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Customer Feedback Overview (NPS, CSAT, & CES)

When your business receives feedback, both good and bad, we have to agree with Mr. Gates that there are lessons to be learned. But how can this data be gathered, and what is the strategy behind it?

There are several popular ways to measure customer’s experiences with your business. Gathering feedback is vitally important to understand your client’s experience. Having a plan and surveys in place to monitor this data allows you to pivot your focus when needed, adjust things that aren’t working, and most of all, be in the know about what your clients are saying about you.

Let’s break down and look into three proven frameworks that you can use to collect and monitor your business’ customer feedback. 

Net Promoter Score® 

The Net Promoter Score, or NPS Score, is likely the most popular metric for many successful companies around the world. It’s grown in popularity since its inception in 2013 as a tool that business owners use to engage their customers in feedback, and quantify the likelihood of earning a referral from a client. 

NPS is a trademarked system with procedures that include a simple question that never changes. The survey question is sent at a chosen interval and not tied to an event, and your score should improve as your interactions with a customer increase. The likelihood of referral rating that you receive from a client determines if they are a promoter, passive, or a detractor. 

Your NPS score is determined by the rating your customers provide and based on one simple question that doesn’t change:

“How likely are you to recommend our company to someone you know?”

The pros of NPS are it’s simplicity, along with its clear standards and guidelines. It’s a straightforward indication of a customer’s willingness to recommend your business, and word of mouth is the best advertising.

NPS will give you a score that you can track, but it will limit your understanding as its question focused on recommendation only. There are so many elements to a client’s journey with your business. Listening to them is essential, and if you already have them answering your survey, why not learn more? There are systems for that too!

Customer experience surveys can also include open-ended questions to tell you more and give you key insights. CSAT and CES are tools that can help and frameworks for questions that you might use. 

Want to find out your Net Promoter Score? Check out our NPS calculator

Customer Satisfaction Level (CSAT)

Another method to monitor satisfaction that allows for more flexibility is your customer satisfaction level or CSAT. You can ask more questions, which can help you with specific products and services, and this framework allows you to inquire about specific things that are important to your business.

Your customer satisfaction survey questions may look like the questions below, and the answers can be multiple choice, unlike the NPS score which is by number. 

“How satisfied were you with the overall service you received?”

“How was your most recent visit?”

“How would you rate our newsletter?”

“How was your experience on our website?”

To calculate your CSAT store, you use the total number of satisfied customers and divide them by the total number of respondents (# of satisfied customers ÷ total # of respondents × 100%).

CSAT’s flexibility allows you to tailor your questions. The best thing about CSAT is this versatility because it allows you to ask customers a variety of questions. CSAT permits you to customize your survey questions, so you can delve into different strengths and weaknesses, which helps you focus on finding the best ways to meet your customers’ needs.

The CSAT is the weakest predictor of future behavior because it often limits its scope to a single interaction. The CSAT score is also a poor predictor of any type of loyalty; although a low CSAT score can predict attrition, a high CSAT doesn’t accurately predict repeat business.

Customer Effort Score (CES)

Your Customer Effort Score (CES) is an interesting tool to assess your business’ performance through your client’s eyes. As the name states, this metric focuses on the efforts your customers make to interact with your business.

This system is a great way to find out if your client’s experienced difficulties and help you to create a seamless process for them, every step of the way. CES scores are usually a single question asked about a single action with your company. It may be framed around their communication with your staff, scheduling, or even leaving a review.

Commonly asked question for CES data collection and reporting might be:

“How easy was it to schedule your appointment with our team?”

“Our company made it easy to handle my issue” 

Answers are multiple-choice, with a range between “Very Easy” to “Very Difficult”, or “Strongly Agree” and “Strongly Disagree”. Answers may also have a number range. 

Your CES score is determined by calculating the average answers to this question. If you find that most of your answers are negative, it’s likely that you need to adjust something about your procedures to ease the experience of your clients.

Which of these methods is best for your business?
It’s critical to have a system in place to track your NPS score since that is a long-term metric that offers proper segmentation of your customer base. The NPS survey often needs a reminder sent, and it is an ongoing process that should be a part of your procedures and evaluation methods. It is necessary to have this to improve your client’s perception of your brand, and NPS also gives you a trackable way to monitor any changes in this perception. 

Using NPS along with CSAT and CES allows for a broad understanding of how your brand is seen and helps you to gauge what your clients may say about you and how likely you are to earn a recommendation. Using these frameworks allows you to understand the likelihood of receiving referrals, satisfaction levels, and efforts put forth by your customers. 

Do you need an expert to help? WebPunch is ready to get into the ring with you and make sure that you use the experiences of your customers to prep you for more wins!


Author Bio: Mahala Evans is proud to be part of WebPunch’s Content Team. She was raised in beautiful Boulder and then lived in Boston, where she learned about hardcore baseball fans and also went to college. Her professional background is in communications and fundraising for nonprofits. She now lives in Colorful Colorado with her husband and their two daughters, where the baseball energy is lacking but the sunshine is almost daily. Her mantra for 2020 is “start where you are, use what you have, do what you can”-Arthur Ashe