Is there an immediate benefit to Net Promoter Score? Is it worth the investment?
The quick answer is, HELL YES … there are immediate benefits (both strategic and financial) and it is absolutely worth the investment.
BUT … that’s assuming you’re using the right tool and following a best practice approach from the beginning.
The fact is, the hard cost investment is not even that significant, especially when compared to the ROI.
NPS should pay for itself multiple times over from the first day of implementation. If you’re not seeing a return on your efforts (and investment), you’re doing something wrong. (And, if that’s the case, we should talk.)
Getting executive buy-in is important. But, I will add that in addition to needing their financial blessing, it’s critical they see the significance of NPS becoming an organizational initiative, not just a “job” for a single isolated/siloed department.
NPS should be used across the entire org as it has direct benefits in the day to day operation for every team: customer support/success, marketing, sales, product, engineering & leadership. (If you’re interested, we drill down into the benefits for each team here.)
This is a daily practice, with daily benefits and implications for the front-line teams of each department. Again, NPS should NOT be a “sheltered team” activity that only reports back on a quarterly basis with scores and process improvements.
As I stated initially, financial benefits of NPS should happen immediately.
Insight into customers who are likely to churn/defect beforehand that your team can proactively begin engaging with is the most immediate day one benefit; along with uncovering your strongest promoters who your sales team can immediately tap to upsell/expand revenue (or refer you to new organic customers).
From an organizational standpoint, a continual stream of customer feedback sets a nearly instant tone of “customer first” thinking and listening across the company so everyone can understand customer motivation.
Lastly, aside from the hard-cost ROI, engaging with your customers on a relationship level and capturing meaningful/actionable data about what is driving their sentiment is ALWAYS worth the investment.
