Through market research among our users, we have found that one of the key drivers of value in a company is its growth rate. The challenge is how to reasonably predict a company's growth rate. This is the objective of our Customer Satisfaction Survey.
Fred Reichheld, a well-known Bain Consultant and business author, conducted research into traditional customer satisfaction surveys and found that they were not very predictive of anything. As part of his research, he discovered a predictable way to measure growth. It's called the Net Promoter Score (NPS). By asking customers a single question, "On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our company to a friend or colleague?", companies can reliably predict growth rate into the future.
NPS is a predictable measure of growth because it predicts the likelihood that your client's customers will re-purchase and refer your client's company. NPS is only one question; however, you can customize the survey to add other questions if you want.
Another point to consider is that for each question added beyond the NPS question, you drop the
response rate and annoy customers further. Finally, and most importantly, a long customer survey will skew the results negatively. Angry customers are likely to complete a long survey, but happy customers are not. The beauty of NPS is that it is easy for both happy and dissatisfied customers to respond.
For more information on NPS, check out Reichheld’s book, The Loyalty Effect.