Net Promoter® Software Buyer’s Guide

You’ve read about it and convinced senior management that Net Promoter is the way to go. You know you will need a change management process to make it work long term. You also know that you will need some type of NPS software system to collect the survey responses. What does that software need to be able to do?

Run down any current buyer’s guide and the mandatory list looks close to identical: automation, multi-channel delivery, live reporting, security certifications. None of that is wrong, and none of it has moved much since I first wrote this guide. It’s good advice.

But here’s a question the standard checklist never asks: does the software know that three survey responses from three different people at the same customer account are actually one relationship, not three independent data points?

That question is missing from nearly every one of the NPS software checklists I’ve seen but is critical for B2B industries. I’ve added that to the list below, along with the rest of what I still tell clients to check before they sign a contract.

NPS Platform Options

Generic “Market Research” platform

There are plenty of market research based systems you could use but that probably isn’t a good idea.

While they are great at collecting the data you need they are typically designed for one-off or project based data collection.

To turn them into an NPS process system you’ll spend a lot of time customising them to perform;

• Closed loop process that a good NPS process requires;
• Automated daily/weekly/monthly operational report delivery;
• Making the reports easy for non-Data Scientists to understand;
• and more.

Build it in-house

It may look like just a simple survey that your in-house development team can create in a week and that’s true, you can build the base system in a week. The problem comes when you want to make any type of change to the system: adding a report, changing a survey, etc. Then you get in behind the dreaded development schedule and are forever waiting to get that typo fixed on page two of the survey.

By the very nature of the implementation process your list of wants for the system will grow longer and longer and that custom work will take longer and longer to complete. It’s called scope creep and it’s inevitable when you’re designing a new system of any type.

NPS® specific platform

A better choice is to use a system that has already been designed, redesigned and fine tuned to run a Net Promoter process. That gives you all the functions you need on day one. Your focus can then be on collecting and using the information, not endlessly re-designing your survey management software.

By its nature the system will be NPS aware, by which I mean it will understand how Net Promoter is calculated. This makes your reporting a breeze. Without this one small feature you will spend your time redesigning reports to take account of the way that the score is calculated not using the information to make changes in your business.

Net Promoter Software Features

If you want good value from your Net Promoter software make sure that it has these key features:

Automatic sending (Mandatory)

Your system should be able to automatically send survey invites and process the responses into live reports without daily human intervention. Performing routine functions is not exciting for your staff. Even with great self-discipline, data loads will get missed, reports will not get generated, and slowly but surely things will start to break. Automating the process as much as possible eliminates these issues.

For transactional feedback systems this is a critical long term success factor.

Live Reporting (Mandatory)

You should be able to logon in the morning and see what happened yesterday, an hour ago or even 30 seconds ago. Then you need to be able to drill into interesting reports, slice and dice the data on different live variables to get an understanding of what is really happening in your business.

The ability to segment and filter your data across many different customer variables will help drive your ability to turn data into information into action.

Importantly the reporting system must be usable by operational folks in your business, not just data scientists.

Service Recovery Automation (Mandatory)

Service recovery automation is the ability for your Net Promoter system to alert staff so they can initiate an outbound customer conversation to resolve customer issues. This can be done in two ways:

1. Adding a question to your survey to ask customers if they want to be contacted.
2. Targeting low scores to recover your least happy customers.

Your system should send an email or other alert to a relevant staff member with details of the customer and their response. When staff act on these issues quickly and resolve customer problems in minutes, not days, it will drive up employee engagement and customer loyalty.

Service Recovery Workflow management (Recommended)

Systems that have workflow management included enable staff to coordinate their response to customers and ensure that nothing falls through the cracks.

Excellent Security (Mandatory)

You are entrusting a lot of important data to your vendor, not just the usual customer name and email address that you send to your email service provider. Filter segment information and transaction details may all be included in your upload in order to enable effective live reporting.

Ask specific security questions of your vendor. For instance, ask them where the data is hosted. It should be in a secure facility with the right security protocols in place.

Multiple survey delivery approaches (Mandatory)

Your customers live in a multi-channel world and so should your customer feedback process. To ensure that you can put your survey in front of customers in the channel that they most want to use, you should at least have the following channels:

1. Email link to web survey
2. Mobile, tablet and desktop optimised survey
3. SMS web link
4. SMS send and respond
5. Website popup
6. Outbound / inbound contact centre
7. Face to face tablet based data collection
8. Self-directed kiosk operation

Flexible data input and extraction (Recommended)

Getting your data into and out of the system will be the key to long term automation and acceptance so you need lots of options here:

1. Automated (secure) file upload: to allow overnight batch upload from key business systems.
2. Flexible API data input enabling you to immediately initiate a survey at the end of a web or contact centre touchpoint.
3. Flexible API data export so you have the option to push data to your corporate CRM system (salesforce.com, Oracle CRM, etc.) and link the customer’s feedback with their business records.
4. Flexible API input to allow you to poke survey responses from other systems into the integrated Net Promoter reporting system.
5. Flexible file types giving you the ability to upload and download Excel, CSV, XML as required.

Easy to set up (Recommended)

Momentum in the early stages of the project will be very important so you need to be able to be and running with the process in just a few weeks. Select Net Promoter software that can be configured, tested and running within 4 weeks.

Ability to share data widely (Mandatory)

Some organisation say that sharing data widely and transparently is a core tenant of success for their Net Promoter programs. The system you choose must be able to share that data across the entire organisation, securely and easily.

1. Intranet links with live, rolling scores and comments.
2. Automated email reports to key staff on how their areas are performing.

Account-level roll-up for B2B (Mandatory if you sell to businesses)

If your customers are companies rather than consumers, check whether the system can roll multiple contacts at one account up into a single account view, and link that view to revenue or churn risk.

A consumer NPS tool treats every response as an independent data point. A B2B-aware tool knows that the finance contact, the operations manager and the CEO at the same account are one relationship worth watching as a whole, not three unrelated scores.

NPS System Options

For a vendor-by-vendor comparison, including where CustomerGauge, Qualtrics and the rest of the field land on this list, see the companion piece: The Ultimate Guide to The Best NPS Software. For proof this checklist matters in practice, see the Net Promoter Score success stories and case studies.

If you’d like a second opinion on your shortlist against this checklist, book a chat and we’ll work through it together.