How do you know when you need to survey your customers? You don’t want to submit surveys too often and annoy your customers, but you also need to know about important metrics like customer loyalty, customer retention, and repeat purchases. When you see the following signs, it’s time to measure your NPS, and assess your customer sentiment.
8 Signs It’s Time to Measure Your NPS
Customer satisfaction is a key part of business performance. Measurements like Net Promoter Score℠ (NPS), Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) and Customer Effort Score (CES) gauge customer satisfaction with a single number, so you can easily compare your score year over year and see if you’ve improved. Which customer satisfaction measurement you choose is up to you, and depends on the details of your business. When you notice these signs, it’s time to measure your NPS or another customer satisfaction metric.
1. Rising Customer Churn
Some customers will only make one visit or purchase, even if their experience was great. Sometimes, these customers are simply looking for something else. However, when otherwise happy customers are leaving and customer churn is on the rise, it can be a sign that something is wrong. This is a sign it’s time to measure your NPS. Providing an NPS survey and asking a follow-up question about problems customers have encountered or how you might improve can help to uncover why customers are leaving.
2. Increasing Complaints
If you notice an increase in the number of negative comments or reviews you receive, it’s a sign to measure your NPS. In some cases, complaints might increase simply because you have more customers or more sales. Or, complaints might increase because your recent marketing campaign targeted the wrong audience. However, if complaints are increasing because customers are having problems with your products, services, or staff, an NPS survey and follow-up questions will tell you.
3. Increasing Customer Service Calls
Increasing customer service calls can also indicate an increase in problems. However, if customers are calling or messaging to solve a problem, that means they’re still invested in your business. They may have questions or concerns, but not necessarily problems. Using an NPS survey or another customer satisfaction survey after their calls, or a general survey to all customers, can help to show you how your customers feel, and what actions you should take.
4. Decrease in Sales
Like the previous signs to measure your NPS, a decrease in sales does not necessarily mean that customers are unhappy. Economic events, a reduction in advertising spend, the introduction of new competitors, and many other factors can all cause sales to decrease. However, this is a good sign it’s time to measure your NPS. A customer satisfaction survey will help you find out if a decrease in customer happiness is a part of this problem.
5. Adding New Features or Products
If you’ve recently added new features or products to your business, it’s a good idea to check in with your customers, even if sales and reviews are good. Big changes can drive customers away quickly if they’re not implemented properly. After rolling out your new features, products, or other changes, use an NPS survey to see what customers think. If you can compare to NPS surveys before you made changes, this will be especially helpful.
6. Opening a New Location
Similar to adding new features or products, you also want to know how your new locations or branches are doing. It’s a good idea to survey employees about their experience, and look at business KPIs, but customer satisfaction can give you another side of this experience. It’s normal to see an adjustment period when opening a new location or branch, so submit your surveys once employees have had some time to get into a routine.
7. Overhauls and Updates
Maybe you made big changes to your website, or you completely renovated your restaurant. Keeping your business current and updated is a good thing, but these changes can drive customers away if they’re not made thoughtfully. If your location’s ambiance changed notably, it can drive long-standing customers away. Or, if customers aren’t sure how to use your new website, they’re unlikely to stick around. Anytime you make a major overhaul or update, it’s a good time to measure your NPS and other customers satisfaction metrics.
8. Benchmarking
When you’re making changes or assessing impacts to sales, your NPS won’t be very helpful unless you have a benchmark to compare it to. Send out NPS surveys to customers when times are stable and you haven’t made major changes. This way, you’ll have something to compare your future scores to.
It can be difficult to see customer satisfaction declining. However, knowledge is the first step towards fixing a problem. If you know customers are leaning away from your business, the next step is asking the right follow-up questions to bring them back. By checking in with your customers, you can be confident in your changes, updates, and future business growth.
