If you’re a field service manager or CIO of a field service company—whether in property maintenance, telecommunications, or HVAC—you must understand what your customers want and how satisfied they are with your company and the service you deliver. Getting a solid fix on how many of their customers are happy and how many aren’t, is a challenge for many field service companies.
Fortunately, there’s a relatively simple way to find out. It’s called “Net Promoter Score (NPS).” Established by Bain & Company in 2003, an NPS provides the objective measure of customer loyalty that many field service businesses seek.
Read on to learn more about how to improve Net Promoter Score, what it means, and whether Net Promoter Score software can help you boost yours.
What is a Net Promoter Score (NPS)?
Simply stated, your Net Promoter Score tells you how many of your field service customers would recommend your company and the service you provide to others. To calculate your NPS, you simply send a one-question survey to your customers, asking them, “How likely is it that you would recommend (your company or specific service) to a friend or colleague?” Respondents grade your company (or product) on a scale of 1 to 10, where “10” indicates “extremely likely,” and “1” indicates “not at all likely.”
Based on customer responses, you divide them into three groups:
1. Promoters: these are respondents who give you a score of 9 or 10, indicating they are very likely to recommend you to others;
2. Passives: these customers give you a rating of 7 or 8—they are basically satisfied, but could also abandon you for one of your competitors.
3. Detractors: You are at risk of losing these customers, who give you a score of 6 or less—they are the ones most likely to advise others against doing business with your company or buying your products.
Net Promoter Score Calculation
To calculate your Net Promoter Score, subtract the percentage of “detractors” from the percentage of “promoters”. For example, if 50% of your customers are promoters and 15% are detractors, the calculation would be 50 – 15 = 35 — giving you a Net Promoter Score calculation of 35.
Why Is a Net Promoter Score Important in Field Service?
So, why is Net Promoter Score important, and why should you closely monitor it? Let’s look at why tracking your NPS is vital for the growth and success of your business.
- Measure feelings, not just satisfaction:
NPS gets to the heart of how enthusiastic and loyal customers feel towards your brand. It captures sentiment and emotion more than satisfaction scores alone and helps you understand the strength of your relationships.
- Predict business growth:
Multiple studies have shown that NPS strongly correlates with revenue growth rates. By monitoring changes in your NPS, you can forecast growth and set targets accordingly. A higher lifetime value of promoters also impacts growth.
- Identify at-risk customers:
Detractors (those who give scores of 0-6) require urgent attention before they leave negative reviews and go elsewhere. You can address their pain points to improve service quality across the board. Ignoring detractors poses serious business risks.
- Enable benchmarking:
By comparing your NPS over time and against competitors, you can benchmark progress and set goals around customer loyalty. Public NPS data for your field service niche provides context around customer expectations.
- Guide decision-making:
Major initiatives around service delivery models, workforce management, and technician training should factor into NPS performance. Critical decisions can tie back to enhancing promoter share and loyalty over the long term.
Growing Your Field Service Business with an Improved NPS
Obviously, it’s helpful to know your Net Promoter Score since it gives you a good sense of how healthy your business is. For instance, 61% of customers say they would recommend brands they trust to friends. Promoters, your most loyal buyers, are key drivers of recommendations and referrals. Research also highlights how valuable earning customer trust is - 71% show trust by making more purchases from a brand. Promoters especially have high lifetime value thanks to repeat business and referrals.
But simply having this Net Promoter Score information about promoters and detractors won’t help you improve your business. The trick is to create effective strategies based on this data to boost promoter share over time.
Here are three ways to improve your NPS:
1. Include a “Comments” Section When You Send Out Your Survey
When you send out your survey, you can include a comments section to ask customers what they specifically like about your business or products and how this ties into their evaluation. As you review customer survey responses, look for common themes among both promoters and detractors. For example, if you own a repair service company, you might notice that a large percentage of detractors say that your workers are slacking on the job, or that they’re rude. Promoters, on the other hand, might say that your employees follow directions well and are responsive to their needs..
2. Create Strategies to Build on Strengths and Eradicate Weaknesses
Paying attention to key service metrics will help you understand where your weaknesses lie and how to improve them. If your workers are taking too much time to resolve issues according to detractors, you need to create strategies to fix the problem. For example, you could implement a retraining program, spend more time analyzing customer reviews, or, if necessary, remove field service reps who are not up to the job. If you find that workers are actually listening to what customers want and following their directions carefully, you could find ways to acknowledge and reward their performance to ensure it continues.
3. Measure the Results of the Changes You Make
To find out if the changes you’ve made are gaining traction, you can reissue your net promoter survey periodically. If the strategies you created are working, you should see an increasingly higher Net Promoter Score, with a larger percentage of promoters, and a smaller percentage of detractors. At the end of the day, embracing data-driven decision-making will help your organization secure success now, and in the future.
Can You Improve Your Net Promoter Score with Field Service Software?
Investing in a field service management software solution can significantly improve your NPS over the long term. Implementing the right technology strengthens customer satisfaction and loyalty across all service interactions.
Here are some key features in top field service and Net Promoter Score software platforms to look for to boost your NPS score:
- Real-time data access:
With customer data, work orders, and asset histories unified in one system, you gain complete visibility into business operations. A "single source of truth" lets you identify pain points and control the customer experience.
- Customer self-service portal:
Portals that allow customers to schedule appointments, track technician status in real time, manage information, and access support resources directly can transform satisfaction levels. The level of transparency and autonomy offered by the self-service customer portal delights your clients.
- AI-driven scheduling and dispatch:
Intelligent algorithms assign work orders to optimal field resources based on parts/skills required, customer SLAs, real-time traffic data, and more. This minimizes the delays and technician downtime that frustrates customers.
- Mobile tech enablement:
Equipping your field workforce with mobile apps provides access to customer histories, asset data, knowledge bases, parts catalogs, and more right onsite. With all the information at their fingertips, field reps will boost first-time fix rates and speed up resolution time, leading to better customer ratings and more profits.
- Workforce management tools:
These tools enable you to track key performance indicators like jobs completed per day, response times to calls, service level agreement attainment percentages, parts usage, payroll metrics, and more. You gain visibility into operational efficiency, allowing you to set and meet targets around customer service excellence for long-term NPS gains.
Take Control of Your Net Promoter Score Today
Improving your Net Promoter Score is crucial for scaling your field service business and cementing customer loyalty over the long haul. You can drive sustainable growth and profitability by tracking NPS and using it to realign your operations, workforce, and customer interactions.
To enable this realignment, field service management software gives you the tools and visibility needed to deliver 5-star service consistently. With capabilities like AI-powered scheduling, customer portals, and mobile technician enablement, the right technology becomes the foundation for impacting customer satisfaction.
As the only true SaaS provider purpose-built for field service, ServicePower delivers the innovative capabilities you need to control the levers that influence NPS. Our platform empowers you to optimize technician scheduling, rapidly process claims, delight customers through self-service, and manage blended workforces.
With ServicePower, you can:
- Boost first-time fix rates by arming technicians with customer intel
- Accelerate reimbursements by automating warranty claim validation
- Increase customer satisfaction through real-time service updates
- Scale profitably by assigning jobs based on skills and availability
Download our case study on how LG Electronics USA, Inc. improved its NPS by 27% with ServicePower. Then, reach out for a demo to see how we can help you.
ServicePower : October 28, 2021
ServicePower