The Power of the Net Promoter Score For Home Performance Contractors
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There are four types of people in the world: promoters, neutrals, detractors and those who ask the net promoter score question.
The net promoter score (NPS) is a customer loyalty metric that measures the loyalty between consumer and service provider. A positive number is correlated with business growth, so you can confidently build your business around improving this one number. When your NPS is greater than your competition’s, you will be more likely to gain customers and get a leg up on your closest competitors.
And all this come from asking one question, phrased very particularly:
How likely is it that you would recommend our company/product/service to a friend or colleague?
The question is answered on a 010 scale. The percentage of detractors (those who answered between 06) is subtracted from the number of promoters (those who answered 9 or 10) and you are left with a score between 100 and 100. This, my friends, is your NPS. A score above 0 is good, while a score above 50 is exceptional.
What is a Good Score?
It’s important to consider NPS scores on a relative basis for our industry. While some company scores are in the public domain, we searched high and low for data on HVAC and home performance contractors and couldn’t find much. Here are a few that are at least in our sphere:
| HVAC Industry | NPS (2012) |
| American Standard Dealer | 81 |
| Bryant Dealer | 76 |
| Trane Dealer | 73 |
| Lennox Dealer | 73 |
| Carrier Dealer | 60 |
NPS is useful in online marketing for HVAC and home performance contractors. Here’s how:
Unfortunately, consumers who suffered a bad interaction are 50% more likelyto share it on social media than those who had good experiences. People get mad when they have a bad experience and love to tell others about it, while a good experience can often feel normal and expected, nothing to talk about or cause a scandal over. This is the power of the NPS score, which says that every score below 9 is either negative or so neutral as to inspire, well, nothing.
Yikes.
While the NPS may sound like a just another term from an MBA student’s textbook, it can actually be applied practically to your online marketing practices. As we are all well aware, online reviews are paramount when it comes to how your company is viewed online. An everincreasing number of consumers are turning to Yelp, HomeAdvisor, and even Facebook when searching for a company to do their AC tuneup or insulation retrofit
Boosting your NPS
At Energy Circle, we use the net promoter score as a single indicator of customer satisfaction and as a forking mechanism for engagement and mitigation. By integrating the ultimate question with our review management process, we are able to treat each different response appropriately. The net promoter score system can send those who had a positive experience to these third party sites to spread the news publicly, and those who had a negative experience to a webpage where you can address their concerns in a more private manner. The reviewers can then be divided into three groups and dealt with in different ways:
1. Detractors:
Negative reviews can happen for any number of reasons: a high quote for new equipment, a job that took an extra day, an AC repairman who showed up wearing a Red Sox hat for a job in the Bronx…The list goes on. Once you have asked the question, you are going to get some negative responses, and yes, even the neutrals are worth doing something about. These are the customers who will likely go to your competitor next time they need a job done, and worse, they might tell their whole neighborhood (and the internet) to do the same!
Get ahead of the problem! With the help of the NPS process, you have identified the detractors and can reach out to them. A call from the owner or president of the company is well worth the
time if it keeps the customer from spreading the word about his or her experience. And usually, there is a simple explanation for their dissatisfaction that can be solved with a phone call.
2. Neutrals:
Neutral reviewers require a bit less delicacy than detractors, but are still worth investigating. Instead of starting with a personal phone call, give them a private platform to express why they felt it was not a ten star experience. A score of 78 is not a terrible score, so it is possible that these people had an average experience, but were not blown away by the service. Changing a process or behavior based on the feedback you receive from neutral responses could turn a customer who could care less, into a loyal fan.
These neutral reviews could come from a person being asked for a review too quickly. If they had an insulation job done in October and are hoping to see a reduction in their energy bill come January, they may not be ready to leave a 10 star review, no matter how professional and courteous the staff was. Identifying and learning from these messages can play a valuable part in continued customer loyalty.
3. Promoters:
A promoter is your goose that lays the golden egg…But you often have to fight to get that egg. Remember, people who had a good experience don’t usually see it as something to rant about online. People expect appointments they pay for to go smoothly. An effective way to use the
NPS results is to find your promoters and gently, but repeatedly,ask them to share their experience across the internet.
When you find a promoter lead them using landing pages, email reminders, even inperson requests to third party sites like Yelp and Facebook, where they can leave a glowing 5star reviews. These promoters will be repeat customers and can bring others with them, fueling growth for your business.
Promoters → Online Reviews → Business Growth
Growing online reviews for your company is a necessity. Luckily, the net promoter score can help you get better reviews than “Hamilton”. Using the NPS question, you can find the customers most likely to leave a positive review and target them. This tactic can even help you learn about and improve your business’s customer relations. By figuring out and solving the detractors problems, NPS can help in the long run to fuel business growth, cultivate online reviews, and increase your loyal customer base.
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Posted In: Building Performance, Residential Buildings
