Tracking May Mobility’s Customer Satisfaction with NPS

May Mobility’s mission is to unlock a better life today through self-driving technology. So, how are we doing? In September, we shared what we had learned after our first 10,000 rides. One of the key insights: we’re delivering an improved rider experience. Today let’s look at how we measure rider experience and examine the magnitude of that improvement.

How To Measure Customer Experience?

The Net Promoters Score (NPS) is an industry standard method of understanding customer satisfaction. It’s a two-question survey. The first question asks, “On a scale from 0–10, how likely are you to recommend the May Mobility service to a friend or colleague?” The second question is open-ended, “What is the main reason for the score you gave?”

NPS both quantifies customers’ experience and allows for qualitative rationale. To calculate overall score, all nines and tens are lumped together as Promoters, sevens and eights are Neutrals, and anything six and under is a Detractor. Subtracting the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters gives you your total NPS. (For a deeper dive into NPS, check out https://delighted.com/net-promoter-score.)

Using the NPS, we’ve calculated a shift in customer satisfaction from -30 to +67 among riders since launch, with the buyers’ satisfaction topping out at +100.

Let’s break that score down. Stay with me here…

Are Customers Satisfied?

When we talk about customers, May Mobility has two: the riders who interact with our self-driving shuttles on a daily basis, and the buyers who pay for the service. For riders, we have a continuous rolling NPS survey process so we can track their satisfaction over time, and learn from patterns in the ebb and flow. For the buyer, who doesn’t necessarily interact with the shuttles on a daily basis, we find that quarterly evaluation suffices as an indicator of ROI.

The Riders

Wanting to track the same riders on the updated commuter experience, May Mobility first administered an NPS survey two weeks before our autonomous electric shuttles replaced 30-passenger diesel buses.

Given the calculus explained above, consider again the jump we measured from -30 to +67 on the rider NPS. Because these numbers exist in a relative vacuum, we’ve included “cable TV” (below) which we all know and love, as a benchmark. It scores -5 on average.

Qualitative data from our first quarter survey revealed why riders were enjoying their experience:

• Convenience: “There is almost always a shuttle at each stop when I arrive.”
• Commute time: “It’s fast and more reliable than the previous shuttle.”
• Comfort: “On time, with very friendly fleet attendant. I love the ride.”

The Buyer

Our other customer, the buyer and their team, gave us the highest NPS possible based on a similar rationale. Reliability of service, high quality, consistency and responsiveness were all justifications for the high scores. One member of the buyer team shared:

“I’d say 12 but since it has to be between one and ten I will say ten. The May [Mobility] team executes. They move the team members efficiently and safely. Since the implementation of May [Mobility] on our Bricktown route, I cannot remember any feedback calls from our team members about any negative points in service. If we could use May [Mobility] for all of our routes I would recommend it.”

Next Step: 100’s Across the Board

Now, on our quest to launch, learn and iterate, we can’t help but wonder how to get that +67 rider NPS up to a perfect 100. As such, we’ve instituted a policy of following up with anyone who is a Detractor (marked a 6 or less on their survey) asking, “What can we do better?” This allows us to track improvement in the rider experience over time. The opportunity to learn from our critics is important.

As we’re launching in more cities across the country, these insights allow us to anticipate the needs of our newest customers. May Mobility is improving the lives of customers in Detroit today. Up next: today, we launch in Columbus; and then Rhode Island; and then…

Want to partner with us in your city? Contact us here.