Net Promoter Score (NPS) has been a go-to metric for gauging customer loyalty for years. Its benefits are clear - it’s simple to understand, provides a metric that’s easy to track over time, and provides a straightforward benchmark against competitors. However - in the evolving world of customer experience management, is Net Promoter Score the best customer experience metric to track? While the core question of NPS surveys still provides valuable feedback and data, relying on Net Promoter Score as the sole measure of the customer experience can lead to blind spots.
Should Businesses Still Use NPS to Track Customer Experience?
NPS can provide a valuable benchmark for customer experience strategies, providing a high-level snapshot of customer sentiment that is easy for the entire organization to understand and get behind. The score separates customers into Promoters, Passives, and Detractors, giving businesses a framework for identifying their most loyal customers and their most at-risk customers. The potential shortcomings of leaning too heavily on NPS data, however, are becoming more apparent. Without additional context, the score itself can fail to reveal the why behind the data or provide clear direction for improvement.
Here is a look at where NPS surveys and data can fall short:
Lower Customer Survey Participation Leads to Smaller Samples
A significant challenge facing NPS is the general decline in survey participation by customers. As consumers are inundated with more and more requests for feedback, response rates have begun to fall, which can lead to small sample sizes that provide less feedback. This means your score may be based on the opinions of a very small fraction of your customer base, rather than being a true representation of the overall sentiment.
Customer Participation Has Evolved
The way customers provide feedback has changed as customer engagement options have grown. Modern consumers are sharing their experiences across a multitude of channels, from social media posts and online reviews to direct messages and call center conversations. Putting too much emphasis on a formal survey means you are missing out on a wealth of authentic feedback that provides a more comprehensive view of the customer journey at your company.
Businesses Do Not Always Take Action Based on Data
Maybe the most significant pitfall of any metric is the failure of businesses to act on the insights, feedback, and data it provides. Studies have shown that customers notice when companies don't do anything with their feedback, which has a negative impact on trust and future participation in customer surveys. Simply collecting an NPS score without implementing a closed-loop process to follow up with detractors and address potential pain points renders the entire exercise pointless.
Omnichannel Strategies Provide More Data and Insight
The modern customer experience is an omnichannel engagement, with interactions that happen across your website, mobile app, in-person locations, and service centers. An NPS score alone cannot capture the many facets of these various experiences. Integrating data from all these touchpoints provides a much richer, more complete picture of customer behavior and the customer experience, allowing you to move beyond a single metric.
READ MORE: How To Use NPS to Improve the Customer Experience
While Net Promoter Score remains a valuable tool in the customer experience management toolkit, it is far from a definitive metric. The most effective CX strategies understand that NPS is just one piece of a much larger puzzle and by supplementing NPS data with additional insight and KPIs from across the entire customer journey and taking action on that feedback, businesses can create a more accurate understanding of their customer base.
Contact boostCX today to learn how we can help you capture and act on important customer experience KPIs!
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