Any serious business is puzzled by the question of whether its products are popular in the consumer market. And if popularity is present, how stable is it?

Of course, the high popularity will be obvious, as it is read from quantitative indicators. Bulk sales and big profits are the perfect litmus test for the popularity of a company's product. But, not every business can boast of high sales.

Therefore, feedback from consumers is so relevant, clarifying what their attitude to the company's products is.

Measuring the level of loyalty according to the NPS method

There are a number of methods to obtain a certain feedback from customers, from direct questions about the quality of a product or service to tracking alternative consumer choices from a line of competitive offerings. Some methods are easier to use, while others are more difficult, but more informative.

Recently, there has been a lot of controversy around the methodology Net Promoter Score (NPS), which is aimed at measuring the level of customer loyalty. The Net Promoter Score methodology was developed by Fred Reichel e. In 2003, it was presented as a very simple and quick way to identify customer loyalty. Before talking about the pros and cons of the declared marketing tool, let's dwell on the very essence of the methodology.

According to Reicheld, customer loyalty is directly related to their willingness to recommend certain company products in their environment.

Therefore, buyer attitude measurements using the Net Promoter Score methodology are based on on a single question:

This question is supposed to be asked to those real customers who have already used the product and were able to assess its strengths and weaknesses. Potential customers are excluded from the sample of respondents.

The client is offered to answer the key question, focusing on a scale from 0 to 10, where an unconditionally positive answer corresponds to the maximum 10 points, and a categorical “I definitely will not recommend” means 0 points.

Further, based on the answers, all respondents are divided into three categories:
Loyal customers, whose answer is expressed by 9 and 10 points, are a group of promoters.
Undecided consumers who put 7 - 8 points - a group of passive customers.
Dissatisfied customers who rated their willingness to recommend this company or its products from 0 to 6 points - a group of critics.

The NPS methodology includes and sub-question, which reveals , “what justifies the assessment”.

This open-ended question aims to clarify issues that hinder brand loyalty and provide information about the strengths of the product and the company.

However, the answers to the auxiliary question do not affect the quantitative measurements of loyalty, but are used only in the qualitative analysis.

Further quantitative analysis involves the simplest calculation of the NPS index - the loyalty index. For this, the severity of the group of promoters and the group of critics is determined as a percentage and the difference is determined by subtracting the second indicator from the first.

The result is limited by limits from +100 to -100. Obviously, the NPS index will be equal to + 100 only if absolutely all respondents turned out to be loyal customers, and there were no passive or critics in the sample. Similarly, the NPS index will take a maximum negative value of -100 if none of the customers is ready to recommend the company's products, and in response to main question methodology, there were no ratings higher than 6.

What information does the NPS index provide?

An index with a plus sign indicates the prevalence of loyal customers over critics. Therefore, it is likely that new clients will contact the company based on recommendations. The higher the index, the greater the guarantee that there will be an influx of customers.
If the index is equal to 0 or takes a negative value, the situation becomes critical, since we expect not so much an influx as an outflow of customers based on possible negative reviews and the choice of competitive products.

Strengths and weaknesses of the NPS methodology

While the NPS methodology has been popular abroad for more than a decade, it has received a lot of criticism in the domestic business environment. Domestic marketing gurus emphasize the artificiality of the NPS index, since it is calculated on the basis of only two categories of respondents - promoters and critics, completely ignoring passive customers.

Another vulnerability is that companies with different shares of detractors and promoters may have the same NPS index.

Let's illustrate this with an example. Company A has 30% loyal customers and 10% detractors. Based on the algorithms of the methodology, its loyalty index is 20. Now, suppose that company B has 20% of the adherents of its products and not a single critic. Obviously, her NPS index will also be 20.

Based on the numbers obtained, it should be assumed that companies A and B have similar prospects. But such a conclusion contradicts the NPS methodology itself, according to which the presence of critics increases the risk of anti-advertising, and therefore the likelihood of customer churn increases. In our example, this risk would be higher for Company A.

Therefore, the loyalty index cannot be considered as an independent characteristic. The NPS index can take on its own interpretations.

criticized domestic marketers and the very wording of the main question of the methodology, emphasizing that people are generally not inclined to give recommendations, so the survey will fail.
As you can see, the critics make strong arguments weaknesses NPS methods. But is everything so clear? We will present our arguments not for the sake of arguing with venerable marketing specialists, but for the sake of benefiting from the methodology popular in the West.

What advantages do we see in using Net Promoter Score:

1. The wording of the question asked to clients.
The same question that is criticized has a positive psychological aspect. Namely, the words "What is the probability that you ..." removes unnecessary responsibility from the respondent. The client mentally weighs whether he could recommend this product to someone, and quite sincerely answers, because “could” is not the same as “I will recommend”. Therefore, the array of responses received using the NPS methodology is information that is very valuable for business.

2. The NPS index, with all its superficial calculations, shows a trend, which develops in the market for a particular product. A kind of thermometer that records the state. Yes, knowledge of the business loyalty index will not improve, just as determining the temperature will not cure the patient. This is just a diagnostic step that motivates the search for effective treatment. But without this step, treatment can be unforgivably late.

3. Ease of implementation of the NPS methodology.
You can look for the most effective tool to measure the same customer loyalty, or you can use the NPS methodology, which is not perfect, but it does cut off certain aspects of the business. As you know, the best can turn out to be the enemy of the good, because in the pursuit of the best, the chances of correcting the situation in a timely manner are often missed.

The listed pluses, whether other positive aspects are appreciated in this technique by foreign companies, however, the NPS index is actively used in various fields. For example, in the banking sector, +11 is considered the norm of the loyalty index. If we consider different markets, then the standard customer loyalty standard ranges from +5 to +15.

As an example to follow, Apple is called, the loyalty index of which reaches +50.

Is it possible to automate the collection of customer feedback? Automation of collecting their opinions from customers (for NPS calculation) .

Analogue of NPS in domestic marketing

A similar technology for identifying customer loyalty is used by some domestic companies. This is most often observed in banks and the service sector. At customer service points, stacks of pictures are placed on the racks, which depict a cheerful or sad smiley. It is assumed that a satisfied customer will take a picture with a funny smiley face and put it in a special box. Well, the visitor dissatisfied with the service will act accordingly. This is nothing more than identifying loyal customers and critics.

Such a method could be useful to any company focused on services. By determining the difference between the number of satisfied and disappointed customers with a given frequency, a company can track customer attitudes towards its product and the dynamics of this relationship.

If there is a trend towards an increase in critics, the next step will be effective: invite customers to answer the question “What do you not like about the service?” or “What would you like to improve in the company?”. The responses received are the key to the direction in which the company should move in order to increase customer loyalty.

In conclusion, we note that the NPS methodology can be an effective basis for developing your own exclusive tool for measuring customer loyalty, as demonstrated by domestic banks. But in order to develop your own version, it makes sense to use the NPS standard, feel the good points of this technique and replace those that are unsuitable for your business.

I will also add important nuance Whatever you use, the dynamics of the indicator and its connection with business results are important. Any loyalty program should be evaluated in this way - by the dynamics of indicators (for example, NPS) and the growth of sales, the flow of requests, and the change in the outflow of customers.

/ 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 performance loyalty to a company or product. Standard Approach to Index Measurement consumer loyalty usually consists of several steps. At the first stage, immediately after making a purchase, buyers are invited to participate in a small 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, representatives of this category can easily prefer competitors if there is a discount or offered to them. better conditions to make 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 especially like ...”, and those who rated 0-8 points are asked the question “What, in your opinion, 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

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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 the main players in the industry are the main advantages. this method. General rule NPS methodology states: "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 metrics NPS loyalty quite simple in calculations 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. different countries these figures may also vary. 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 "smiley faces" 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 operators. mobile communications, 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 a call) due to dislike for the company or product, so he will simply drop out of the total respondents. In the same way, a letter that accidentally falls under the spam filter on the email of a promoter client will exclude him from the total number of respondents. Therefore, 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 household appliances from famous brands the world's leading 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 giving the company's employees the opportunity 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.

Quick response of management to the received information on violations in real time, systematic identification and elimination of shortcomings, permanent job over the mistakes was aimed at creating an ideally built interaction with customers, control of the display of goods, cleanliness and tidiness, general order, which ultimately has a very positive effect on sales and the growth of the NPS level.

Many of our clients note that through the systematic conduct of checks against electronic checklists, sales assistants begin to demonstrate thorough knowledge of their official duties, because each re-check is a kind of training, filigree honing the observance of the company's standards and the ability to win over a potential buyer as much as possible, 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.

Elimination of permissible 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 influence on the 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 system for collecting customer feedback is not a separate mobile app, which is 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 is automatically closed after the survey is completed and automatically re-created to receive feedback from the next customer.

Another distinguishing factor is that the mobile application of the service works on any modern smartphones and tablets that operate under operating systems Android or iOS, so our customers didn't have to buy 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 from 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 points scored. 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 “clarification” questions take a value from given list criteria of attractiveness or shortcomings of the store in the eyes of buyers. 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 information collected 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 programs loyalty with different discounts, bonuses, sales. Discount cards with the "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, distributing it among other buyers as a discount code and agitating 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 competitor price monitoring services and providing 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 the company is only working on improving its bonus system and pricing policy, ignoring everything else or acting according to the residual principle, then in this case loyalty is based only on economic factors in the form of an acceptable favorable prices, which the buyer is ready 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 shopping, 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 anyway, 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 were right for him. In his book Delivering Happiness, Zappos founder Tony Shay recounted how he called customer service as a joke. own company and in a drunken altered voice he 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, such important facts from the company's point of view 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 also 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 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 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 temporary rush demand, which is fueled by 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 go 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 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 (it is their fault, 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 receives 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 the purchase 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, since even within the same group of “critics”, the loyalty of a customer who scores 0 may differ significantly from the loyalty of a customer who scores 6. 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 product search is successfully implemented, painstaking work has been done to improve the usability. A “critic” who once “burned himself” buying goods “offline” (in a store), but “tasted” orders through the site, receiving the goods courier delivery, in the "online" easily turns into a "promoter". 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 your acquaintances and friends, based on their 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 of some “one-sidedness” of the NPS indicator, many companies perform calculations for different “touch points” 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 assessment 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 may become unpleasant surprise for leaders. 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 measure 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 “What is the probability 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 they are talking about. 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. Feedback 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 mentions of 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” that 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 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.

To others software products can be attributed to "intellectual assistants" - artificial intelligence programs that can conduct quite complex dialogues with a visitor to the company's website 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 transnational corporations, because 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, KPI is calculated, entire directions 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 income can be a universal indicator of its overall "success" in the market, but this indicator can be a poor help in forecasting further growth, especially when the NPS index went down rapidly for some reason. AT modern world taking into account the almost complete availability of the Internet for the population, information is spreading rapidly and any "mistakes" in relations with customers from famous companies can lead to grandiose scandals, which, being savored and replicated 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 methodology for 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 data collected from over four hundred companies, eventually coming to the conclusion 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.

Literally 2-3 days ago, I was simply indignant at the incompetence of a journalist from the Irkutsk branch of Komsomolskaya Pravda when placing ads on their website.

And now, when I have calmed down, my emotions have subsided, I understand that I will never again turn to them myself, but I will not advise my friends either. But maybe that's a good thing!

Because I am writing this article about the nps customer loyalty index, which should save you from stupid mistakes of your employees and help you make money.

The tool is extremely cunning, atypical for Russian market and therefore no less interesting. After all, whoever uses new technologies first wins the competition.

I understood you

Brief background

We have in marketing consulting there is a coffee shop. The owner has money and we are slowly investing it in advertising and marketing.

Recently, a journalist from the Irkutsk branch of Komsomolskaya Pravda called the manager and offered to place an advertising article on their website in the section “Where to go on February 14th”.

The cost was only 3,000 rubles, and almost 50,000 people a month. We considered that this profitable investment and gladly agreed.

Declaration example

A journalist came, we talked about the coffee shop, its advantages, showed everything we could, gave all the contacts, pictures and everything you need to create a professional and selling article.

Problems began immediately after receiving the money. The apotheosis of all this was the release of our article without any contacts, links to the site and other things (for the sake of which, in fact, everything was started).

When I pointed out all these oversights, they didn’t even ask for forgiveness, but simply said that it was the site’s editor’s fault and “if possible, we will fix everything.” Believe it or not, they fixed it as soon as I demanded the money back.

Why am I all this?

Moreover, the unprofessional actions of one journalist reduced the nps loyalty index to this publication by a couple of points. And this despite the fact that advertising market now and so falls, and they would cling to each client.

But, most likely, you have not even come across such a concept as the nps index, how it is considered, what it shows and how much it affects your money. However, many of you have seen similar pictures on websites or in.

Collecting Feedback

Remember the last time you called your customers a month or even 2 after the purchase (when the emotions from the purchase had already subsided) with one question:

It is necessary to answer on a 10-point scale, where 0 is “I will never recommend it to anyone”, and 10 is a Definitely recommend”.

Most likely never. But this is a very important index, but, unfortunately, very rarely used in Russia. So far, only large companies have resorted to it, realizing that there are no trifles in business.

WE ARE ALREADY MORE THAN 29,000 people.
TURN ON

Calculation instruction

So, let's move on to the very steps of calculating the NPS index (Net Promoter Score / Customer Satisfaction Index).

Step 1 - Conduct a Survey

The first step is to interview at least 30-50 customers. There are many options for conducting a survey. I will now describe a few of them.

Telephone survey. You are already doing well and are collecting contacts of your customers? And form them into a single client base?

For those who are still “in the tank” and are just gathering their thoughts, I wrote an article about and about what is most important in it and how not to miss anything.

Important. The survey must be conducted by a completely independent person. Or "Service Director". I don't know why, but as soon as people hear this phrase, the truth starts pouring out of them.

Questionnaires for clients. Here, as an example, the basics for the questionnaire -. Use it as terms of reference for a designer, decorate in your corporate style.

Online survey. Alternatively, you can use special services that create online surveys with answers that you simply fill out.

Leave the calculations to the service, it will do it automatically. It is very convenient and saves a lot of time.
For example, SurveyMonkey can help you with this.

Online survey service

And all because now you can conduct such surveys (the functionality now allows) directly on social networking sites, where people feel much more comfortable and are more willing to answer you.

How exactly you will conduct the survey is up to you. Choose the method that is most convenient for you and suitable for your niche.

Important. In no case do not give any clues to the respondents, otherwise you will simply kill the entire survey.

Step 2 - Record Results

No matter how good your memory is, record all the results. It's one thing when you call 5 clients and remember everything in detail, another when there are already more than 100 of them.

Ideally, if you add all this information to the client card in your CRM system, but excel or notepad will also work.

Step 3 - Divide the interviewees

All customers you interview should be divided into 3 categories. Very soon you will find out why this is necessary, but for now, ruthlessly share:

1. 9-10 - promoters or supporters, that is, people who like your product / company / brand and are ready to recommend it to their friends and acquaintances;
2. 7-8 are neutrals, in other words, your passive clients. They are satisfied with everything, but they are not ready to recommend you;
3. 0-6 - critics, that is, those people who are not satisfied with your product or company and will not recommend it to their friends.

Poll results

Each promoter is guaranteed to bring one to your business additional client. You can be completely sure of this.

A critic, on the contrary, will take up to 4 clients out of your business. Moreover, it does not matter at all what he answered in the survey (0 or 6), if he fell into the category of critics - this is very, very bad for your business.

Especially in the era of the Internet, when news, and even more so complaints, scatter faster than the speed of light.

Step 5 - Calculate NPS

The final stage is the calculation of the loyalty index itself. There is a simple formula for this:

NPS Formula

That's all. Now you know the nps customer loyalty index in your company. And as I already wrote, in Russia, few people measure this index. And very in vain.

For example, in the USA this is done by any more or less self-respecting company. And it’s no coincidence, because according to Stanford University research, the higher the company’s NPS (that is, the closer it is to 100), the more successfully it will develop.

And this is quite logical - the success of any company directly depends on the loyalty of its customers, or, to use the Russian proverb: “Do it right, it will be fine!”.

The best part is that it doesn't matter who your customer is to calculate this index. Whether you sell him shawarma at the train station or supply equipment for rockets for $15 million.

The system is completely universal and works for any company, be it b2b or services, and maybe even b2c.

Bonus

I think you know such a person as. Of course, because in Russia Igor Mann has long been associated with the word “marketing”.

And not so long ago, we interviewed the number 1 marketer in Russia (although the Federal Antimonopoly Service forbade him to be called that). Among the first free ways to increase sales, Igor named the consumer loyalty index.

What is most surprising, it turned out that the measurement of this indicator has a positive effect on sales not in a delayed moment, but what is called here and now.

That is, people begin to remember you and, accordingly, make repeated purchases.

Now for the shocking details. Imagine a car service. Pretty good and clean. There are 10 boxes, which measures the NPS index. Nonsense? It can not be? What for!?

But our client from Komsomolsk-on-Amur does not consider this nonsense and unnecessary action. What's more, he found that after each phone survey, they sign up about 7-8 clients for their services.

Here's a free tool to increase sales that you've obviously never used.

Briefly about the main

In order for the information to be fixed for you better, I suggest you watch a short video on this topic.

Summing up, what can I advise you? Conduct a survey to find out the consumer loyalty index in your company,

• If it is above 50, then, in principle, everything is not bad in your company, but there is always room for growth;
• If it is below 50, then urgently start investing in customer focus.

And here is an example: Vimpelcom (aka Beeline) systematically monitors the level of NPS.

So why am I, in 2014, the customer loyalty index in the company turned out to be the lowest in their entire history.

But, thanks to the timely measures taken, they were able not only to restore the level of NPS, but also to make it the highest among the big three players cellular communication(“Megafon”, “MTS” and “Beeline”).

P.s. And by the way, since I am now in the category of critics of the Irkutsk branch of Komsomolskaya Pravda, I should, in theory, steal 4 clients (present or future) from them.

You see, the management will see this article and come to their senses that it does not matter how much money the client brings in the first transaction, 3,000 or 30,000 rubles. The only thing that matters is whether he becomes loyal after that or not.

Most companies are overly focused on growing customers and growing profits. However, it is very important to understand the fact that it is like fishing with a holey net. It seems that you managed to "catch" a lot of fish, but as a result you are left with nothing.

Customer retention is not the goal, but consumer loyalty to the company is. The problem is that this indicator is very difficult to measure, as it is not quantitative. Fortunately, there is definite schema, which will help you meet the needs of customers and build long-term and fruitful relationships with them. In addition, you will be able to predict their loyalty to your brand.

This article will focus on the basic concepts associated with such an indicator as the consumer loyalty index (NPS, Net Promoter Score). You'll learn how a simple one-question survey can help you measure your customer satisfaction. You will learn how to start using and further apply this indicator in your marketing campaigns.

Loyalty measurement methodology

The founder of the NPS measurement methodology is Frederik Reicheld. His research was published in the Harvard Business Review in an article titled "One Number You need to Grow." In it, Reicheld criticized traditional customer satisfaction surveys. He said that all of them do not allow "to keep abreast" and assess how happy the buyers are.

As a result, Reicheld and his colleagues developed a simplified schema that linked consumer responses and behavior.

At the heart of measuring the consumer loyalty index is the belief that loyalty is nothing more than a person’s willingness to contact a company again and, more importantly, recommend a product or company to their friends. This indicator is determined very simply. We will talk about this now.

How to conduct a survey

So, NPS is an index that measures the desire of a consumer to recommend your company's products or services to their friends. To calculate it, you need to ask customers two questions:

1. On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend a product (service) of our company to your friends or colleagues?
2. What exactly influenced your answer?

Next, you need to create a survey and send it to your customers. Typically, these questionnaires are sent to e-mail, via SMS, offer in the form or ask by phone. Ideally, the survey should be completed in less than 24 hours.

Once your clients have answered both questions, you will need to divide them into the following categories based on their rating:

• 9-10: Brand Adherents (Promoters). They value your company's products and tend to recommend them to their friends and associates. They also often make repeat purchases. These customers are the most valuable.
• 7-8: Neutral consumers (Passives). They don't spread negative reviews about your company, but if someone makes them more profitable proposition- refuse your services. Such customers do not often recommend you to their friends.
• 0-6: Detractors. They are dissatisfied with the quality of your company's products or services and want to ruin your reputation by spreading negative reviews.

How to calculate NPS?

Based on the audience segmentation data (see previous section), the consumer loyalty index can be calculated using a simple formula:

NPS = (% Brand Adherents) - (% Critics)

The value you get will be between -100 and 100. If the consumer loyalty index is 100, this means that absolutely all of your customers are fans of your brand ( best case scenario). If this indicator is equal to -100, then on the contrary, all your customers criticize you (worst case scenario).

Why is it worth tracking the consumer loyalty index?

Periodic tracking of the consumer loyalty index is necessary, since this indicator:

• easy to understand - this system very easy to understand and adapt to your company;
• easy to calculate - the survey is very short, and your customers will be able to quickly and easily answer the proposed questions;
• gives feedback of practical value;
• helps identify target segment audience (if you combine the information received with);
• will allow you to develop a plan to improve products or services;
• will help build a "customer cult" in your company - each department will be aimed at building long and fruitful relationships with customers;
• Gives you a competitive advantage - insights from NPS analysis will allow you to make decisions quickly, while your competitors will have to spend several months on it;
• is available for any business - conducting such surveys will not greatly affect the budget, and you will be able to "keep your finger on the pulse" of consumer sentiment.

Using the NPS Score to Grow Your Company

1. Sustainable growth and customer retention

• Extensive research has shown that NPS is one of the top indicators of growth. If it is higher than that of competitors, this means that your company has a larger market share.
• According to a Gartner study, 65% of start-up companies already have a ready-made customer base. Attracting new customers costs 5 times more than retaining old ones. The Customer Loyalty Score is an affordable way to measure customer satisfaction and retention.
• NPS can be used as a development metric to turn a company's current growth into sustainable growth.

2. Sales management

• The consumer satisfaction index can be used to make decisions about the company's product itself.
• NPS allows you to properly prioritize based on . They can get feedback very quickly and make changes to the marketing process.

3. Marketing

• Verizon research has shown that 85% of new customers come to small companies thanks to. Keeping your NPS high will help you reach more customers without spending money on advertising and marketing campaigns.
• The Consumer Loyalty Index helps marketers measure the mood and opinions of customers, and then give feedback to all team members. Thus, all departments of the company will be able to work more harmoniously in order to achieve one common goal - customer satisfaction.
• NPS, combined with analytics tools, can help you predict consumer behavior and create so-called behavioral patterns.

4. Employee potential management

• A customer loyalty score can help you determine the satisfaction level of your employees. This is especially important for companies operating in the service sector.
• NPS can also be used to select a new corporate culture vector. In addition, with the help of this indicator, you can find out the opinion of your employees about the new corporate policy.

5. General KPIs and reporting

• You can use NPS as the only customer satisfaction metric. To do this, the indicator must be measured on an ongoing basis and quarterly reports should be made. This will help you get meaningful insights and build a long-term plan for the development of the company.
• If you link NPS with financial statements, then you can draw a conclusion about the general state of development of the company. For example, if profits are growing and NPS is declining, then this is an alarming sign regarding the long-term development prospects.

6. Benefits of the consumer loyalty index

• Increasing profits per customer: Brand loyalists tend to spend more on the company's products and services than the average customer.
• Reducing ongoing costs: Brand adherents are tolerant and tolerant of problems that arise in the company, so they are less likely to complain. This helps to reduce maintenance costs. In addition, loyal customers decrease as they spread positive feedback.
• Churn reduction: By reducing the number of neutral customers and critics, you can reduce customer churn.
• Motivation for employees: all departments of the company will work together to achieve a common goal.

Increasing customer lifecycle value

Only 14% of customers stop using the company's services because they are not satisfied with the quality of service or the product itself. 69% of consumers stop using a company because they feel like they've been forgotten.

Most dissatisfied customers will never come to complain directly. They will just leave silently and then start leaving negative reviews online. That’s why it’s so important to keep “connected” with your customers all the time.

Continuous measurement of NPS will allow you to identify those customers who:

• are going to refuse the services of the company;
• ready to act as “advocates” of the brand;
• see any shortcomings in your product or services, but do not talk about them.

With this valuable information, you can prevent.

When to conduct a survey?

Often, the effectiveness of an NPS campaign is not about how you ask questions, but when you ask them. Here are a few "right things":

1. After the potential client has used the free test period (Post Free Trial). If the trial period has expired and the customer does not want to purchase the paid version, then this is an indication that he is interested, but not yet sufficiently involved in the purchase process. Why not ask him to give you feedback to find out what went wrong.

2. Before the client finally refuses the services of the company (Exit Survey). The price is a repulsive factor for a person only when he does not see the value of the product. If a client decides to break off their relationship with a company after having already used their services for a while, this means that you are doing something wrong. Instead of just letting him go, you can re-engage him by asking him to take a survey. Even if that client leaves anyway, you can learn valuable insights.

Criteria for evaluating the consumer loyalty index

You can't draw objective conclusions just by looking at your customer loyalty score. It is necessary to take into account the position of the company in the chosen business area. For example, the NPS of a large store may be 30, but it will still be the worst in the market. At the same time, the telecommunications company's NPS will be 32, and it will be the leader among competitors.

What factors influence the NPS evaluation criteria? How do you know if your customer loyalty score is good? First of all, there are three factors that affect the criteria for evaluating the consumer loyalty index:

1. Level of competition

If you are in a highly competitive industry such as insurance, banking, or healthcare, then an average NPS would be considered normal. But if your company only covers a small segment of the market (such as electric cars or wireless headphones), then you need to make sure that your NPS is high enough. This will be an indicator that your offer is unique and that your customers perceive your brand positively.

Optimal NPS indicators for different business areas: banking (0), auto insurance (22), health and life insurance (27), airlines (36), tourism (38), hotels (43), online shopping (45), Internet -services (48).

2. Tolerance

Customer tolerance is another key factor that determines the NPS score criteria. This is due to the fact that people are peremptory about how good the product or service they use regularly is.

To visualize how this factor affects NPS, you need to give an example. Verizon's Consumer Loyalty Index is 38, which may seem like a very average value, but this company occupies one of the leading positions in the market. By comparison, their competitors (AT&T and MediaCom) have scores of 15 and 22. This low score is not due to the company's lack of quality service. This means that these firms operate in a highly competitive environment where customers are absolutely unwilling to tolerate even minor "errors" in the quality of service.

3. Obstacles

Usually, a person cannot afford to improve ("upgrade") the purchased product or start using the services of another company without certain financial losses. Thus, in order to appear consistent in their decisions, the client prefers to remain committed to the same brand.

SaaS companies face this problem all the time. To become a client of one of these firms, you need to deposit a certain amount, so it is very difficult for a business to retain its customers and maintain their loyalty. In this regard, the NPS indicator of SaaS companies is kept at “below average” levels.

What is considered a good indicator of NPS?

So, there is no quantitative indicator that can be called good, since this value varies depending on what kind of business you are in. But there are a few questions that you can ask yourself to understand how high your consumer loyalty index is:

1. Is my NPS higher than my direct competitors? If yes, then this is a good indicator. However, this is not enough to consider your business successful.
2. Is my NPS going up? If after 3-6 months the consumer loyalty index has grown, then this is a good indicator.
3. Is my NPS above zero? If your NPS is -50, which is higher than your competitors, then don't jump to conclusions. Such a low NPS is a sign that your customers are not satisfied.

It must be remembered that the consumer loyalty index should not be taken literally. Most companies are simply obsessed with growth rates and do everything possible and impossible to make performance indicators grow. NPS is not a quantitative metric. It is rather a qualitative indicator that gives you food for thought.

In general, while NPS claims to be the new standard for measuring customer satisfaction and loyalty, it has been criticized for its simplicity. Some experts say that the index does not give an accurate picture of how happy a company's customers are. For example, they highlight the fact that companies with the same NPS may have different percentages of adherents, neutral consumers, and detractors. Therefore, entrepreneurs need to focus not on the indicator itself, but on what these numbers tell them.

What to do after measuring NPS

This section will summarize the goals of measuring the loyalty index and will also close the customer feedback loop. This inclusive strategy will give you consistent growth and keep track of customer churn.

1. Critics: Make a Personal Touch

According to a study by Lee Resources, 70% of clients are ready to use the services of the company again if an unpleasant situation is resolved in their favor. Your goal here is to show your customers that you care.

Most companies believe that the category of customers called "critics" is impossible to convince. However, this is not at all the case. In fact, those customers who want to end their relationship with the company and spread negative reviews are the future adherents of your brand. They just want you to pay attention to them and solve their problem.

Perhaps e-mails with questions about possible problems and how to solve them, for example:

• What would you like to do with our product but can't?
• Could you formulate an ideal solution to your problem that would completely satisfy you?
• If you had a magic wand, what changes would you make to the product?

Once you receive feedback, you can take the following actions to keep your customers:

• provide them with instructions (if your product has the desired function);
• extend the trial period and give access to premium features;
• offer any third-party service that would help solve their problem.

By offering solutions to problems, you can turn critics into brand followers.

2. Passive Consumers: Engage Before They Leave

Passive customers are a very interesting category of customers: they don't love your product, but they don't hate it either. It seems that they are just waiting for something good or bad to happen in order to make a specific decision.

However, passive consumers are not inclined to respond to open questions and give business owners feedback. For example, Zendesk found that only 37% of this customer category responded to a survey. While 50% of critics and 55% of the company's supporters share their opinion about the company's services with pleasure.

It seems like passive consumers can't ruin your brand's reputation. But they, like critics, are more likely to refuse your services. Here are the steps you can take to keep these customers:

• By offering discounts or upgrades, you can re-engage passive consumers in the buying cycle.
• Send them introductory user guides: they may not be involved in the purchase process due to an unfavorable first impression, as a result of which they never return to the site. You can periodically send them various brochures that tell them about the latest releases or new features of your product.

3. Brand Adherents: Show Your Appreciation

Brand loyalists are, without a doubt, the ideal customers for any company. But most firms take them for granted in vain. They make no attempt to reward or thank those clients who bring them the most income.

Undoubtedly, gratitude will help strengthen your relationship with this category of buyers, and will also contribute to the development of the company.
Here is what you can do for this:

According to statistics, the average share of people responding to an NPS survey is 60%. Thus, each company will have at least 40% of those customers who did not answer the questionnaire. Surprisingly, according to several studies, this category of customers is more likely than others to refuse the services of your company in the future.

In fact, you're more likely to re-engage a critic than you are to convince a customer who didn't take the survey. If no action is taken, then usually 40-70% of these people stop contacting the company within the next 6 months.

The only way to interest them is the methods described above. The same tactics are suitable for them as for critics and indifferent consumers.

Conclusion

Gathering information about how customers feel about your brand is an integral part of a long-term growth perspective. Of course, the consumer loyalty index has its drawbacks, but they can be overcome through the active implementation of effective metrics.

NPS (English NetPromoterScore) - an index showing the commitment of consumers to a company, product, service. Otherwise, the NPS loyalty index is called the index of willingness to recommend and make repeated purchases in this company.

As a rule, the NPS index is measured several times throughout the year and several years. Continuous measurement of loyalty allows you to work effectively on obtaining competitive advantage and improving their performance.

There are a huge number of tools on the Questionnaire for collecting the opinions of respondents through surveys - email newsletters by client base, surveys among participants of the Anketologist’s own panel of respondents (suitable for large companies with a branch network throughout the country), etc.

An example of calculating the NPS loyalty index

For example, you received 100 responses to your question. 10 of them were in the range of "critics", 20 - "neutrals", 70 - "supporters". Subtract 10 critics from 70 supporters. You will get the number 60. This is your consumer loyalty index.

However, if internal indicator, equal, for example, 33, is considered bad, then the external (compared to competitors) may be quite high when compared with the average loyalty index for organizations with a similar (similar) field of activity.

Benefits of Measuring Loyalty with the NPS Index

NPS statistics can be directly correlated with the success of the company in the eyes of consumers. The index is used by large (Apple, American Express, JetBlue) and small companies due to a large number advantages:

• Speed. One question is all that is required to calculate the indicator. You can create such a survey on Anketologist in a matter of minutes, and conduct it in a couple of days.
• Simplicity. The Consumer Loyalty Index uses generally accepted technologies, so everyone can easily understand it.
• Comparability. You can compare your results with those of your competitors, as hundreds of companies also use NPS.

Using the Questionnaire service, it is easy to measure the NPS customer loyalty index.