Your boss and your boss’s boss just came from a seminar on Net Promoter Score (NPS) and want you to implement an NPS program this week. You want to show them that not only are you on top of their request, but you can give them the results they are looking for — customer retention and growth. It’s tempting to simply download your customer list and send out a single NPS survey, but a rock-solid NPS program is much more than a single survey. It’s a way of living the customer experience obsession both internally and externally and that takes planning.
1. Map your customer journey. What are the trigger points where you win or lose your customers over time? Where are they happiest in the customer journey? Where are they the least satisfied? Do you know? Think about surveying at a wide variety of trigger points to help you better understand your customer’s experience through the lifecycle.
2. Divide your customer lists into segments. Break your lists up by where they are in their customer journey, who their account manager is, how they became customers, etc. The more thought you put into your segments, the more information you can glean from your data. Segmenting your customers can help you learn more about the entire customer journey.
3. Decide how many responses your team can realistically handle. Breaking customers into small groups of 50 or less and sending surveys 5 days a week — in real-time — will keep a steady trickle of answers flowing in. This allows your team to better react to each and every survey without overwhelming your workers.
4. Create internal workflows to ensure the right person gets the right response and responds immediately. Don’t send all the information to one overworked person. Instead create workflows that allow the segmented response to go straight to the person who should respond — and automate as many repetitive tasks as possible to create efficiency.
5. Plan to respond to every survey. A good response (Promoter) can be used to garner testimonials and good reviews. A neutral score (Passive) can be used to find out why the customer isn’t fully engaged with your brand. And a negative score (Detractor) can be addressed immediately.
6. Create internal buy-in. While your boss may be onboard with the new program, your colleagues might be wondering how they’re going to find the time to add this new project to their already overloaded daily activities. Training is key. Helping your colleagues not only understand why to respond but how to respond can help them buy in to the process. Put their scores front and center. Monitor how your team is doing, and share that information. Finally, plan to create incentives to increase the score and deliver more.Taking the time to put together a plan using these six tips, helps you be even more successful in creating a customer-obsessed culture. It will show your boss you are forward thinking, can drive customer retention, and ultimately growth. Interested in taking your NPS program to the next level?
