What is NPS? The essential tool to measure customer satisfaction!

The French version of this article is available here : Qu’est-ce que le NPS ? L’outil indispensable pour mesurer la satisfaction client !

What e-merchant wouldn’t like to know and measure the satisfaction of his customers? There are several tools and/or methods to calculate it. Why would the NPS tell me. I will tell you that it is one of the simplest and quickest tools to set up for the e-merchant and also one of the quickest and lightest for your customers, who will answer it.

What is NPS?

The NPS (Net Promoter Score) is one of the most widely used tools to measure customer satisfaction, whether in B2B or B2C and regardless of the field of activity, product or service sales.

To get straight to the point, the NPS is a score calculated from a simple and straightforward question asked to your customers that highlights their recommendation intention.

Which question?

Would you recommend this company to others?

The customer will be asked to answer this question on a scale of 0 to 10, from “not at all” to “absolutely”.

To this simple question, it is usually customary to add a single other open-ended question such as “What was the reason for your answer?”.

This way, if the client puts a negative rating, you have the opportunity to have some elements of the answer and potentially make the necessary adjustments so that it doesn’t happen again. The same goes for positive notes, it’s always interesting to know your strong points, because you must never let up!

The NPS segments your customers into 3 categories

The answers to the questionnaire will allow you to segment / classify your customers into three distinct categories, the detractors, the passive customers and the promoters.

The detractors 🙁

The term detractor is a bit strong, but this category includes people who are dissatisfied or not satisfied with your product or service. They are the most “dangerous” because disappointed or frustrated, they will not hesitate to share their bad experience on social networks and in their family/friends/professional circle.

Their answers to the open-ended question will allow you to identify the points of frustration encountered during their customer experience and to take advantage of it to find an opportunity for improvement.

These detractors are customers who answer from 0 to 6.

Passive customers 😐

Passive” customers are generally satisfied customers who have not yet passed the recommendation milestone or who do not yet have absolute confidence in your brand.

They are able to switch to either of the other two categories quite easily, often motivated by small details. This is why it is important to have an open question that will allow you to know these details and thus avoid tipping them over to the detractors!

This customer category is not taken into account in the calculation of the NPS.

These passive customers are the customers who answer 7 or 8.

The promoters 😀

The promoters are part of your followers! This customer population will not hesitate to recommend you and be ambassadors for your brand.

This category of customers is obviously to be pampered in order to maintain the link that unites them to your brand. For example, you can set up a sponsorship offer that will allow them to make their recommendations profitable and you, as a merchant, to capitalize on them.

These promoters are the customers who answer 9 or 10.

How is the NPS calculated?

It is quite simple to calculate the NPS once you have obtained the answers to your form. All you need are the percentages of detractors and promoters. As the name implies, passive customers are therefore not taken into account.

NPS = % promoters — % detractors

The score obtained will oscillate between -100 and +100. Indeed, if you have 100% of detractors, which I do not wish you, you will get -100 and +100 if you have 100% of promoters.

Through the NPS, you now have a tool, a simple method to measure the satisfaction of your customers. Be careful though, the NPS is not the one and only indicator and you should not rely on one single indicator for everything.

Don’t hesitate to contact me if you want to know more Prestashop or Shopify in particular, I have a e-commerce blog !