The fastest way to growth is retaining current customers while acquiring new ones. Companies spend thousands of dollars to acquire new customers and in the beginning, things may be great.
But over time, the customer’s priorities are changing. Their needs are changing, their people are changing and technology is changing. In fact, client retention is the ability to deliver what was promised in the sales process AND the ability to keep up with those changes.
If you are regularly performing a Net Promoter Score® (NPS) survey, you already know and are reaping the benefits. What’s surprising to me are the companies that don’t, and more importantly, why they aren’t or haven’t.
Aren’t you curious too?
Here are 4 Seemingly Practical Motives for Not Surveying Customers:
1. Already speak to customers regularly
On the surface, it must seem like a waste of time to do a survey if someone on the sales or support team speaks to customers every day. Consider though what percentage of all of your active customers are being covered with a live phone conversation each week or even month.
Or, have you ever been surprised when you lost a client or when they reduced the amount of product or service that they buy from you because they shifted the work to someone else? Do you believe that with some proactive insight, you might have been able to prevent these losses? I can tell you so many stories – personal as well as client situations, where the NPS client survey feedback really opened up dialogue and not only led to reduced churn, but some real innovations.
2. Confident that the customers are happy
You know you have some great relationships and customers keep buying from you. Or on the flip side, maybe you fear what they might actually say.If you aren't surveying your customers, you simply don't know. Not knowing for certain puts your current and future revenue at risk.
Client surveys also help build and strengthen relationships.Great companies share their NPS results with their large clients in Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) and use to validate the value that has been provided.If any issues have arisen, it provides the opportunity to objectively measure and take action. The transparency helps build trust and move relationships up the pyramid.
3. Costs seem to outweigh the benefits
Performing a survey internally or externally takes time and there are associated costs. Perhaps though, you would be surprised at how inexpensive it is to gain reliable and actionable data to help you retain and grow your business.
For example, most Butler Street NPS clients find that saving one or two orders (or finding a new one or two new orders) as a result of the survey cover the costs AND within days of the survey! Not to mention, you and your team will have the opportunity to have a lot of powerful conversations with your clients that leads to long-term growth.
4. Unsure of how a client survey can generate new business
There are multiple avenues that new business is generated following a survey. First, simply by taking action. Organizations who took action on feedback received through Net Promoter surveys increased client retention 11%!
Promoters, those that rate an organization a 9 or 10, share why and can provide permission right in the survey to use the feedback as a testimonial. I don’t know a sales or marketing person that wouldn’t love to have a library of client testimonials and references to use on the website, other collateral and in the sales process to generate new business.
The next area is cross-selling and referrals. On multiple occasions, I have seen where in the actionable insights that a client says something like, “I wish they would…” for something that the company already offers. You don’t want to hear from a client, “I didn’t know you did that.” These unmet needs however are ripe opportunities for growth!
Here is what a CEO from one of our clients recently said, "Butler Street's NPS program gave us the opportunity to objectively measure and establish a loyalty benchmark - and through focused actions, improve our score by 23% this year. Because of this effort, we are posting industry-leading growth year over year."
So even if you are already speaking to customers, believe the customers are happy, the benefits of performing a Net Promoter Score® survey increase the ability to acquire and retain customers and expand within them. Contact us to schedule your survey today.