Use Net Promoter Scores

- When you engage with your customers, you may wanna ask a very simple question. "Do you like the product?" In response, you'll get a simple yes or no, but, that can be very misleading. A method that's used throughout product management and marketing is the Net Promoter Score. It gives you a much more meaningful answer that you can use to evolve your product. Net Promoter, or NPS, asks a simple question to your audience.

The answer is evaluated on a numeric scale of one to ten. A one means that they would absolutely never recommend the product. A ten would mean that they enthusiastically recommend the product. The result of the question is an index, ranging from negative 100 to positive 100. This percentage value represents how satisfied customers are with your particular product. The percentage is determined by taking the numeric responses for each question and categorizing them into three groups.

The first are the promoters. Anyone that responds to the question with a nine or a ten is classified as a promoter. These are your big fans. They're highly satisfied and will promote your product on your behalf. The second are the passives. Anyone that responds with a seven or an eight is a passive. These individuals like the product, but they aren't going to actively promote it. They're also potential targets to be poached by competitors.

The last group are the detractors. Anyone that responds with a six or lower is a detractor. These individuals are actively discouraging others from using your product. They're likely to promote other products, and can harm your product reputation if you're not able to address their concerns. NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. Passives are ignored. So, if your survey results are 50 percent promoters, 30 percent passives, and 20 percent detractors, your Net Promoter index is a positive 30.

Weeding how people are classified is related to the psychology of how people respond to the original question. It also takes into account that negative word of mouth has a greater impact than positive. With these scores, a 30 is considered good, 50 is great, and a 70 is considered excellent. A 70, while an achievable goal, is something that takes a very long time to build and establish with your customers. With a new product, your NPS score will most likely be very low, but it's just a starting point.

Set a specific, long-term goal, and then make a plan to build support from your customers, utilize their feedback to improve your product, and increase your NPS score over time.