November 19, 2021 •Andrew Reiter
Customer experience is critical to your business. In fact, customer experience-centric businesses grew revenue 1.4 times faster and increased customer lifetime value 1.6 times more than other companies, according to a Forrester study.
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a golden metric for customer experience and churn risk. Since 92% of people trust word-of-mouth recommendations from friends or family, your NPS is important to customer acquisition, too.
What steps do you need to take to improve your NPS? This blog will explore the four proven strategies to improve customer experiences. You’ll discover how to turn Passives and Detractors into Promoters, and engage with current Promoters.
Ask for Customer Feedback
The simplest and best way to calculate your NPS score is to ask the question: “On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend our company to a friend or colleague?” with a follow-up question to explain the score.
Responses will help you identify common pain points and drivers. For example, your customers may struggle with product issues, or inefficiencies in your processes. With this information, you’ll be able to develop a customer-centric approach.
Gather customer feedback through surveys. Encourage customers to respond through email, SMS, or on-call and consider offering initiatives for completion.
Segment Customers According to Loyalty
In order to effectively take action based on your NPS survey, segment your customers into the following NPS categories:
- Promoters: Responded 9-10. Since they’re very happy with the product or service, they are likely to be brand advocates. Leverage promoters by engaging them to leave reviews and make referrals, and protect their loyalty with routine follow-ups.
- Passives: Responded 7-8. Though they’re not likely to negatively affect brand reputation, they’re not likely to recommend you either.
- Detractors: Responded 0-6. They are unhappy with your product or service. They are likely to damage your brand reputation with negative reviews.
By gathering the data and explanations for each category, you’ll be able to understand the root causes of common issues and why your customers love or dislike your service.
Focus on Great Customer Experience
To improve your net promoter score, you need to understand your customer journey and experience and take action on the pain points you identified.
- Improve products and services: Close the loop on customer feedback and take it to heart. Gather feedback about poor quality, refunds, replacement, or repair. Understand product or service flaws, and work within your team to solve them.
- Improve processes: Identify opportunities for coaching, process, and technology improvements. For example, what factors contribute to slow response times, lack of real-time engagement, or multiple transfers between teams?
- Reduce churn: Provide resolution to common negative experiences to engage detractors and help customers at risk of churn.
It’s vital to use data to understand your customer needs, and tap into them. Acquiring a new customer can cost five times more than keeping an existing one.
Deliver Excellent Customer Support
Customer service can make or break your business. Today’s customers expect a new level of customer experience, with highly responsive and informed support agents.
According to our recent survey, the two most powerful factors for brand recommendation were “Good Customer Service” and “Helpful Agent.” To improve your customer satisfaction and Net Promoter Score, business executives need the right people, processes, and solutions-- whether internal or outsourced.
With the right people at your side, you can quickly improve customer satisfaction and NPS scores. Among RUI’s partners in the Media industry, the average improvement in NPS since March 2020, relative to the industry average, was 48 points.
Ready to Transform Your Customer Satisfaction?
At RUI, we provide outsourced customer support services to help you significantly improve customer satisfaction for an average increase of 7-10 points compared to other partners or internal teams.
