Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) Surveys allow businesses to learn and grow from their actions. Whether good or bad, let’s explore how an eNPS showcases where businesses can improve and, in turn, strengthen company culture.
The Net Promoter Score (NPS) Survey has been used to great effect to improve the relationship between companies and their customers. Effective feedback from these surveys allows an organisation to understand what customers like and dislike about their service and whether they would recommend them to friends or colleagues.
They play a huge role in increasing loyalty and adding value to the customer experience. While originally designed for customers, businesses are making use of these surveys to improve the internal workings of their workforce. Let’s first look at what NPS Surveys are and then how they have developed to help organisations improve their workflows and cultures.
What is an NPS Survey?
An NPS Survey is a customer experience metric which measures how customers perceive a company, its service or products and their loyalty towards it. It asks customers how likely they are to recommend a business on a scale of 0-10. The lowest rating, zero, is not likely at all and the highest, ten, is extremely likely.
After this response, a customer is asked to justify their ranking with an open-ended response. NPS Surveys split responders into three categories: promoters, passives and detractors.
‘Promoters’ are loyal to a brand and scored the service either a nine or ten, while ‘detractors’ are unhappy customers who gave a score between 0-6. ‘Passives’ are those customers scoring a seven or eight for a product or service but aren’t enthusiastic enough to promote the brand.
Once the survey scores are collected it’s a case of subtracting the percentage of detractors from promoters to calculate the Net Promoter Score. This score is on a scale of -100 to 100, with the higher the number equalling the better score. For instance, if you have 60% of promoters and 10% of detractors your overall NPS would be 50.
Why should businesses use an NPS Survey?
The reason NPS Surveys have proven to be such a hit is they are effective at improving the understanding between companies and their customers. Understanding what makes high-value customers return is essential for improving sales, conversions and results. They are also great for identifying the areas of a business that could do better.
For instance, an unhappy customer may complain about the returns department of a company for taking too long to sort out their query.
That company will have gained the knowledge that its returns department isn’t working efficiently and can address it. Such comprehensive feedback in a digestible format means companies can understand their feedback and focus on the whys at a glance.
They can be found at contact points for customers in email receipts, follow up calls or even in plain sight, such as “How is my driving?” feedback stickers on HGVs. The effects of complaints against HGV drivers gives companies the knowledge that their drivers could do with a refresher course on their licence to improve their driving standards.
What is the difference between NPS and eNPS?
For all intents and purposes, there isn’t much difference between a Net Promoter Score Survey sent to customers or employees.
The main difference is instead of recording how likely a customer is to recommend a business to friends or family, it asks an employee how likely they are to recommend working there. It’s essentially a scoring system to measure employee satisfaction.
There are nuances to an eNPS which can yield even greater and more specific results across departments. Our previous example of a customer complaining about a slow returns department is similar. However, in an eNPS Survey, it could be a member of the finance department raising a concern if sales staff are not effectively using their allocated allowances.
How eNPS Surveys enhance company culture
There are many ways eNPS Surveys can positively influence a company’s culture. For starters, they provide useful data points that can be dug into, such as average handling time, which can directly highlight any improvements that can be made. In the same way customers would give their feedback on their interactions with employees, members of staff can provide an honest review of other departments.
By asking the right questions, companies create a comprehensive metric giving them a broad overview of how department efficiency is perceived throughout the organisation. ENPS Surveys are perfect for internal use within departments which don’t typically interact with customers
For instance, the finance department could be reviewed by the other areas of a business that do deal with customers. This is a good way to keep everyone involved in the company’s NPS, especially if integrated into every department. The results gained from an eNPS Survey informs improvement processes.
Aligning teams and increasing employee satisfaction
Implementing an internal NPS Surveying culture allows teams to align their goals through open and honest feedback. Those results can be shared company-wide, or even with the public if a company is feeling particularly bold or confident in its processes. With honest feedback across departments, trust is fostered within teams.
Open suggestions giving honest considerations about performance helps companies, teams and individual employees dial into where any issues lie. This allows for troubleshooting specific departmental and interdepartmental problems that may otherwise be missed during day-to-day activities.
Acting upon employee feedback
If a company acts upon the advice of one of its employees, it strengthens the bond a person feels with the company.
They see how and why they are making a real difference in their place of work, which in turn makes them happy to keep coming back day after day. An organisation with a culture of listening to its employees will always be looked upon favourably by them, while also providing them with a reason to become promoters.
The benefits of measuring employee satisfaction continue. A highly engaged work team paves the way for improvement steps, sharing their thoughts about changing things for the better more readily. Additionally, motivated and engaged employees are more likely to deliver a service that pleases customers.
Encouraging honest responses
Thanks to eNPS Surveys, organisations can ask their employees what they would do to make their experience better in anonymity. Filling out a simple survey allows for employees to give honest reviews, without the feelings of pressure some experience when asked similar questions in meetings.
The eNPS Survey gives employees the time and headspace to consider improvement suggestions, rather than simply shrugging their shoulders when put on the spot.
With more relevant and accurate responses, companies acting upon those suggestions increase the bond between them and their employees. Offering eNPS Surveys at exit interviews is another great way to get honest improvement suggestions.
Someone leaving the company isn’t fearful of repercussions and may have problems with the company culture that forced them to walk out the door. Finding what their grievances were and addressing them prevents the same thing from cropping up again in the future, further improving processes and strengthening company culture.
Putting eNPS Surveys into practice
It’s one thing knowing that eNPS Surveys can make a difference to employees but it’s another being able to put them into practice.
For the surveys to work, an organisation must be open to making ongoing improvements – otherwise they become an exercise in futility. Why should employees put the effort into finding solutions to problems if their companies aren’t going to do anything about it?
Creating a schedule of regular surveys allows firms to track trends over time. This can be to roll out good initiatives across departments or it could be to investigate why morale is dropping.
Companies can take a serious approach to their NPS by bringing those scores into executive and management meetings. Again, this is important for ensuring that companies take the results seriously.
Interpreting the feedback
The feedback from surveys is critical for developing ways to engage employees, ultimately improving their job satisfaction. It’s a good idea to track the keywords from open-ended questions such as ‘salary’, ‘work-life balance’ and ‘leadership’ to better comprehend results.
For even greater outcomes, begin comparing the trends in an eNPS data against business growth, customer satisfaction, turnover, etc., to find correlations between performance and employee happiness.
Once introduced into the company, putting someone in charge of tracking these scores is essential. Sometimes called NPS leaders, they can be the person to drive cultural changes within an organisation.
Successful companies focus on NPS Surveys as a centrepiece of their decision-making process, where it becomes a source of insight from within. Examples of companies that have successfully adapted Net Promoter Scores include Lego, Novartis, Nokia and Aviva.
Creating an eNPS Survey
One of the key terms for any eNPS Survey is demographics. It’s vitally important for the demographics to be understood to give those analysing the results a better overall picture.
Those demographics include:
- Age range
- Gender
- Department
- Job role
- Management
- Length of service
- Salary band
- Office
- Staff group
Results can then be banded together in demographics for a better comprehension of where a company’s strengths and weaknesses lie among them.
Selecting questions for eNPS Surveys is just as important as picking out the right demographics. The questions aim to provoke answers that improve business operations.
Examples of good eNPS Survey questions include, “How likely is it that you would recommend our workplace to a family member or friend?” or “What do you like about working here?” Responses to questions like these give employers tangible results they can take action on.
Relational and transactional NPS questions
There are two main question types for eNPS and NPS Surveys; relational and transactional. Relational questions relate to the overall feeling of an organisation by responders. It is a good health check of a company’s standing with its employees, or customers, and allows for benchmarking against similar NPS data.
Transactional questions look to get into the nitty-gritty of how survey responders feel. It dials further down into specific departments and issues, allowing companies to address any concerns more easily. They give each department their own metrics to consider and base their actions around.
In Summary
NPS Surveys have been used successfully in bridging the communication gap between businesses and customers for many years. Their reliable and informative results have been used to shape company behaviour ever since.
Likewise, eNPS Surveys can give organisations better-informed insights into how they are run. These improve employee relations and experiences by focusing on what they think is going well and highlighting what could be done better.
Ultimately, by improving employee satisfaction, companies provide a more motivated workforce which, in turn, passes the benefits onto the customer.
Employees will feel like they are being listened to and can see that their company is doing all that it can to improve life for its staff. Anyone who has worked in an environment like that will understand how beneficial it is to have employers that look out for their staff.
About the Author
Dakota Murphey is a freelance author who specialises in: Digital Trends in Business, Marketing, PR, Branding, Cybersecurity, Entrepreneurial Skills and Company Growth.
