Sustainable growth isn't easy to achieve. Customer acquisition isn't everything. You need a strong user retention strategy to accomplish sustainable growth. NPS is a great way to do this.

1. How To Leverage NPS To Drive More Sustainable User
Growth and Retention.

2. Net Promoter Score is one of the hottest topic within startups and tech now. More and more startups are starting to implement
a NPS system within their growth strategy to drive more user growth, retention, and engagement.
Too many growth hackers and founders spend all their time and resources on user acquisition, but left out an important part of
the growth funnel: user retention. The end result is a product that attracts customers in the short term, but ultimately fails to
keep them. This results in a higher churn and will slow down your company’s journey towards product market fit.
The best strategy for user growth is by improving user retention and referrals. Customer acquisition is more glamorous than
retention, so it gets far more attention from online marketers and growth experts. We’ve been surrounded by myths that all
investors want to see growth or an uprise in user sign ups, but to build a sustainable business, you need user retention.
There are a lot of strategies to increase your user retention and referral rate. I mentioned a few in the article that I linked to
above, but I’ll be focusing on how you can leverage NPS and turn it into a growth strategy that will drive you sustainable
growth.

3. Using NPS To Create a Referral Engine
One of the most powerful things about NPS is that you can turn it into a referral growth engine. Just sending out a Net
Promoter Score survey isn’t enough. You need to follow up and keep the momentum going. What’s the use of seeing a set of
data with people who selected 9 and 10 if you’re not going to use it to your advantage? You have to mobilize your promoters
by engaging with them. Your promoters are your advocates. They are the people who took the time to select a NPS response
and pretty much raised their hands saying that I am willing to recommend your product to my friends.
At this point, you can segment out all your promoters and then follow up with them asking them to refer your product for
their friends. If you’re using YesInsights to create your NPS surveys, you can turn on our “auto follow up” feature and shoot
all your promoters a discount or referral code. With this, you’ll be able to capture all your biggest fan boys and generate sales
through a referral. Genuine referrals and recommendations from customers will outperform any share button or social media
campaign over the long term

4. Using Net Promoter Score For Testimonials.
Once a customer selects a response from the NPS survey, they will be prompt to a custom landing page where
they can leave additional comments. Not everyone will leave a comment, but you will be surprised at how many
people actually leave one. On average, we see that 5 out of 10 people that selects a response from your survey will
leave an additional comment. The ones that are promoters are more likely to leave a comment compared to the
passive ones.
“One of the best ways to connect with prospects is by using stories from existing customers.” – Alex from
Groovehq
It’s no secret: people tend to follow others like them. Marketers call it social proof: when we see lots of others
doing something, we assume that that’s the correct behavior. Social proof isn’t everything, but it’s a good way to
find a use case. For example at YesInsights, we have use cases for marketers , customer success managers ,
founders, product managers and many more. People might come across our site and think it’s a great and useful
product, but they might not be able to find a use case immediately. This is where testimonials, blog post etc. kicks
in. It helps when a potential customer visits your website and notices that another person in a similar role is using
your product. That will help them think of more use cases and therefore resulting in more growth.

6. Now that we know the importance of testimonials and how it can help drive user growth, let’s talk about how to get them with
NPS. There’s two ways you can approach this. One is by analyzing all the comments you get from the NPS survey that you
sent out and then personally emailing each one to ask for permission to use their comment as a testimonial. Here’s a
testimonial that we have on our page that helps with driving e-commerce companies and marketers to our platform
The second way you can approach this is by simply sending a follow up email to all your promoters (the ones that select 9 or
10) and then asking for their use case and if it’s possible to use it as a testimonial. Remember, laying a solid foundation out as
early as possible is a great way to drive long term sustainable growth.

7. Using NPS to create a stronger product roadmap.
It’s no secret, the best products with the fastest growth are the products that people love. The best products out there have
a high user retention and engagement rate because users will keep coming back to it. Check out this slide by Kyle Wild of
Keen.io. In the slide, he mentioned that “product is the ultimate growth hack”
No amount of growth will help your business develop if you’re losing customers because of poor product or service quality.
Since user retention and growth is fueled by product quality, making the best product over time is one of the best user
retention and growth strategy.
A net promoter score survey is a great way for you to dig your customer’s brain and figure out what they really think of your
product. It’s a quick and effective way to measure your customer’s thoughts.
NPS can help you build a better product roadmap, but you need to take action. One of the best way to do this is by creating
a NPS survey or a one-click survey based on a new feature release. So for example, your company just released a new
feature that you think your users will love, this is the perfect time for you to send out a NPS survey asking them for their
feedback.

8. Using NPS as a way to find unhappy customers.
Sustainable user growth comes with good user retention. According to Helpscout,
A typical business hears from 4% of it’s dissatisfied customers. That means that most of your customers that are unhappy
with your product won’t ever speak up. Unless….you engage with them.
Sujan Patel, an extremely experienced marketer and entrepreneur, said that, “NPS is one of my favorite growth tactics. I use
it two ways. First to fix detractors & passive (unhappy customers) problems by reaching out and offering help immediately
after someone gives us 1-8 score. I found that 10-15% of people who answered 1-8 have small issues or user error that can
be instantly fixed. It’s a very easy & a quick win. ”
One of the best way to retain a user is to provide an excellent customer experience.
3 in 5 Americans (59%) would try a new brand or company for a better service experience. One of the best ways to improve
the customer experience is by reaching out to them in the quickest time frame and providing help. You’ll be surprise at how
many unhappy customers will be delighted and feel happy about your product when you provide excellent and quick
support.
Net Promoter Score surveys can help you locate these unhappy customers and then you can take action immediately and
fix any problems that they may be experiencing. As soon as the customer feels appreciated, they’ll be more than happy to
continue providing valuable feedback which can lead to a stronger user growth strategy.

9. Using NPS to Drive Employee Engagement and Happiness.
It’s no secret, the best companies have the best talent. Talent retention is just as difficult as user retention in the startup
world. It’s rare to see someone stick with a company for more than 3 years nowadays.
The best companies like WPEngine is known for being able to recruit talented people in their early days which led to a
stronger growth team. An employee is more likely to stick with a company that they are proud of. They are more willing to
hustle for a company that is growing. Check out this article on, “How Pandora’s Founder Convinced 50 Early Employees to
Work 2 Years Without Pay” Pandora’s staffs believed in the vision of the company. They believed that there will be a bright
future, which is why they stuck with the company.
To gain the maximum benefit out of the NPS system, make your employees embrace the NPS spirit by tying their actions
and performances to it. Keep everyone in the loop and constantly remind them that a rise in your NPS score means that
customers are appreciating their work.

10. Using NPS To Turn Promoters Into Advocates.
After all, these customers are ready to promote you they just need to be told how or a small nudge. What I like to do is offer
these customers swag (free t-shirts, mugs, etc) and ask for help they can do quickly such as share on Facebook or Twitter,
write an app store review, email a friend.
Adding giveaways to your NPS strategy is another way to boost user retention and growth virally. Customers love feeling
appreciated. Actually, humans in general love feeling appreciated. You can create a win-win situation with your Net
Promoter Score Surveys by asking the customer for a favor and then returning the favor with a free gift. In this case, the
favor that you’re asking from the customer would be for them to fill out the NPS survey.
The lifespan of an individual being employed at a startup is decreasing over time. If that individual is a fan of your product,
they will bring your product onto another company and spread the word for you. An individual is also more likely to use your
product for a longer duration of time if their friends are using it. Remember all those videos that we use to or still play with
our friends? We play it because our friends are playing it. People use products for the same reason. They use it when they
see that it solves a problem and that they see other people using it.

11. Using NPS for Data Analysis And Predicting Growth.
Data is the bread and butter to growth. Cohort analysis, churn rate, life time value, repurchase rate etc…is super vital to
every company. Data allows us to analyze the results from our test and data allows us to figure out what’s working and
what isn’t.
Let’s take a look at Airbnb for example. Data scientists at Airbnb collect and use data to optimize products, identify problem
areas, and inform business decisions. For most guests, however, the defining moments of the “Airbnb experience” happen
in the real world – when they are traveling to their listing, being greeted by their host, settling into the listing, and exploring
the destination.
So how does Airbnb’s team measure their experience? Using NPS.

12. Currently, the best information we can gather about the offline experience is from the review that guests complete on
Airbnb.com after their trip ends. The review, which is optional, asks for textual feedback and rating scores from 1-5 for the
overall experience as well as subcategories: Accuracy, Cleanliness, Checkin, Communication, Location, and Value. Starting
at the end of 2013, we added one more question to our review form, the NPS question.” – Lisa Qian (Airbnb)
The Airbnb team believes this is a more effective metric to determine the likelihood that a customer will return to book
again or recommend the company to their friends. They found higher NPS scores generally correspond to more referrals
and rebookings.
Airbnb team can accurately predict if their guests will rebook again in the next 12 months 56% of the time. By adding the
basic information about the guest, host and trip, the predictive accuracy is improved to 63.5%. Then adding the review
categories (not including LTR), they add an additional 0.1% improvement.

13. Conclusion.
To sum it up, Net Promoter Score is an excellent way for you to create a sustainable growth strategy for your company.
Sustainable growth is created through user retention and customer happiness. Is Net Promoter Score enough to delight
your customers? Absolutely not. You can run a NPS survey and it won’t be enough to tell you everything. NPS is a great
start, but it’s what you use along with it that counts. Make sure you’re following up and mobilizing your respondents. Get
creative with the tricks that you can use to get the most result out of NPS. Combine NPS with one-click surveys and user
research tools to get the best out of it.

14. Looking to create a Net Promoter Score Survey?
If you’re looking for the easiest and most effective NPS survey solution for your
company, check out YesInsights - https://www.yesinsights.com
Slide and article created by Wilson Peng (@wilsonpeng8)