If you want to get to know your customers better, you may be considering conducting an NPS survey. An NPS survey – short for Net Promoter Score survey – is an extremely effective tool for measuring customer satisfaction with your brand, products, and services.  

But if you’re new to NPS surveys, where do you start? Well, don’t worry. If you’re looking to learn more about how to create an NPS survey, or just find out what one is, then you’re in the right place! 

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll be outlining everything you need to know to put together an effective NPS survey that collects the crucial data you need to attract new users, retain customers, improve the user experience, and, ultimately, boost your bottom line. We’ll be covering industry-recognized best practices for creating survey questions and analyzing results so that you can identify and implement changes that make a real difference to your customers. We’ll also be throwing in some sample NPS survey questions for you to consider for your own survey. 

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Contents: 

What is an NPS survey? 

Why perform an NPS survey?

How often should you perform an NPS survey? 

When should you send an NPS survey?

Best practices for creating effective NPS survey questions

NPS survey question examples

Top tips for analyzing NPS survey results 

How to create an NPS survey

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Ready to learn more? Then let’s get started. 

What is an NPS survey?

An NPS survey, short for a Net Promoter Score survey, is a tool used by brands, businesses, and organizations to measure customer loyalty. The Net Promoter Score is measured by asking customers, consumers, or users of a product or service the simple question “On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?” How users choose to answer this question demonstrates their general level of satisfaction with a product and their willingness to recommend it to important people in their lives. 

Once user responses to this question have been collected, the business can then categorize them into one of three groups: 

• Promoters (score 9-10). These individuals are both loyal to and enthusiastic about the company or brand. 
• Passives (score 7-8). These individuals are generally satisfied with their experience but not necessarily loyal to the brand. 
• Detractors (score 0-6). These individuals are unsatisfied and could even share negative reviews about their experience. 

Why perform an NPS survey? 

The main reason for performing an NPS survey is that it instantly reveals to you how happy your customers are with the products or services your company provides. When customers indicate via the NPS survey that they are no longer having a good experience with your company, this gives you and your team a chance to investigate further, rectify issues, and win customers back. Additionally, an NPS survey is an opportunity for you to identify who your strongest advocates are. Once these “Promoters” have been identified, you can try to find out more about why their experience has been so positive and use this feedback to create more satisfied customers. The reason Promoters are such valuable customers is because they:

• Spend more money 
• Are more likely to try out new products or features
• Encourage friends, family, and colleagues to buy from your company
• Have a higher lifetime value 

How often should you perform an NPS survey?

The best time to send out an NPS survey is after a consumer has had a meaningful interaction with your brand. But if your customer is regularly interacting with your company that doesn’t mean you should perform an NPS survey each time. A good rule of thumb for companies who are regularly changing their products and services is to send out the NPS survey every couple of months. That way, you can keep track of how your customers feel about the new products and services on offer. However, if your company’s offering does not change very much, or at all, you shouldn’t send an NPS survey out quite so often; after all, customers won’t have anything new to say. Instead, try to send it out every six months or so. This way you can ensure that your customers’ experience stays consistently high and you’ll avoid irritating your customers by asking them too often for feedback. 

When should you send an NPS survey?

As we’ve seen, the optimal time to send out an NPS survey is when your company is still fresh in the minds of your customers and they can remember their experience with your brand clearly. For this reason, the following three moments are perfect opportunities for you to get the most responses and the most accurate results from your users. 

1. After a purchase: Many companies choose the moment after a customer has purchased a product or service to send out an NPS survey. The customer will have formed a clear impression of the brand and its offering by this point and will likely have a strong opinion about whether or not they would recommend it to friends or acquaintances. 
2. After a customer service interaction: A customer who has recently interacted with a member of your customer service team will no doubt have feedback on how that interaction went. This is therefore an opportune moment to capture that feedback by sending them an NPS survey. 
3. After a specific event: After the launch of a new feature or product, a website redesign, or an in-person store event are all perfect times to collect customer feedback. Your customers will be in a strong position to let you know how they feel about these events and how they feel about their interactions with your brand in general.

Best practices for creating effective NPS survey questions

In order to help you put together an effective NPS survey, we’ve compiled a list of best practices for you to follow. If you keep these in mind, you’ll see the effectiveness of your NPS surveys soar. 

Keep it simple 

Your customers don’t have the time to decipher a complex message. To capture and retain their attention use clear language, avoid jargon, and keep the length of the text as short as possible. 

Keep questions to a minimum 

If your survey is too long, customers are much more likely to abandon it before completion. To avoid this, keep your survey short and stick to one main question. If it’s necessary to your survey’s objective, you can follow this up with a handful of other questions for additional insights and feedback. 

Use open, closed, and multiple choice questions 

Your NPS question format plays a key role in the success of your survey. Closed questions are ideal for the collection of quantitative feedback; data that is numerical and therefore easier to track, measure, and compare. Open questions, on the other hand, are perfect for the collection of qualitative data; anecdotal feedback that can support quantitative findings and give real insights into how customers are feeling. 

Don’t be biased 

It can be easy to ask your customers leading questions without realizing it. Keep your questions neutral and don’t be tempted to guide your users towards your desired response. 

Don’t be afraid to be specific 

The more specific your questions are, the more accurate the responses you collect will be. With this in mind, write your questions regarding a specific product, service, experience, or event rather than asking a more general question about the brand or company as a whole. 

Leave room for feedback 

When customers are given an allocated space to provide their own feedback, suggestions, or opinions they feel heard and valued. This kind of anecdotal response is also an important part of your data collection; it can support statistical findings and provide useful context to other responses. 

NPS survey question examples

Getting the questions on your NPS survey right will determine the accuracy of the feedback you receive. Here are some example questions you might want to include in your NPS survey. Remember, it’s important to keep your survey as short as possible, therefore it’s not recommended that you use all of these! 

• On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend our company/product/service to a friend or colleague?
• What could we do to improve your experience?
• How likely are you to continue doing business with us in the future?
• On a scale of 0-10, how well does our product/service meet your needs?
• Please share any additional comments or feedback about our company.

Top tips for analyzing NPS survey results 

Once you’ve sent out your NPS survey and collected the responses from your customers and users, it’s time to analyze the results. 

Here are our top tips for analyzing the results of your survey in order to better understand your customers needs, goals, and behavior as well as learn what you might do differently to bring about increased engagement and conversions. 

Monitor trends over specific time periods 

By tracking your NPS score and noting changes in customer feedback you can quickly identify areas that might be improved upon as well as measure how successful the changes you’ve already made are. 

Follow up on your survey 

If a customer has given your company a very low score on the NPS survey, it’s worth following up with them directly to see if you can address their concerns or issues. Not only does this show that you care about their opinion, it demonstrates your desire to fix any challenges they are facing and improve their overall experience with your brand. 

Be transparent with your team about NPS results 

For those in customer-facing roles, having access to NPS survey results will be crucial for them to fully understand and address customer issues as well as be aware of any ongoing system or interface problems. However, if you want to make your company fully customer centric, it’s worth sharing these results across the company, too. With all team members aware of your NPS score, accountability is increased which acts as a prompt for all team members to work towards an improved customer experience.   

Segment your data 

You may want to consider breaking down the data you’ve collected into different customer segments such as demographics or products used. Segmenting your data in this way can help you notice trends within specific groups, gain more targeted insights, and help you pinpoint particular areas that need improvement. 

How to create an NPS survey

While there are numerous tools out there to help you create an NPS survey, the easiest and most effective way for you to get started is to head over to Checkbox.com with our NPS survey example.

Conclusion 

We hope you’ve enjoyed learning more about NPS surveys with us! For concrete examples that are already pre-created in Checkbox, head over to our survey template library.