If you work in professional services, you intuitively know some clients are worth more to your firm than others.
These clients use your services regularly, engage you for high-value projects, and remain with your firm for a long time. They are advocates for the brand, engage with your content on social media and refer new clients to you. We call these clients promoters.
Promoters can be up to three times more likely to make repeat purchases from your firm, according to Beaton Benchmarks data. And they are almost 3.5 times more likely to cross-buy additional unrelated services from your firm.
The challenge is – do you know how many of your clients are promoters? Do you know how many of your clients are the opposite, detractors? And do you know what it might be worth to turn your neutral clients into promoters?
Net Promoter Score or NPS tracking tools can help you answer these questions. Instead of flying blind, you can invest in strategic improvements with confidence that your efforts will yield profitable growth.
What does NPS measure?
The Net Promoter Score is the key to discovering how many of your clients are promoters. It is a metric that measures client satisfaction and loyalty by asking them how likely they are to recommend your firm’s services to others.
A positive NPS shows your firm has more promoters than detractors – and by how much. It is one of the most simple and effective ways to measure client sentiment and predict future behaviour.
NPS surveys are based on the same general question:
On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend our firm/product/service to a friend or colleague?
Respondents that score your firm 9-10 are considered promoters. Those who score 7-8 are neutrals. And those who score 0-6 are considered detractors. Detractors are potentially harmful to your firm’s reputation as they share their negative experiences to others.
To determine your firm’s NPS, you subtract the percentage of detractors from percentage of promoters. For example, if you have 20 percent detractors, 40 percent neutrals and 40 percent promoters, your NPS would be 40-20 = +20.
What does NPS mean in business? Any NPS above zero is a good thing. However, the higher the score, the more satisfied clients you have. A score above 50 indicates you have a strong base of promoters and are very likely to have high client satisfaction and loyalty.
Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures how likely customers are to recommend a product or service. A score above 50 indicates you have a strong base of “promoters” who are willing to recommend your product or services.
Benefits of tracking NPS
Now you know what NPS is, you might be wondering why you should track it. Why measure NPS on a consistent basis?
Here are the top 20 reasons why your professional services firm should consider tracking NPS.
1. Measure client satisfaction
Tracking whether your NPS is improving or shrinking can offer a window into your clients’ satisfaction. This is crucial because satisfied clients are more likely to continue doing business with your firm and offer positive referrals. If your NPS is decreasing, this can be an early warning sign for losing clients. Tracking NPS puts you in a position to act before it’s too late.
2. Measure client retention and loyalty
Customer support and client retention strongly correlate with high NPS. Client retention is one of the most straightforward ways to boost profits by reducing marketing and acquisition costs that come with acquiring new clients. Loyal clients are more likely to spend more with your firm and use you for multiple service streams and practices. They end up creating a high lifetime value and are easier to cross-sell or upsell to.
3. Segment your clients
NPS tracking enables you to divide your clients into groups based on which clients are promoters, neutrals or detractors. This can enable you to tailor services, marketing and improvement initiatives to the particular needs of those segments.
For example, marketing emails you send out to promoters may be quite different to what you send to detractors. Your approach and communication will also be different. Detractors may need immediate attention while promoters are clearly happy with your services and offer a “green light” to continue.
4. Product or service development
Taking segmentation a step further to help develop products and services specifically for certain clients can be a sophisticated way of improving their experience with your firm. For instance, if your ongoing feedback tells you that your local government clients are unhappy with turnaround times, you may look at ways of bolstering your expertise in this sector or seek a technological innovation to drive efficiencies. As you develop new products or services, NPS tracking will tell you whether clients are generally satisfied or not. This can inform whether you need to make changes.
5. Benchmark your performance
Tracking NPS can help your firm understand how it compares to competitors. Beaton data has found NPS ratings have risen steadily for the past decade for all professions. So, it’s no longer enough to simply recognise that your firm’s NPS is tracking upwards. It’s important to compare whether the score is rising at a competitive rate, in line with clients of your industry. The only way to see whether your firm is lagging is by tracking it regularly, and benchmarking against the market.
Tracking NPS provides a simple number that is easily comparable to your competitors, enabling you to benchmark your performance accurately.
6. Build competitive advantage
Adding to the above, once you start benchmarking your firm’s NPS against the market, you will discover strengths that stand out. Identifying these strength areas can enable your firm to hone and market them into competitive advantages. The flip side is that tracking NPS can identify areas of client dissatisfaction – allowing you to address and correct weaknesses. Any savings made through retaining clients can be reinvested into those strengths and competitive advantages.
7. Gather client feedback
The NPS survey question “How likely are you to recommend our services to a friend or colleague?” is easy enough to answer and encourages high response rates. Clients are more likely to provide honest feedback. It is often accompanied by an optional open-ended question asking for further insight. Utilising an NPS tracking system will give you regular opportunities to hear from your clients and gather this feedback in a systematic way.
8. Foster a culture of improvement
NPS tracking can pinpoint areas where your services may need improvement. This can facilitate your firm making targeted efforts to improve in those areas of service and client experience. Moreover, the ongoing nature of tracking NPS enables companies to measure the impact of their improvements over time. It sets up a constant feedback loop that drives iterative enhancements, leading to greater client satisfaction and business success.
Some firms link this feedback with individual performance, fostering collective ownership and creating transparent accountability for improvement.
9. Referral potential
NPS tracking identifies promoters, those enthusiastic and loyal clients who will sing your firm’s praises to people they know. By becoming aware of these promoters, firms can also engage further with them. There are opportunities to harness their positive sentiment to generate more referrals. For example, you might ask them to write a testimonial for your website. Perhaps they will attend your company event or write a positive comment on your social media channels. There are plenty of opportunities to amplify positive sentiment once you have identified it.
The ongoing nature of tracking NPS enables companies to measure the impact of their improvements over time. It sets up a constant feedback loop that drives iterative enhancements, leading to greater client satisfaction and business success.
10. Proactive problem solving
Measuring client satisfaction allows you to detect and address issues early, preventing them from escalating into more significant problems. Scoring low on an NPS survey is often the first warning sign. If you are regularly tracking NPS you can identify these warning signs earlier and react immediately to improve customer sentiment before it worsens or creates detractors.
11. Customer journey mapping
Deploying NPS surveys at key touchpoints along a client’s journey with your firm can offer valuable insights. Analysing scores at each touchpoint and understanding where clients are most satisfied (promoters) and least satisfied (detractors) will help map their journey. This mapping can also identify areas for improvement. Mapping creates data-driven guidance on where to invest resources or tailor elements of the journey to improve overall client experience.
12. Predictive analysis
Once you have mapped the client journey, this can help identify patterns and trends in customer behaviour. By consistently tracking NPS scores and associated comments, firms can spot recurring patterns and shifts in client attitudes, preferences, and expectations. This data can help you anticipate changing client needs and behaviours, allowing you to proactively adapt your strategies, products, and services as client demands evolve.
13. Make data-driven decisions
Firms not surveying their clients regularly risk “flying blind” when it comes to strategic decision-making. The client satisfaction data gained through NPS tracking can shine light on a path forwards. It provides actionable insights that can guide decision-making across various functional departments, from marketing to finance, and across service lines and practices.
14. Boost your brand reputation
By consistently monitoring NPS, businesses can identify promoters and actively engage them to enhance the brand reputation via referrals. Firms who track NPS can also address detractors’ concerns and even turn them into promoters. When customers perceive a brand as responsive to their feedback and dedicated to improvement, it fosters trust, loyalty, and positive word-of-mouth recommendations. This ultimately bolsters brand reputation and credibility in the market.
15. Track the impact of changes to strategy
NPS tracking can measure shifts in customer satisfaction and loyalty over time. This means that when a strategic change is implemented, your NPS data will reveal how clients respond. If a firm’s NPS improves after strategy adjustments, it suggests that the changes have positively influenced client experience. Conversely, a decline in NPS may indicate that the new strategy is not resonating with clients and may need refinement.
Measuring NPS consistently allows you to track the score over time and measure the impacts of any changes on your customers’ satisfaction – and direct your strategy accordingly.
16. Cross-sell and upsell
By identifying promoters via NPS tracking, you identify valuable opportunities to cross-sell and upsell. Clients who are satisfied with your service are more likely to be prepared to pay more for the same service. Beaton research finds that clients who report an excellent client experience are 3.4 times more likely to consider using your firm for another service. They are also at least twice as likely to be prepared to pay more, and 2.8 times more likely to be using the firm in two years’ time.
17. Improve customer onboarding
NPS tracking can be deployed at critical points in the client journey, in particular with onboarding to measure that first commercial experience with you. This kind of tracking helps firms to gauge initial client satisfaction, identify pain points, and make immediate improvements, ensuring a smoother and more positive initial experience. The lessons learned from tracking one client can be applied to new clients to consistently improve the onboarding experience and, hopefully, earn loyalty among those new clients.
18. Improve client experience
Consistently measuring NPS enables clients to pinpoint areas for firms to improve. This can offer valuable insights into client preferences and guide strategic decisions. Ultimately, NPS tracking can guide firms to make targeted enhancements with direct and obvious positive results. Overall client experience improves when firms track NPS and act on feedback in this way.
19. Improve employee engagement
The above note indicates how tracking NPS can improve the client experience. But did you know that process can also help your own employees feel more engaged? Beaton research has found firms that engage their employees in strategies to improve client experience enjoy higher employee satisfaction. Tracking NPS is therefore a win-win for clients and firms, both internal and external stakeholders.
20. Know your promoters
Tracking NPS not only identifies your promoters as loyal customers but also serves as a valuable source of potential referrals and testimonials. By consistently monitoring and segregating promoters from neutrals and detractors, professional services firms can nurture these advocates, leverage their positive experiences for word-of-mouth marketing, and harness their loyalty to drive business growth and enhance their brand reputation.
Beaton partner Paul Hugh-Jones introduces our NPS tracking software, Beaton Debrief.
What to look for in NPS tracking tools for your professional services firm:
Tracking NPS can be inefficient and resource-intensive without a tool set up by experts to streamline the process. Here are some key features you should be looking in an NPS tracking tool.
- Automation: NPS tools can automate the survey distribution process, making it easier to collect and analyse client feedback on an ongoing basis.
- Segmentation: NPS tools often allow you to segment clients based on their scores and feedback. This segmentation can inform targeted efforts to improve satisfaction among specific client groups.
- Real-time Reporting: Many NPS tools provide real-time reporting, allowing you to react promptly to client feedback and make necessary adjustments.
- Customisation: NPS tools can be tailored to capture feedback on specific aspects of your services or client interactions, enabling you to gather insights that are most relevant to your firm’s goals.
- Scalability: Whether your firm is small or large, NPS tools should scale to accommodate your client base and survey needs.
- Actionable: NPS tools should make it easy for you to take a piece of client feedback and turn it into a driver of change within your firm.
Trial Debrief - our NPS tracking tool
In summary, NPS tracking tools offer service firms a powerful way to assess client satisfaction, drive improvements, foster client loyalty, and make data-driven decisions that positively impact the quality of your services and your overall business success.
Click here to take a free trial of Beaton’s market-leading tool for NPS tracking, Debrief.
Complete the survey to access the dashboard and see how easy it is to get real-time, actionable insights into your clients satisfaction.
Achieving high NPS just became a whole lot easier
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