What is NPS and why should your Agency care about it?

4 minute read

Emily Cooper

May 17, 2021


Here at Vaboo you will often see us celebrating our clients achieving fantastic Net Promoter Scores. In fact, in the first 12 months of working with Vaboo we see over 95% of agents increasing their Net Promoter Scores and by an average of 8 points. Sounds like just more industry jargon right? We unveil what NPS really is, and more importantly, why these 3 little letters should matter to your agency.

What is the Net Promoter Score?

Net promoter score, or ‘NPS’, is a way for businesses to measure customer satisfaction. In very simple terms it is calculated by asking customers how likely they are to recommend a business to someone. Their answers are then fed into a calculation to produce a figure used for universal benchmarking.

Who uses Net Promoter Score (NPS)?

NPS is a measurement used by companies around the world. Businesses use it to assess customer satisfaction and loyalty to a brand. NPS differs from other benchmarks, as it gives a good indication of a customer’s sentiment about a brand as a whole, rather than just their opinion on particular interactions or purchases. Because of this, it has become synonomous in discussions accross industries about customer experience, and is a helpful tool for organisations to see how their customer service is perceived, as well as, where improvements could be made.

So, how do you measure it?

The calculation for NPS is based on a two-minute questionnaire that asks customers to rate how likely they would be to promote a company to their friends and acquaintances on a scale of 0-10. According to the number they choose, they are then placed in one of the following three categories:

Promoters

Promoters are people who give a score from 9-10. They are the most likely to exhibit behaviours such as buying more, returning to the brand over a long period and referring more people. They have what is known as a high “lifetime value”.

Passives

Passives are customers who give a score of 7 or 8. They are considered to be relatively satisfied. They might remain loyal, but also have the potential to switch allegiance to a competitor if the conditions are right. They won’t make special efforts to make referrals or leave reviews.

Detractors

Detractors are those that give a score between 0 and 6. They are (usually) dissatisfied or unengaged customers and have the potential to damage your brand reputation through negative reviews, social media or word-of-mouth.

To calculate the NPS you simply take away the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. The worst possible score - or in other words the score that would be achieved if every customer was a detractor, is -100. The best NPS score is 100. However, both of these scores are highly unlikely.

Passives serve to increase the total number of respondents, which in turn decreases the percentage of detractors and promoters in equal measure. This drives the overall NPS down towards 0.

What is a good NPS score?

To answer this question, it’s important to understand that the results vary dramatically from industry to industry.

Technically, any score above 0 can be considered a “good” score, since it means you have more promoters than detractors. According to global NPS standards, a score of above 50 is good, and above 70 is outstanding. However, both of these scores are very rare.

Why NPS should matter.

In the Property Industry the average NPS score is -11 (yes minus 11) so an NPS of over 50 is exceptional rather than just good. Here at Vaboo over 50% of Clients have an NPS of over 50. Why? Because Agents that use Vaboo understand that customer experinece matters, and is the key to long term growth and sustainability.

There are a number of ways in which measuring NPS can also be beneficial for your company.

The NPS system gives companies a chance to gather more information from respondents. It also gives them chance to try and change a negative impression. Since an NPS survey only takes a very short amount of a customer’s time, it’s relatively easy to get them to engage. Vaboo does this on behalf of agents to greatly increase the chance of responding, and calculates the NPS to save agents time and effort.

It helps agencies to get to know their customers and improve relationships. By breaking down customers down into promoters, passives and detractors, the NPS system makes it easy to differentiate between them. Everyone in the company has a common set of definitions and measurements to work with.

It makes benchmarking easier. NPS is a standard metric used by companies globally. As such, it lets you place your score in the context of other scores in your industry and see how you measure up. NPS also allows your agency to see a big-picture snapshot of customer loyalty at a given moment.

It drives growth and helps agencies channel their customer service efforts and grow revenue through referrals and upselling of other services and products.

With all this in mind, the key question for companies is: how can you act quickly on customer insights to improve customer experience, grow your NPS and reduce customers leaving to go to agencies that offer superior customer service - and using NPS can prove they do so?

How's your NPS - Do you measure up? Why not get in touch with our team and see how we can help. vaboo.co.uk/demo


Tags

Insights Engagement