6 strategies to improve your NPS®

1. Close the loop with your customers

The Net Promoter System encourages organizations to always ‘close the loop’ with customers to dig even deeper into the context and reasons behind their score. You can use methods such as direct interviews, follow-up emails, etc., to collect even more feedback to focus your efforts in a customer-centric direction.

Start small by taking action whenever a detractor (0-6 rating) shows up. Have a manager or employee reach out to the customer, take their complaints seriously, and work to fix the situation (or, if you can’t, explain why it’s not happening). Showing care is a great step towards repairing the relationship.

2. Rally the company around NPS

Make sure every leader in your organization understands that your goal is to win over as many promoters as possible, and have them share this vision throughout the company.

Be transparent about what NPS is, how it’s tracked, and how it can factor into your company’s annual reviews. Rather than focusing solely on revenue or the bottom line, think about incentivizing your teams based on NPS ratings and feedback (for practical tips on how to do it, check out this NPS case study).

3. Hold regular meetings to talk about NPS

Fred Reichheld, the inventor of NPS, calls these sessions ‘huddles'. These short, interactive meetings help reaffirm everyone’s commitment to a top-notch customer experience and provide a forum for teams to discuss service escalations and brainstorm solutions.

4. Use NPS feedback to train staff

The open-ended feedback from NPS surveys can point to areas where staff and departments can improve. Use the feedback as a guide, when appropriate, to train employees on improving the customer experience.

5. Conduct root cause analysis

As part of your NPS analysis, you may notice patterns when you compare feedback from promoters and detractors—for example, you might find that one department team has more than its fair share of detractors, while another one receives outstanding scores. In this case, your next step is conducting a thorough root-cause analysis to determine whether it’s the department, the product line they cover, or something else entirely that’s causing the low scores. At which point, you’re ready for the last step:

6. Make structural changes and see what works

You obviously don’t want to change your entire site or product after a couple of complaints, but if detractor data is pointing to a structural problem you should act an implement changes to products, policies, and messaging where it makes sense. Tracking NPS and comparing the pre- and post-change score and feedback will help you determine the success of your changes. If you notice an improvement, then great—you’ve earned more promoters! And if not? Then go back to the drawing board, armed with new data, to begin again.

Net Promoter, Net Promoter System, Net Promoter Score, NPS and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., Fred Reichheld and Satmetrix Systems, Inc.