainly be called disrespectful. The staff was aimed at support as cold sales. Buyers wanted to get support and help, but did not receive. The company still retained some of its customers, but earned a bad reputation. Many users left and never returned.

Consumer sentiment

In 2007, most consumers were satisfied with their banks. The average financial brand loyalty score was 30 points, which is not bad. But because of the global financial crisis, everything has changed, and people have changed their views dramatically. Initially, the customer loyalty index was 40, but within two years it dropped to 22. The NPS of credit card providers fell to 11 from 27.

Changes in industries did not occur so abruptly. However, due to general market trends, people's mood and attitudes have changed. Of course, a poor-quality product and poor service reduce the customer loyalty index. However, public opinion also plays an important role in the formation of NPS. If low-quality service is combined with market trends, the further outcome of the business is obvious, and it is almost impossible to influence this process.

After the crisis passed, customers again became satisfied with banking products. However, banking organizations involved in scandals failed to restore their positions. HSBC's NPS was -24 this year. Record-breaking poor service has caused many scandals, and it is because of this that the company was not able to regain its lost reputation.

User experience above all else

To successfully overcome market trends, it is enough to produce a good product and offer a quality service. A bad customer experience in a dubious market is a direct path to a low loyalty index.

It is not enough to offer the consumer what he wants and what he needs. A superior customer experience must be taken care of. In this respect, the McDonald's brand is not always successful. Despite his worldwide fame, his NPS in the US is only -8. You can compare the brand with its direct competitor - KFC. His loyalty index is also far from ideal, but still positive. And consumer-favorite American fast food chain Pizza Hut has an index of 78.

Brand Awareness

A good customer loyalty index is something that all companies should strive for. But if loyalty is not related to efficiency, it does not matter. Uber and Lyft are examples here. The functions of the brands are almost the same, and drivers often work for both firms. However, with obvious general parameters, the customer loyalty index for Uber is 37 points, and for Lyft - only 9. The reason is the geography of the companies. Uber gets more press coverage and covers a wider area than Lyft, which only operates in the US. The level of brand awareness among customers also affects loyalty.

Insurance in the USA is a developed industry. The country is highly competitive, and companies are seriously fighting for customers. Customer satisfaction with the quality of goods and services is a guarantee of high earnings for the company in the future. Businesses that bet on the short term sank in the NPS rankings. This is what happened to CIGNA, a life insurance brand. The customer loyalty index of this company today is 1. The company got involved in a scandal when it refused to recognize the disability of a client, and since 2009 it has been under state supervision.

Let's compare GIGNA with their competitor GoMedigap. The customer loyalty index of this enterprise is 93 points. Obviously, the problem is not in the area (as it was in the earlier example with banks), but in the fact that the brand refused to provide a previously advertised and even sold service.

Closing the Feedback Loop

United was named the worst carrier in the United States in 2014. The customer loyalty index was 10 points. In comparison with competitors, this situation can be called catastrophic. Southwest's NPS is 62, JetBlue's is 56, and Virgin America's is 48.

Over the years, passengers have complained about United's operations, including flight cancellations and delays, poor food quality, luggage delivery, and the condition of the planes. In 2012, the company accounted for 43% of complaints. The remaining 57% - on other US carriers. At the same time, United monitors NPS, like competitors. But why is the difference so significant?

Despite tracking the customer loyalty index, United ignores feedback or takes insufficient action in response. Effective feedback is very important. If a company interacts with customers, responds to comments and eliminates them, it has every chance to improve NPS and take a leadership position in the market.

8 Mistakes When Calculating the Customer Loyalty Index

The main mistake companies make when they do not measure the level of customer loyalty and satisfaction. In any case, it is necessary to determine how satisfied the audience is with the product and service, even if the company is small and has just started, it has a small audience, there is a verification ahead (tender, exhibition), and there is no time for NPS yet, and even if it has never heard of customer loyalty index. If you have extensive experience in customer service and have conducted surveys more than once, you still need to improve your skills and knowledge in order to quickly identify and resolve problems. If you are just starting out with NPS calculations, the information below will prevent you from making common mistakes.

Conducting a survey by employees working with clientsand

Do not entrust the survey to those employees whose material remuneration and motivation depend on the results of the survey. At first glance, everything is clear. However, companies often neglect this rule. As a result, the figures are distorted and the organization does not receive food for thought, does not know what to work on, how to improve cooperation with customers.

Why is this happening? Not all buyers are brave enough to express or write a true opinion. Agree, you have repeatedly answered the waiter that you liked the dish, although in reality everything was different. In addition, many employees put pressure on respondents and directly ask for a high score.

Do not segment the customer base for the survey

1. Why did they stop working with the brand.
2. Why do they continue to make purchases / use the services of the company.
3. Why didn't they use the mobile app?
4. Why did you place an order once and never contacted the service again?
5. Will they shop in the future.

Even if you're asking the same questions to current customers, do an NPS analysis by product and manager.

Interrogate all clients in a row

If feedback and receiving reviews are conducted regularly and after each purchase you send short e-mail messages to customers asking them to evaluate the quality of the service, then you are doing everything right. If you want to fully interview customers by phone, carefully select your respondents. The group of respondents should include, first of all, the most valuable respondents for you.

Do not call clients to get feedback

The number of respondents should not be less than 65%. Only this guarantees the reliability of the survey and an objective index of customer loyalty. Traditionally, the largest number of responses can be obtained by calling.

Choosing a phone as a survey medium is also worth making because it connects with brand critics. Often this segment of buyers does not get in touch with the company through other channels, does not follow links in e-mail messages.

Use a non-standard scale for evaluation or change it periodically

Remember, the rating scale should not change under any circumstances. The standard is from 0 to 10. In it, 0 means “I definitely won’t recommend”, and 10 means “I will recommend with a high degree of probability.” This is the scale used by most organizations. Other options, such as 1 to 10, 10 to 0, do not allow you to compare your results with other brands or know the exact NPS. The consumer may simply not understand what this or that assessment means.

Wrong wording of the main question

The correct wording of questions is very important so that consumers correctly understand them and give objective assessments.

Mistake in B2B: to get the opinion of one employee in the organization

If you provide services to legal entities, then, most likely, the issue of further cooperation is decided by several people in the organization. Dmitry Turusin, co-author of the book Do Something New, expressed his thoughts very well regarding the NPS survey for a PR agency. In his opinion, the positive attitude of the manager and marketing director is not yet a guarantee that the contract will be extended with you. You need to look, first of all, at the opinion of the LPR. You need to talk about the problems with loyal customer representatives and try to solve them.

Do not follow the indicator in dynamics

So, you have calculated your customer loyalty index. But don't stop there. Compare the scores first of all with your previous results. NPS in dynamics helps to predict at what pace the company will develop. In addition, you need to compare your result with the average NPS in the world.

The best option is to compare your customer loyalty index with the results of companies in your industry. This allows you to track the dynamics of changes in NPS, correct the situation in time by taking certain actions, and remember that the company's financial position can be seriously shaken if the index lags behind competitors.

Another recommendation is to use the customer loyalty index for its intended purpose. Do not draw graphs and reports that will be stored among unnecessary documents. Based on the index, create an action plan to retain a neutral category of users and critics in order to turn them into brand advocates. This is where it's very helpful to ask yourself, "What can be done to exceed customer expectations and address the issues that prevented them from giving us a high score?"

Frederick Reicheld is Director Emeritus of Bain & Company, based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, and founder of the Loyalty Study Method.

NPS was invented at the beginning of the 2000s, but in Russia the index is still not in great demand. We will tell you how the index is calculated and used in business, and about polar points of view on its effectiveness.

NPS is a mirror of customer loyalty and an indicator of a company's future growth. Literally from English, Net Promoter Score can be translated as "a general indicator of supporters", and a popular translation in Russian is the consumer loyalty index.

You can easily find a brief history of NPS: the metric was invented by Frederick Reicheld, who wrote about it in the Harvard Business Review, and then, together with Bain, began to introduce it into American companies. But before that, Reicheld explored the relationship of various questions you can ask a client to business growth rates among fourteen companies. Only after testing all the possible questions, he settled on one thing: are you ready to recommend the company?

Articles about NPS often miss the original reason and motivation that led Reichheld to consider this metric to be the main and only important one: a loyal customer is a company's freelance marketer. Customers who love the company may even leave it, but still recommend it to acquaintances, friends and colleagues. For this reason, the consumer loyalty index is directly related to the growth of the company.

The consumer loyalty index shows the company's growth prospects.

How to calculate NPS?

The consumer loyalty index shows how many supporters or promoters the company has - people who are ready to recommend the company to their surroundings. It is calculated based on the answers of the clients themselves - those who used the services, not potential buyers. The process is:

1. the company asks the question: “How likely are you to recommend us?”;
2. customers answer on a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 means I would never recommend you, and 10 means I will tell everyone how great you are;
3. segments are distributed according to the answers: those who answered from 0 to 6 (critics), 7–8 (neutrals), 9–10 (supporters or promoters);
4. calculate the percentage of each segment;
5. the percentage of critics is subtracted from the percentage of supporters - this is NPS.

You need to collect index data regularly, but not too often. Companies have different approaches to collection: once a month, once every six months, after each contact with the buyer.

A little more about segments:

• supporters - put 9-10 points of recommendation probability, these are loyal customers;
• neutrals - put 7-8 points, these are indifferent customers, they will not recommend;
• critics - put 0–6 points, these are customers who did not like contacting the company so much that they are ready to leave negative feedback.

The lowest score is -100 when the company has only critics, the highest is 100 when all the company's customers become its supporters. A good indicator is a figure above zero.

Example:
At the end of this article, we ask readers: Are you ready to recommend the article to your colleagues or acquaintances?
50% of readers give 9 or 10 points, 30% of readers give 7 or 8 points, 20% give from 0 to 6 points - the article seemed so bad to them.
Subtract: 50% - 20% = 30 - this is our NPS (and it's pretty good).

Opponents of the index (and supporters of their own metrics) write that one question cannot predict either company growth or loyalty itself. The creators of the index answered this in advance: use additional questions. Ask customers after the answer: what did you not like that caused such a high rating of our company.

“Are you ready to recommend us to your friends” is not the only possible question, and it should not be. It is convenient to use, but for effective research it is worth asking one or two clarifying questions. For example, at the end of an article, we could ask critics: what was superfluous in the article? what was missing from the article?

Net Promoter system, customer focus, bad and good profit

What you read in the previous part of the article is the past of the index, because over time it has grown from one question to the system. This is often forgotten to be told and NPS is left with "glory" just numbers, one of many in the company's annual report. A misunderstanding of the tool usually gives rise to disappointment after the introduction of the metric in the company: "we tried - no effect."

Net Promoter System is a customer-centric business strategy centered on measuring customer loyalty using the NPS index.

The introduction of the system requires a reorganization of the business, because at every level of the company, from managers to executives, the goal must be to create a positive customer experience and establish long-term and strong relationships with customers. And it sounds abstract enough to be difficult when introduced into a real business, where the seller's goal is to put the squeeze on by any means, the operator's goal is to endure the shift, and the marketer's goal is to pass a beautiful report.

But as idealistic as the goal of the system may sound, it works in Fortune 500 companies.

One of the key details of the Net Promoter system is the relationship between customer ratings and employee actions, or "feedback closure", which provides real work instead of a meaningless index calculation. The company collects customer ratings, analyzes, communicates with critical customers and gives feedback to employees - so they find out which client should have been treated differently, and in general understand the responsibility for each contact with customers.

There are two types of profit in the system: good and bad. Good profits are made by actions that earn the trust of buyers, bad profits are made at the expense of trust and future relationships. For example, you can sell stale goods at a discount and upset buyers with stale products - this is a bad profit, although it will allow you to get a short-term profit.

Application of NPS

You can also find specific NPS numbers for various business sectors and companies. For example, there are NPS benchmarks (paid access) for various industries from Satmetrix, a software developer for measuring the index. And here are benchmarks from Npsbenchmarks (free access).

But benchmarks are good, but understanding your business is better. How to understand what NPS is good or sufficient?

Mike Gowan, co-owner of Delighted writes:

• score from -100 to 0: most people have a negative experience with your company and advise others to never contact you;
• 1–30: Normal score, but room for improvement
• 31–50: This is where the majority is. Companies from this layer care about the customer experience and most often make it memorable;
• 50-70: These companies care even more about customer service, and they are among the most loved by customers;
• 71–100: The holy grail is an almost unattainable ideal reserved for the best companies in the world.

Another way to understand if the NPS index is high enough is to answer questions like these:

• Is your NPS higher than your competitors?
• Is it above zero?
• Is your score growing?

If you answer "yes" to all three questions, that's good. But that doesn't mean you can stop trying. The Net Promoter system has no end goal other than continuous improvement.

We have released a new book, "Social Media Content Marketing: How to get into the head of subscribers and make them fall in love with your brand."

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The customer loyalty index (NPS) is an easy-to-calculate metric that determines the degree of customer loyalty to the company in general, to a product or service in particular. Here, commitment refers to a person's willingness to recommend a service they like to friends and acquaintances, as well as the willingness to make a repeat purchase.

What does NPS measure?

It is believed that this indicator is in a statistical relationship with income: the higher it is, the faster the company develops economically. This is determined from many parameters, but the main result consists of the following criteria:

1. The likelihood that a person will apply for repeated services again.
2. The degree of positive attitude of the buyer to an unplanned or more expensive purchase at the time of paying for the current one (this can be accessories, insurance, etc.).
3. Reviews on the company website or third-party forums.
4. Service recommendation to friends and acquaintances.

According to many domestic and foreign experts, the loyalty index is one of the best tools that can be used to find out how well (or positively) potential customers relate to the proposed product. The results of the study help to evaluate and understand how to improve the quality of service and, accordingly, the degree of customer loyalty.

If insufficient efforts are made in this regard, complications in activities are possible. In particular, the amount of income is reduced, equal to the entire volume of purchases made for a certain period, and the LTV indicator is also falling (that is, the amount that one person brings to the organization is reduced). Other negatives include:

• The inability to create a portrait of the average client.
• Lack of interest and demand for a new product.
• An increase in the "dump" indicator, that is, a temporary or permanent loss of customers (they refused the service, went to competitors, etc.).

Ultimately, a low NPS loyalty index negatively affects sales and overall profit. To correct the situation, it is necessary: ​​firstly, to regularly (preferably every month) conduct research, and secondly, to analyze the information received and, on its basis, build a further trade policy.

What allows you to measure NPS

You can make appropriate measurements of indicators using a customer survey. To do this, you need to send them an e-mail or a mobile phone number with a request to rate the level of service on a ten-point scale, as well as the likelihood that a person will recommend the organization's services to friends and acquaintances. In addition, you should ask for recommendations or advice on how you can improve the service.

You can conduct a survey not only by email or via SMS. For these purposes, it is recommended to use calls to numbers from the collected database, make a special form on a web resource, create a survey on official pages on social networks, etc. In order to obtain as much information as possible, it is also necessary to interview partners through whose networks the goods are sold.

How NPS is calculated

To make the calculation, you need to create several groups and distribute the surveyed customers among them based on the ratings obtained. The first category should include those who were dissatisfied. Typically, such buyers give a low score: from zero to six (if a ten-point rating system is used). Such people will not recommend the service to others and may not re-apply.

The second category is passive buyers. The average score here is 8 units out of 10 possible. As a rule, they are satisfied with the service, but will not talk about the company and recommend it. This is due to the lack of interest. The third group includes permanent supporters - these are those who regularly use the services and give high marks.

The calculation of the customer loyalty index is made according to the formula: "Number of supporters/total number of respondents", "Number of dissatisfied/total number of respondents". For example, the survey was conducted among one hundred respondents. At the same time, five people were in the range from 0 to 6 points, thirty - from 7 to 8, the remaining sixty-five - from 9 to 10 points. Therefore, the calculation of the shares in each group will be 5, 30 and 65%, respectively.

Organizations with a low index cannot develop and increase the turnover of goods. Consequently, they cannot compete and will suffer losses. The average value - from 30 to 45% - indicates that the company is developing and can fight for a market leader. To do this, it is necessary to analyze the shortcomings and correct them, increasing the NPS customer satisfaction score. From 50% or more - this is the market leader, which the consumer will contact on an ongoing basis.
However, despite the high positions, it is necessary to constantly calculate and try to increase the indicators for further growth.

Naturally, this is the maximum average scheme, which cannot be used in practice. In reality, many factors should be taken into account - both general and individual for each industry.

Techniques for measuring and increasing the consumer loyalty index

Considering that in each area of ​​business “good” statistics look different (in insurance - 30%, online store - 20%, consulting - 40%, etc.), most companies use different techniques and methods of communication with target audience, receiving an overall assessment based on individual indicators. Among such methods for measuring the NPS consumer loyalty index, one can note when a person:

1. Made a purchase at a point of sale (office or store).
2. Regularly pays a visit (it doesn't matter if he buys a product or not).
3. He contacted the support service to resolve the problem or get advice on the issue of interest to him.
4. Visited the company's website or placed an order for a product.
5. Left a review on a web resource, a third-party forum, in the book of complaints and suggestions, or in any other sources.

It is worth noting that after the rating is set, it is necessary to ask a clarifying question about the reasons for which the service was rated in this way and not otherwise. This will make it possible to collect as much useful data as possible about the person and his attitude to the organization.

Why is it important to count the index

By calculating and analyzing the NPS score, you can get invaluable information about what the real attitude of consumers towards the company and the services it provides. Upon receipt and processing of this data, it becomes possible to work on improving the service and promoting products.
In conjunction with other communication tools, such as a feedback form, NPS allows you to reduce customer churn by building long-term and cost-effective relationships with them. Knowing the net loyalty index, specialists can work to "turn" dissatisfied and passive consumers into their permanent audience, correcting the mistakes made earlier, improving the service and the quality of the goods and services offered.

However, despite the importance of customer satisfaction, they should not be treated like numbers. Many businessmen suffer from this, wanting to create an ideal customer base. Such a policy can alienate the audience and disrupt communication channels.