Get A Better UX Metric From Your NPS Survey Data

A few weeks ago, I wrote a somewhat controversial analysis of Net Promoter Score, a business metric employed in many organizations. Many who were critical of my article stated they thought I should’ve provided a replacement for their beloved instrument, if I was going to tell them they can’t use it any more. While there is no replacement for the numeric score, there is a way to get value out of the survey used to collect the Net Promoter Score data.

Keep in mind that this method for getting value from an NPS survey isn’t easy. As you’ll read, it involves a series of difficult steps.

However, it’s not rocket science either. (NASA has been a client of ours and they’ve confirmed, it’s not rocket science. They have very strict definitions and this does not match that.)

Here’s our process for getting value from NPS surveys:

Step 1: Collect Up The Surveys

We go after every NPS survey we can find. (Sometimes they are scattered throughout the organization and not well organized or coordinated.)

Step 2: Throw Away The Net Promoter Score

That number the survey respondents gave has no value. It’s like the skin of the mango. There’s nothing good about it. Just throw it away.

Step 3: Put The NPS Feedback Answers In One Place

These are all the qualitative answers that “explain why” the respondent gave the score they did. NPS proponents and haters alike agree that these feedback answers are where the real gold is.

We put them in a big spreadsheet. Or better yet, we write them on sticky notes for sorting.

Step 4: Sort The Feedback, Looking For Patterns

We look for repeated feedback about any trouble areas, like the process being too long or checkout being complicated or difficulty finding the customer service number. We start grouping the feedback under similar trouble areas.

Some feedback may mention more than one trouble area. When we find those, we duplicate the feedback and classify it under each area.