That’s something we think about a lot. After all, answering this question well leads to acquiring new business, while responding poorly sends potential customers fleeing for whichever competitor they’re comparing us to.

Comparing Retently to the competition is quite a challenge. Retently is a Customer Experience Management Platform – covering NPS, CSAT, CES surveys and customer feedback – and, as such, there are just too many things to consider. So, instead of filling out those classic “us VS them” comparison tables, we decided to go for something different and showcase some of Retently’s unique features and functionalities.

If you’re wondering why we’ve listed only 16 points, it’s not because we have just 16 unique features. This article covers features that only Retently has at the time of writing. We also wanted to keep this post fairly short, so we only focused on major things rather than exploring every minor detail.

This article covers a list of unique features offered by Retently, compared to other established competitors in the SMB and mid-market, such as InMoment Wootric, Delighted, AskNicely, and SatisMeter. There are more services, new products, and companies launching every month we might not be aware of.

SIDENOTE.

There’s a good chance that competing services will try to catch up, so all statements in this article are unlikely to hold true forever. But we’ll make sure to update it accordingly should anything change.

1. Everything is Linked to Survey Campaigns

Retently’s campaign is a unique feature. With most competitor tools, you can only set up the surveys and send them out either once or on a recurring basis. 

Retently, on the other hand, allows you to set up one-time, recurring regular and transactional campaigns, where a predefined set of surveys is sent to a specific customer segment.

This lets you run independent survey campaigns per product, service, or customer segment (group customers by various criteria – revenue, geography, lifecycle, etc.) and get an NPS, CSAT, or CES score. 

Each campaign comes with its own options for:

Survey Template

All you have to do is create, clone, or adjust an existing template for each campaign and use it when needed.

Audience

Each campaign comes with a preset filter that targets all customers in your Retently account, but you can apply additional filters to narrow your audience.

Schedule

Your surveys will be sent automatically according to the schedule. Choose whether you want your customers to receive the survey on business days only or any weekday. Set a timeframe limit for your surveys.

Next, set a schedule for new customers to be automatically surveyed, as well as the regularity of recurring surveys. You can also disable the recurring surveys option.

Another handy feature is the daily survey limit, which allows you to split your customer list and send a limited number of surveys daily, giving you enough time to engage with your respondents.

Optionally, you can have your CX survey resent to people who did not open the last survey or opened but did not respond. You can choose the same survey template or select a different one.

Alerts

When creating a new alert, you will be asked to choose one or more event types you want to be notified about, the notification frequency (immediately, daily, or weekly digest), and the channel (email or Slack).

Autoreplies

You can create a set of email auto-replies meant to engage with customers who did not leave any text feedback, left a Detractor score, or simply ask your Promoters for a review on Trustpilot and spread word-of-mouth.

Read more about Campaigns in our dedicated knowledge base section.

2. Advanced Survey Template Editor

Retently allows you to customize pretty much everything in your survey template:

• Change the background color
• Upload and adjust your logo, its size, and position
• Edit all texts’ font family, size, styling, and colors
• Adjust the shape, style, and color of all buttons
• Add additional text blocks and custom links

This applies to the Rating question, Open-ended question, Thank You page and the Unsubscribe page.

We’ve already provided default texts for the template, but every piece of the survey can be adapted to your unique case.

What’s more impressive is that the Open-ended question and Thank you page can be different for Promoters, Passives, and Detractors, allowing for a personalized approach and a better segmentation of the provided feedback.

The Thank You page follows the same editing logic. The difference here is that you can also add a CTA (call to action) link.

Get more ideas and NPS survey templates in this article.

3. Survey Personalization Using Merge Fields (Variables)

In their attempt to draft a successful survey campaign, businesses often overlook the survey subject line, and the context personalization can provide. In this respect, Retently allows using merge fields in the survey’s subject line and the content itself for a significantly increased open and response rate. 

Survey variables stand for particular customer attributes, such as the defaults “first name” or “company name”, as well as complex data, such as account manager or region, which can be added when importing customers from a CSV file or synchronizing them by means of our integrations or API.

Variables can be included pretty much in any text input area of the survey template – the subject line, the additional text blocks, the rating, and open-ended questions, as well as the Thank You screen. Before delivery, our system will replace the variables in the survey template with real data, which may differ for each customer or audience segment. 

But what if the customer doesn’t have any data in the property used as a variable? As a rule, the variable will be replaced with empty data; and here’s where fallbacks will turn helpful – a default value displayed if a customer doesn’t have a specific property. 

4. Multi-Language Surveys

Retently’s unique survey template editor also allows a perfect multi-language setup.

Most survey services come with a preset of translations, which are not adapted for each industry, or sometimes can be far from written by natives.

Retently doesn’t have a multi-language selector. Instead, you can fully customize your NPS survey texts and translate them into any language you need.

Read more about multi-language surveys in our knowledge base.

5. Keep Track and A/B Test Surveys With Outbox

To easily keep track of all the surveys sent to your customers, Retently came up with an Outbox section which, by means of a set of useful filters, allows for advanced data segmentation, meant to improve the survey campaigns along the way.

That brings in several benefits targeting increased survey engagement, namely:

The delivery stats section provides granular details about the survey response rate, when it was sent, opened, or responded down to the minute, and how many customers bounced or opted out of your surveys. These will allow for more data-driven decision-making.

The Outbox is also an effective tool to A/B test your survey samples over time. By looking into the delivery stats, you can track which templates were most appealing and apply the insights in future campaigns.

If used properly, the Outbox can also help improve the response rate. For example, you can manually select some or all filtered surveys and resend a one-time email survey in the campaign they’ve been sent initially.

6. Survey Queue Management

To streamline survey management, Retently introduced a Queue page that lists all email surveys triggered by specific events but not sent due to a pre-set delay. 

The purpose of the Queue page is rather simple – to provide a straightforward way to view, navigate, and filter upcoming surveys. It also allows users to send surveys ahead of the expected time or cancel them instead without going through individual campaigns’ settings.

7. Feedback Management

Since collecting customer feedback is the main surveying goal, the feedback management capabilities could not be overlooked. Retently came up with advanced collaboration, visualization, segmentation, and analysis of the received customer feedback. 

In this context, consider managing your feedback in your Slack instance. Our Slack integration allows receiving, tracking, and responding to customer feedback in real-time, right within Slack. Teams can easily prioritize tasks and take action to resolve the most pressing issues. For example, you can mark specific feedback and assign it to any of your team members within Retently for follow-up. This way, you can respond to customer needs more efficiently, improve collaboration between teams, and deliver better customer experiences.

8. Automated Email Cleanup

Retently has a built-in email cleaning feature. Before any surveys are delivered, your recipients’ emails will be automatically checked for deliverability to ensure a greater campaign response rate. Also, you’ll be substantially reducing your bounce rate and making sure you’ll receive more relevant, actionable feedback.

9. Antivirus Detection

To avoid random scores posted by antivirus systems in their search for harmful content, Retently implemented an algorithm to ensure data accuracy.

Our antivirus detection automatically blocks the scores submitted by well-known systems such as Symantec, Microsoft Outlook Protection, Mimecast, MessageLabs, Barracuda Email Security Service, etc. 

However, as they might also evolve and other similar systems be launched in the future, there is another check in place that monitors and logs antivirus-like patterns.

Once a score potentially left by a generic antivirus is detected, it is displayed in the feedback widget with a warning (!) sign. At this point, it is up to you to delete or just ignore it from your rating calculation. 

10. Data Segmentation and Export in All Plans

With Retently, you can easily segment your audience with any of our plans. Competitors require you to purchase their premium plans to enjoy this feature.

Exporting data (like users, feedback, and scores) is also available in all Retently plans – so everyone can access and export their data at no additional cost.

11. Industry Benchmarks

Retently has a built-in benchmark feature that allows you to compare your NPS score and trends with the average score for your industry. This way, you get to save time and effort since you have all needed data right on the dashboard. You no longer need to do lengthy Google searches and deal with paywalls to find what you need.

The benchmarks are calculated by doing an anonymous average, and we only cover industries where we have over ten clients to ensure the data is relevant and actionable. Currently, Retently offers incorporated NPS benchmarks for the following industries: SaaS, Ecommerce, Financial Services, Enterprise Software, Digital Marketing, Consulting, Insurance, Healthcare, Logistics & Transportation, Construction, etc.

12. No Data Retention Limits

Unless you cancel your Retently subscription, your data is always here – to access historical customer feedback, NPS scores and compare trends and progress.

Keep a longer history of your customer interactions, and don’t worry about data becoming unavailable after a while, or the need to upgrade to a higher plan.

13. Automation Playbooks

Retently allows you to easily automate various processes and run custom scenarios using the incorporated Zapier integration and webhooks.

Retently helps you create automation scenarios based on the “if this, then that” principle.

A few common and highly useful scenarios are:

• Automatically start a conversation with a Detractor
• Automatically send a message to people who did not leave text feedback
• Delete hard-bounced contacts from your list
• Export account NPS data to Salesforce or any other CRM
• Run a webhook and send your NPS score and feedback to a 3rd party service or application

Zapier, Make & Alloy Automation:

Zapier is an integration service that connects different applications (over 7,000 apps at the time of this writing). Connect Retently to your Zapier account and sync new contacts, send transactional NPS surveys, export customer feedback, and manage your team’s tasks.

The Zapier integration is not unique to Retently. Most established competitors feature one or maybe two possible Zapier triggers or actions. However, the number of potential automation scenarios using Zapier with Retently is overwhelming due to many supported triggers and actions.

Make & Alloy are also sought-for integrations that allow you to bring together various systems and platforms to create a seamless customer experience. The integrations enable companies to streamline their customer engagement and support processes, automate workflows for quick execution of repetitive tasks, and connect with customers across channels. Hence, you can efficiently adjust customer interactions and journeys, tailoring them to specific business goals, and thus provide faster and more consistent service delivery. 

Check our Zapier integration page here.

14. Account CX

Retently goes beyond tracking customer experience metrics on a contact level. With Retently, you have the flexibility to monitor CX metrics at an account (company) level. When you send out surveys, our system automatically generates a list of accounts, allowing you to see the number of contacts associated with each account in Retently. Additionally, you have the option to manually add new companies and view CX metrics for each. 

The best part is that this valuable information can be seamlessly exported through our native integrations or API to other services for in-depth analysis.

15. Automated Feedback Classification & Analytics

Retently offers unique analytics features, providing you with an insightful overview of the text feedback you’ve received. Our AI-powered algorithm automatically detects and classifies topics and performs sentiment analysis.

With this automated topic detection and sentiment analysis, you can quickly grasp which areas of your offerings resonate positively with your audience and which aspects require improvement before it’s too late. It simplifies the process of making data-driven decisions and offers a comprehensive understanding of your customer feedback.

16. Product UI/UX

Retently features visually pleasing UI that ensures running NPS surveys and campaigns doesn’t feel like a chore. Most of our customers have told us, on multiple occasions, how much they love the clean design and the streamlined user experience.

Retently features a slick, easy-to-use, and highly intuitive interface. All the data and information are in one place, thus being easily accessible. Data visualization is simple to follow and understand. The menus and tooltips are self-explanatory, allowing for no time wasted. Pretty much no onboarding is needed (not even for new, unfamiliar users).

That’s obviously not everything …

Retently has many more unique features and capabilities.

Most of our customers love our product design, its cleanliness, and the user experience.

Our customer support team efforts are highly appreciated, this being the second reason respondents score a 9 or 10 in our own NPS surveys.  

If you ever need any help or have a question for us, we’re right there for you – our support team works round-the-clock to offer you the best customer experience.

Don’t miss out on the many benefits of using Retently and experiencing a new level of customer engagement. Get started today with a 7-day free trial and take your CX to the next level.

The post 16 Unique Retently Features – Things That Only This CX Service Can Do appeared first on Retently CX.

But how do you use NPS to drive more sales and revenue? Well, there’s no denying it can be a bit tricky – surveys and sales aren’t directly related.

Still, that doesn’t mean you can’t use NPS surveys to increase business growth. You won’t even need to scour the web to find out how to do that because – in this article – we’ll quickly show you how to score more sales using NPS.

Key Takeaways

• Customer feedback isn’t just data – it’s a sales strategy. NPS helps you identify where to invest efforts to improve retention and revenue.
• Promoters are willing to spread the word, simply give them the right incentives to turn them into your best marketers.
• Passives need a nudge. More engagement and improved experiences can turn them into committed customers.
• Detractors are a second chance, not a lost cause. A well-handled complaint can turn an unhappy customer into a loyal advocate.
• Personalization boosts conversions. Using NPS data to tailor offers, follow-ups, and customer interactions leads to higher engagement and repeat purchases.
• Happy customers spend more. A strong NPS strategy doesn’t just improve satisfaction – it directly impacts your bottom line.

Rethinking NPS: It’s Not Just a Score, It’s a Sales Strategy

Many businesses collect NPS data, but few truly understand its power. It’s often treated as simply something to track, report, and benchmark. However, NPS is one of the strongest predictors of revenue growth.

When customers give you high NPS scores, they aren’t just saying they like your brand, they’re showing buying behavior that leads to long-term profitability. Likewise, low NPS scores signal missed revenue opportunities, lost referrals, and impending churn.

To fully leverage NPS for sales growth, you need to go beyond measuring and start monetizing. It’s not about the number but what you do with it.

• What if you could turn your happiest customers into an unstoppable word-of-mouth engine?
• What if your indifferent customers became loyal advocates instead of leaving for a competitor?
• What if you could stop customer churn before it even starts?

A strong NPS strategy connects these dots and turns insights into action. 

Let’s explore exactly how to transform NPS insights into more sales, better customer relationships, and long-term business growth.

1. Use Surveys to Build Relationships

Adobe estimates that existing customers account for at least 26% of revenue – and that finding new customers costs 7x more than keeping existing clients on board. Despite this, many companies spend far more time and money on acquiring new customers than focus on retaining existing ones. Data shows that the latter is a far more effective strategy for producing a steady, predictable increase in revenue. How much of an increase? Around 67%, according to this research.

And repeat purchases from existing clients are normally based on high satisfaction with your products and services. We say “normally” because there’s an extra factor you need to focus on – customer experience.

How does NPS come into play here? Well, all the feedback you gather by means of surveys tells you precisely what your customers want. What’s more, that data can also help your customer service reps build more personalized messages when they interact with your clients, effectively showing them your brand views them as people, not just a source of income. Overall, that can help you drive growth by improving customer retention. It sets your business apart from the competition before the prospect even thinks about purchasing.

2. Anticipate Prospects’ Expectations

One smart way to make sure you’ll be able to close more deals is to customize your survey so that prospects respond with their expectations for your product rather than with general feedback. Instead of surveying your prospects along with existing customers, run a separate campaign for them. Adjust the survey template to reflect your new audience, and wait for the ratings and responses to flow in.

This way, you’ll find out what exactly a potential customer might expect from your product. With that data, you can focus on specific improvement areas and adjust your offering to the point where any barrier in the customers’ minds (of course, if they match your ideal customer profile) regarding whether or not they made the right choice with your business is destroyed.

What’s more, using customer feedback to improve your product might potentially attract the interest of your former customers. That’s not a guarantee, of course, but there’s a chance to regain the interest of previous Detractors or non-converted prospects who left your brand because they felt like you didn’t listen to their feedback.

Your customers want to deal with reps who are knowledgeable about their business needs – so your sales team needs to spend time and effort getting to know them.

Learning more about your prospects’ expectations makes it far easier for you to convert them into lucrative deals that produce long-term, recurring revenue.

3. Improve Your Value Proposition

A great value proposition can make the difference between closing or losing a deal. Unfortunately, one of the biggest mistakes businesses make is thinking that their value proposition is flawless.

One of the most common reasons deals fail is because the ones responsible for selling the product don’t understand the customer’s needs. By analyzing the feedback from existing customers, you can easily identify the features and benefits they view as most valuable. Surveys can help you refine your offering by focusing on the collected data and aligning it with sales objectives.

Instead of relying on assumptions, you can craft your value proposition around data-driven observations and user feedback to improve your odds of convincing would-be customers that they’re making the right choice.

4. Acknowledge and Reward Promoters

A strong engagement with your business can have a significant impact on boosting sales. You might wonder about the link between the two. The truth is that high NPS customers present a perfect opportunity for upselling and cross-selling. Promoters are passionate about your brand and, hence, more likely to make repeat purchases. By digging into NPS data to analyze their preferences and tailor your approach, you can introduce them to complementary products that enhance their experience and increase sales.

To extend the reach of your brand even further, consider implementing a referral program that encourages Promoters to share their positive experiences with others. Equipping them with the necessary tools to easily spread the word, such as social media sharing options, referral bonuses, or rewarding those who leave product reviews, can serve as a compelling incentive for brand advocacy. 

Maintaining their enthusiasm requires ongoing efforts, such as creating targeted marketing campaigns. Exclusive deals and personalized loyalty programs can be effective ways to show appreciation for their support and reinforce your connection. For example, consider inviting your most loyal customers to exclusive events or giving them early access to new products. Small, unexpected gestures – such as birthday discounts or personalized thank-yous – can further strengthen loyalty. 

Another way to capitalize on Promoters is through user-generated content. People trust real customer experiences far more than traditional marketing messages, so why not let your happy customers do the selling for you? Encouraging them to share testimonials, reviews, or social media posts showcasing your product can boost credibility and drive conversions. 

Regularly assessing and monitoring Promoter churn is essential to maintain a high NPS score and identify potential issues before they become liabilities. By proactively addressing these concerns – whether it’s by improving customer service or refining product offerings –  you can set the stage for long-term success.

5. Follow Up With Detractors, Engage With Passives

You could say that Detractors are lost customers, but a better way to think about them is as opportunities to right a wrong and capitalize on that. You see, not every single Detractor is someone who dislikes your product and brand at all – some of them might actually like what you offer but be very disappointed or unsatisfied with certain aspects of your business or a particular customer experience.

If you address and fix those issues, on top of also acknowledging your errors, there is a chance you might leave a strong impression on those people and turn them into customers again.

A tailored customer recovery program does exactly that by turning disappointment into a second chance for loyalty. Offering apology discounts, service credits, or free upgrades can be an effective way to regain trust. At the same time, preventing future frustrations requires a proactive approach. One of the best ways to do this is by analyzing NPS feedback trends to pinpoint recurring pain points – whether it’s slow response times, unclear pricing, or poor onboarding experiences. Once you spot these patterns, take meaningful action to address frequent complaints before they become dealbreakers.

As for Passives, it’s important to use surveys to ask them what improvements they’d like to see with your product, or what issues are preventing them from becoming fans of your brand. Passives are not exactly loyal customers, meaning they are open to other options. If you neglect them, they can easily contribute to your customer churn stats.

However, if you assign them a customer success rep and leverage customer feedback to craft personalized solutions that cater to their unique needs, you’re more likely to nurture and convert them into Promoters. If you achieve that, you’ll essentially increase your revenue in the long run since you’re boosting your retention rate.

Moreover, you can use NPS data to inform your communication strategy and draft messages that resonate with each customer segment. By constantly refining your approach, you’ll rest assured marketing and sales efforts remain impactful.

6. Tap Into Inactive Leads

From time to time, even the strongest opportunities go quiet. If you’ve accumulated a large number of leads going dark, sending an NPS survey is a great way to reconnect and kick-start the sales process once again.

Using NPS to reignite dead opportunities is simple. Instead of sending a survey to your existing customers, create a custom audience to target inactive leads (such as people who have shown an interest in your services/products at the beginning but haven’t responded or taken any action since then).

Don’t use the surveys to ask them how likely they are to recommend your brand to others. Instead, use them to ask what improvements they’d like to see before they’d be willing to start doing business with you.

The great thing about this tactic is that it gives you feedback on why the deal hasn’t progressed. Using this data, you can refine your sales pitch and better connect with each prospect, increasing the likelihood of conversion.

While not everyone will respond to your surveys, the ones that do send an important message — that they’re still interested in talking to you, even if just to provide feedback. Build on this with a compelling pitch and there’s a serious chance of that feedback turning into a lucrative deal.

NPS and Growth – the Bottom Line

Using NPS to boost customer satisfaction and loyalty is definitely going to work in your favor. However, you stand to gain much more by focusing on boosting sales with NPS too. Getting to enjoy brand loyalty and advocacy alongside a decent increase in your client base numbers sounds more than appealing, right? Not to mention you can even use Promoters to improve your brand’s visibility, saving your marketing team tons of time and effort.

Your NPS can be a sales growth engine. The question is: Are you ready to turn feedback into revenue?

In case you’re looking for NPS survey software, we’ve got you covered. Retently offers a fully integrated solution that’s extremely easy to use, works across multiple channels, and lets you set up plenty of time-saving automation scenarios. Test it out in a free trial in order to:

• boost customer lifetime value by keeping customers engaged.
• increase repeat purchases with targeted offers and experiences.
• build stronger relationships by listening, adapting, and delivering real value.

The post 6 Actionable Strategies To Drive More Sales Using Net Promoter Score appeared first on Retently CX.

Table of Contents

• Key Takeaways 
  • 1. Automate the Feedback Loop
  • 2. Approach Customers Before They Churn
  • 3. Channel Positive Feedback
  • 4. Streamline Task Management
  • 5. Analyze Text Feedback and Customer Sentiment
  • 6. Share Feedback Between Teams
  • 7. Import Feedback into Product Management Software
  • 8. Import Insights and Analyze Data in Business Analytics Platforms
• Bottom Line

Almost any business process improvement can be stripped down to a simple formula: achieve more with less time and effort. Whether it’s crunching data or integrating a bunch of analytics tools to understand and boost customer engagement, when you boil it down, people are just trying to do a better job and win some extra hours back into their days.

Following that logic, automation is the pillar of technology. Your processes can run day-and-night flawlessly to do the job while you focus your energy on more important things.

However, this is not just about winning time back in your day – at least when it comes to customer experience. The tech maturity of customer success teams that automate their key processes strongly correlates to significant business growth.

Whether your team uses Retently or you’re just curious to learn more about customer feedback workflow automation, take a look at these practical ideas:

Key Takeaways 

• Capture customer insights effortlessly through trigger-based surveys to ensure timely responses without manual effort.
• Automatically sort responses by sentiment (positive, neutral, negative) and tag them by themes (product, support, pricing), so teams can focus on what matters most.
• Set up automated follow-ups, escalation workflows, and personalized responses to acknowledge feedback and resolve issues quickly.
• Trigger recovery workflows for Detractors, reward loyal customers and schedule targeted follow-ups to turn feedback into long-term business growth.
• Track trends effortlessly with real-time dashboards and reports that highlight key insights, ensuring teams stay informed without manual data pulling.

Ready to take the hassle out of feedback management? Let’s dive into how automation can transform the way you listen to and engage with your customers!

1. Automate the Feedback Loop

We’ve already written an in-depth article about the customer feedback loop and the main idea is this: it’s a customer insight-driven process that helps you continuously improve your products and services. Yet, closing the customer feedback loop is even more important because it shows customers you genuinely understand their pain points, act on their suggestions, and want their business to succeed. 

Unfortunately, doing it manually can be very daunting and time-consuming. You need to reach out – and this must be personalized for each customer segment (Promoters, Passives, and Detractors).

Luckily, automation can help you with that. For example, if your Customer Experience Management platform has automation abilities, you can create predefined replies that will be automatically sent out when a certain event is triggered. You can draft a customized response containing a relevant discount or referral link for your Promoters. Or, you could send automated conversation starters to customers who leave no text feedback.

You can do the same thing with Zapier. Basically, you could configure integrations with services like Customer.io, Drift, and Intercom to send your clients automated personalized messages whenever you receive new feedback.

With the replies being taken care of, your customer success team can spend more time and energy on more pressing matters, like addressing customer concerns or working on personalized rewards and upgrades.

2. Approach Customers Before They Churn

Customer churn should never be taken lightly. In the US alone, businesses lose $136.8 billion each year because customers switch brands. So, managing churn is paramount. An efficient way to do that is to look into customer feedback in order to spot the main problems your customers deal with. You should also keep an eye on inactive accounts and those that are past due.

Not all customer issues are the same – some can be unique in their own way. Hence, using general, automated replies to close the feedback loop can be quite tricky. However, workflow scenarios would give you a hand allowing you to automatically start conversations with upset customers whenever they leave negative feedback and take immediate action to address their issues. 

Even lost customers are an opportunity to learn something if the survey platform you’re using offers proper workflow automation. All you need to do is schedule exit surveys that are automatically triggered when a customer cancels their subscription or does not upgrade from a free trial. Such surveys can help you find out why your clients churn and what you can do to solve the problems that contribute to that. 

Surveying departing customers can also unlock valuable insights about your product or business as a whole that, if taken into account, can drive impressive improvements and, as a result, encourage growth. NPS surveys are short and simple, allowing customers to speak their minds without significant time commitment, and time is something a leaving client would not want to waste. Moreover, the open-ended question invites honest customer feedback instead of bombarding them with multiple questions framing their answers.

3. Channel Positive Feedback

Positive reviews can do wonders for B2B sellers since around 92% of B2B buyers are more likely to purchase after reading a positive, trusted review. The same goes for B2Cs with product reviews being among the top three sources of information in the US. Also, if your business has great reviews, people might be willing to spend 31% more on it.

The good news is that a powerful Customer Experience Management platform can make it very simple to gather positive feedback. You’ll know who your Promoters are and what they love about your brand. All that’s left is convincing them to turn that feedback into positive reviews everyone can see. The best way to do that is to request the review on the survey Thank you page or in an automated reply to your Promoters.

Basically, you should have personalized messages that are triggered whenever a client leaves positive feedback. The message should be friendly and encourage the customer in question to leave reviews on relevant websites (Capterra, G2 Crowd, Google, Yelp, etc.). Ideally, you should include special discounts and other offers to motivate your Promoters. Also, make sure to leave in your message direct links to the websites where you want the reviews to show up – it makes things easier for your customers.

If you find out that some of your Promoters are social media influencers, make sure to ask them to write a post or make a video about your product too. Of course, you should offer them something in exchange.

Integrations with WordPress can also help you export positive reviews, while integration with Trustpilot would make it easy for you to send automatic review invitations.

Don’t forget – customers prefer doing business with the ones they trust, so miss no opportunity for your Promoters to make you visible.

4. Streamline Task Management

Team collaboration platforms help boost productivity and are a great way to ensure that every department knows what tasks they’re supposed to handle. However, creating the tasks, organizing them, and assigning the right people still takes time and effort – especially when it comes to customer feedback.

Fortunately, with proper automation in place, your team won’t need to spend hours planning, setting up tasks and following up on them. If you integrate your Customer Experience Management platform with your task management tool, like Trello or Asana, you can save tons of time thanks to workflows. For example, you can have the platform automatically create a task, subtasks and assign the relevant team members to them. 

Such a workflow can be extremely valuable. Let’s say you’ve got a dedicated team member responsible for reaching out to Detractors who don’t leave feedback, or Passives who give a low rating (7 instead of 8). If you use automation, relevant tasks can be automatically created and updated, saving the said team member time and effort, allowing them to focus more on engaging with customers.

There are cases when an immediate solution to the encountered issue is not possible, but you took note and have included it in your product roadmap. To make your customer opinion count, you can set a reminder in your task management software for you to come back to this pain point after a specific period of time (the estimated implementation period) and update the customer accordingly.  

5. Analyze Text Feedback and Customer Sentiment

Customer feedback can be extremely useful, but it can get problematic if you receive it at a large scale, as it is very time-consuming and challenging to turn large amounts of text feedback into actionable data. 

After all, you can’t really have a dedicated team manually sift through all the feedback to find the main likes and dislikes (you could, but it’d be a huge time and money sink). Moreover, you can’t afford to reduce meaningful feedback to basic ideas that don’t tell you anything about what your customers want.

That’s where AI-powered categorization and tagging come in. Using AI and automation, you can instantly organize feedback, prioritize issues, and ensure the right teams take action.

Specialized services like MonkeyLearn or Thematic turn handy. Basically, it’s an automated text analysis solution that can quickly obtain valuable insights from tons of customer feedback. These platforms can help you group responses into general theme-buckets for you to easily spot common customer pain points. Also, it can highlight customer sentiment towards your offering, helping you track customers at risk of churn. 

At present, sentiment analysis is a topic of great interest, being an efficient way to interpret and convert attitudes into actionable insights. The variety of sentiment analysis systems differ by their focus, the main ones looking into:

• Polarity (positive, negative, neutral),
• Emotions (happy, sad, angry, frustrated), or
• Intentions (interested or not).

AI-driven sentiment analysis can automatically detect the emotional tone of each response and sort it into categories to help businesses:

• Identify happy customers who might be open to referrals, reviews, or upsells.
• Spot neutral customers who are indifferent or undecided – great candidates for follow-ups.
• Flag unhappy customers who need quick intervention before they churn.

By automating this process, you get an instant overview of how customers feel without spending hours analyzing raw feedback.

If your CX platform allows it, you can integrate it with MonkeyLearn (or similar tools) directly or through Zapier. You can configure a customer feedback workflow automation where responses are analyzed, customer sentiment is extracted, and all the data is tagged in a dashboard. For example, you could set up tags like “Onboarding,” “Product Features,” and “Customer Support” to see which business areas need more attention.

With AI-driven categorization and tagging, feedback goes from a chaotic mess to clear, structured insights – ready to be acted on. No more digging through endless survey responses. No more missed opportunities to fix issues before they escalate.

6. Share Feedback Between Teams

Microsoft Teams, Slack and their open-source alternative Mattermost are online messaging platforms that work well for customer success since they can be integrated with help desk solutions, live chat platforms, and phone support tools. You can even create dedicated channels for customers to talk to your team.

But did you know you can also integrate these platforms with your CX platform? Whether you do it directly or through Zapier, you’ll be able to keep your team constantly up-to-date with your customer ratings and feedback. You can set up triggers that automatically notify you through Slack, for example, when:

• A new customer rating is given;
• A customer chooses to unsubscribe from your surveys;
• Your customer satisfaction score goes up or down;
• Someone opened your survey but didn’t give any rating after a specific period of time.

You can choose to send automatic messages to a specific channel when any of the above happens, so that your team is immediately notified about any changes and is always on track with all your customer data and behavior. Also, you can set automatic reminders and channel topics. Apart from immediate notifications, you can opt for daily and weekly digests about your customer ratings and feedback.

7. Import Feedback into Product Management Software

Platforms similar to ProductBoard are very helpful, doing wonders in your product development process. These product management tools make it easy for you and your product team to see what fixes or features customers want to see. 

Besides that, it saves time by letting you quickly prioritize tasks and share your roadmap across all departments. Also, such product management software can help you get valuable user feedback by letting customers vote on proposed ideas or submit their own suggestions.

One efficient way you can use automation to save even more time with ProductBoard, for example, is to integrate your NPS platform with an online communication platform like Slack to import feedback. Then, you can set up an action in Slack to automatically import all the feedback data you need into ProductBoard. 

Alternatively, if the NPS platform allows it, you can integrate it directly with ProductBoard or use Zapier to do it. Thus, you can set notes to be automatically created in ProductBoard whenever a new customer rating or response is received or whenever a respondent is opting out.

By doing any of the above, you’ll make sure your product team no longer has to dig through customer feedback, allowing them to focus on addressing said feedback by adding new features, testing them, and fixing issues instead.

8. Import Insights and Analyze Data in Business Analytics Platforms

Metrics are merely a bunch of scarce data if not neatly organized and kept track of on a daily basis. But how do we get to make sense of them if there are so many data sources to look into?

Using a data warehouse would bring major benefits in this respect and, mainly, ensure easy access to valuable info by storing it in one place, thus allowing for more accurate business decisions. 

Since you can integrate your Customer Experience Management software with many data warehousing platforms (Airtable, Firebase, MySQL, MongoDB, etc.), you can make it easier for your executive team to find ways to improve the customer experience.

What kind of insights can you sync with your data warehouse? Well, data like:

• Customers who opened surveys but didn’t score them;
• Specific Detractor scores (0, 1, or 2);
• Passives and Detractors who don’t leave any text feedback;
• Customers who manually unsubscribed from your surveys;
• Feedback you received after releasing new features.

You can sync even more data after running a recurring survey campaign, like whether the score went up or down or if a customer changed their initial rating. Best of all – records can be automatically created and updated according to the existing feedback data that is synced, saving you tons of time and effort. 

Companies have access to plenty of performance data; however, it is still inaccessible to most of the team since it’s stored in so many places and thus seen in pieces.

In case you use Databox or its alternatives, you’ll have a very easy time keeping track of all the necessary KPIs and sharing results across the team as they happen. It’s a business analytics dashboard that pulls all your data into one place, helping your team shift their focus from calculating spreadsheets and drafting reports to quickly spotting and acting on valuable insights. With real-time access to performance, it is very simple to visualize where you are on your goals, identify trends and make the necessary adjustments on the fly, as well as make data-driven decisions in the long run.

If you integrate the software with your CX service, you can easily push custom data to Databox every time you receive a customer rating, new feedback or whenever a customer opts out. Also, you can trigger an automatic increase for a specific metric’s counter whenever new feedback is received. By leveraging such data boards, the team will be in control of the company’s performance, being able to use the available information to further prioritize tasks as required.

Bottom Line

Automation is the key to business success. It saves time and money, offers better insights and reduces the risk of human error. Also, automation has allowed our customers to sync millions of data points between their success, support, sales, and marketing systems. 

If you’re looking for a versatile Customer Experience Management platform that supports multiple integration and automation scenarios, give Retently a try. Retently includes a variety of integrations that allow customers to build automated workflows and help customer success teams evolve from being reactive to predictive. 

Oh, and if you’ve got any other customer feedback automation playbooks in mind that we haven’t discussed here, feel free to let us know in the comments below.

The post 8 Practical Customer Feedback Workflow Automation Ideas appeared first on Retently CX.

Table of Contents

• Key Takeaways
• Product Reviews vs. NPS Surveys: Key Differences
• How NPS Complements the Idea of Customer Feedback in DTC
• Best Practices for Incorporating Product Reviews and NPS Surveys
• Final Thoughts: A Recap

In today’s fast-paced business environment, customer feedback has become an invaluable resource for brands striving to stay ahead of the curve. By tapping into the voice of the customer, companies can gain a deeper understanding of customer needs and craft meaningful experiences that foster loyalty. Product reviews and Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys are commonly used to measure customer experience and collect zero-party data. 

But while customer reviews have become an integral part of the ecommerce landscape and are here to stay, NPS surveys are just making their way in the DTC industry, although extensively adopted by B2Bs. Consider this, there are 2,665 review tools available in the Shopify marketplace, as opposed to only 58 for NPS software. Quite a difference, wouldn’t you say? So, aren’t brands missing out on essential feedback data?

In this article, we’ll compare post-purchase NPS surveys and product reviews as a measure of customer satisfaction, provide ecommerce businesses with a better understanding of the strengths and limitations of these two methods, and explore whether product reviews can be an alternative or rather complementary to NPS surveys. By understanding the importance of customer feedback and the best ways to gather it, brands can improve customer experience and retention, resulting in increased business growth.

So, let’s get started.

Key Takeaways

• Goal: NPS measures customer loyalty, while product reviews assess specific products to help buyers decide.
• Feedback Type: NPS captures brand sentiment, while reviews focus on product features like quality and usability.
• Who Responds? NPS surveys any customer interaction, while reviews come from the buyers of a product.
• Data Collection: NPS feedback is private and used for internal improvements, while reviews are public and influence purchase decisions.
• Follow-Up: NPS allows proactive engagement with unhappy customers and trend analysis to enhance overall customer experience. Product reviews are trickier, requiring public responses to manage reputation.

Product Reviews vs. NPS Surveys: Key Differences

Both product reviews and NPS surveys provide valuable insights into how consumers perceive a company’s products. However, they fulfill different roles in the customer experience measurement process. These types of feedback differ in their focus, the information they provide, and the methods used to collect and analyze data. Understanding these differences and how they complement each other can help brands achieve a broader CX perspective. 

Let’s dive into their fundamental differences, shall we?

Concept

Product reviews are written evaluations of a product by customers who have purchased and used it. They generally include a  5-star rating system and a text review, providing a first-hand product experience. Users can also add product photos and videos for a complete representation.

An NPS survey is a specific type of customer satisfaction survey that measures how likely users are to recommend a product or service to their friends and colleagues. They ask clients to rate their satisfaction on a scale of 0 to 10 and provide an open-ended question for additional feedback. The results are used to calculate a score that ranges from -100 to 100, with higher scores indicating a higher level of customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Audience

Product reviews are directed toward potential customers interested in learning more about a product before making a purchase. This makes them essential for ecommerce businesses and consumer goods industries, helping consumers make informed purchasing decisions. 

NPS surveys focus on existing customers who have already purchased and used the product to measure their loyalty and satisfaction with the brand, including customer service, UI/UX, operations, etc. NPS is a versatile metric popular across various B2B and B2C industries, including SaaS, healthcare, finance, insurance, and other industries where customer satisfaction and loyalty are critical for business success. 

Timing

Product reviews are gathered after a customer purchases and engages with  the product. As to NPS, ecommerce businesses are more familiar with transactional NPS surveys sent immediately or shortly after a transaction or customer support interaction. However, NPS surveys are more comprehensive in scope and can efficiently capture the satisfaction level at each step of the customer journey.

In this context, relationship NPS surveys are also worth mentioning, which are sent at regular intervals throughout a customer’s lifecycle (such as quarterly or annually) to track changes in customer satisfaction over time. That is specifically relevant for subscription-based companies surveying their customers every six months or big-ticket-item ecommerce businesses that inquire about their experience with the product 3 months after the purchase.

Impact

Product reviews can significantly affect a company’s sales, visibility, and reputation, as potential customers often rely on them when making purchasing decisions. Reading reviews is already a must for 95% of consumers before purchasing, while 67% require a high volume of reviews to trust high ratings. 

Yet, NPS surveys impact customer experience and the ability to identify and retain its most valuable clients. They are specifically designed to measure various areas of customer satisfaction and capture actionable insights for the brand to improve. Product reviews are often more general, providing feedback on a product but not necessarily leading to specific steps for the company. 

Data Use & Accessibility

Product reviews can be used for both internal (product development) and external purposes (marketing), with the latter as a priority. Posted publicly online, they allow other consumers to make informed purchasing decisions. Online retailers, social media platforms, and review websites have made it easy for customers to find and read reviews from various sources. Additionally, the mobile revolution has enabled potential buyers to access product reviews on the go. 

Contrariwise, NPS surveys are usually employed for internal purposes, such as measuring customer loyalty, inquiring about satisfaction following specific interactions, identifying areas for improvement, and tracking changes in customer satisfaction over time. Thus, NPS surveys are mostly kept private, and only shared within the company with management and the customer experience & marketing teams for analysis.

Marketing Opportunities

The main advantage of product reviews, making them so popular for ecommerce businesses, is that they serve as a form of social proof in marketing materials. Brands showcase positive feedback on their website or social media accounts. This way, they build credibility with potential customers since they can see what others have said about the product before purchasing. Overall, incorporating product reviews into a website’s content strategy can be a great way to drive traffic, increase conversions, and boost sales. 

On the contrary, NPS survey results are not usually used for marketing purposes; however, the metric makes it simple to target Promoters and encourage them to share opinions online. Moreover, a high NPS score speaks of amazing customer experiences. Many brands display positive results on their website to show commitment to customer needs and, as a result, foster trust.

Cost-Effectiveness

Product reviews may seem more cost-effective to collect due to the availability of third-party review platforms (e.g., Google Reviews or Yelp), which do not require additional resources or costs. However, this might not be the case if brands are the ones initiating the process, meaning they would need someone in the team to collect and manually analyze data or opt for an automation tool for the purpose. In this respect, brands can collect product reviews through email campaigns sent a few days after the purchase, via platforms such as Yotpo, Okendo, and Junip, or by incentivizing customer testimonials. 

As in the case of product reviews, NPS surveys may require additional resources, such as dedicated survey software and an analyst, to run the surveys and analyze the feedback. However, being a simple, straightforward, and easy-to-implement metric, Net Promoter Score does not require extensive investments, which is essential for DTC businesses. Using a platform like Retently, ecommerce businesses can trigger post-purchase NPS surveys by various survey channels such as email, store web pop-ups, or SMS and reach customers where they are most likely to engage with the survey. 

How NPS Complements the Idea of Customer Feedback in DTC

The concept of customer feedback has always been a crucial component of successful business operations. DTC brands, in particular, have leveraged its power to build a loyal audience and create more personal connections with consumers. However, traditional methods of collecting customer feedback, such as product reviews, can’t provide a complete picture. That’s where Net Promoter Score comes in as a complementary tool. NPS offers valuable insights into customer sentiment and helps brands understand the impact of their efforts on customer loyalty. 

So, let’s explore how NPS complements the idea of customer feedback in DTC and how it can generate relevant intelligence into customer behavior, preferences, and opinions.

A Measure of Customer Loyalty

NPS surveys are intended to measure customer loyalty and provide reliable data about customers’ likelihood to recommend the business to others. Customer loyalty is a valid pointer to customer retention and repeat business, which is essential for brands depending on repeat customers for revenue. That makes the NPS survey a tool with strong predictive potential.

Based on the collected NPS scores, customers are grouped into three categories: 

• Promoters (9 to 10): Highly satisfied customers who are likely to recommend your brand to others and make repeat purchases. Naturally, you would want the number of Promoters to be as high as possible since it will indicate that your product struck a chord.
• Passives (7 to 8): While satisfied with the product to some extent, Passives may be less likely to make repeat purchases and will switch to a competitor if a better option becomes available.
• Detractors (0 to 6): These are unsatisfied customers who are likely to be disloyal and provide negative word-of-mouth recommendations.

Ecommerce companies can thus use NPS data to identify Promoters and maximize their value, nurturing customers for life. NPS surveys can also easily flag at-risk customers, so they can proactively act and retain them for longer. While product reviews focus primarily on collecting feedback for social proof, NPS is an actionable metric directed toward finding the strengths to build on and spotting the flaws to improve – all for delivering the best customer experience and fostering loyalty. 

Targeted Feedback

Product reviews represent general feedback on a product, while NPS surveys are specifically designed to provide actionable insights to improve. They can include personalized questions and follow-up actions based on the customer’s specific experience or feedback (for example, depending on what product one buys or if they are new/return customers). NPS value goes beyond the regular 0-10 rating question, hence adopting a full-funnel NPS approach is the way to go. 

Many brands find NPS valuable because it gives critical information on the entirety of the buyer’s journey from purchase to fulfillment. The questions to ask aren’t all based on product quality but are more related to the shopping and customer experience of the brand. The brand has complete control over the survey, building it in a way that would best surface the topics of interest. The customization capabilities also allow for setting up the ground for a sustainable relationship rather than a transaction-based encounter, helping to improve the company’s overall relationship with its consumers.

Easy Data Analysis

NPS surveys have a standardized format offering a consistent and reliable way to gather and interpret customer feedback. It consists of a simple question: “On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our company to a friend or colleague?” which is easy to understand and respond to, making it a convenient way to collect actionable data. 

Ecommerce businesses can compare NPS scores with industry standards and contrast data between departments or across different customer segments. Hence, brands can easily visualize and benchmark performance against competitors, track the progress of specific support agents effectively, or compare results at re-order, allowing for data-driven improvements.

NPS surveys are also highly efficient in tracking customer satisfaction over time. For example, by regularly surveying subscription customers (every 6 months), brands can capture shifts in the overall sentiment toward their business. By gaining valuable insights into their customers’ evolving needs and preferences, companies can easily adapt to changes and make the necessary adjustments. DTCs can also analyze if improvement efforts are paying off, informing future decisions. Moreover, long-term tracking establishes a baseline for customer satisfaction, giving brands an accurate understanding of how well they serve consumers. This insight is key to boosting retention and driving repeat business.

Effortless Segmentation

By collecting customer feedback and categorizing them into groups, brands can gain insights into what motivates each segment and tailor products accordingly. This way, brands can provide more personalized customer experiences and improve overall satisfaction. For example, suppose you have a high NPS score among younger customers but a lower score among the senior segment. In that case, you can focus on creating products that appeal to the younger demographic while addressing any issues causing dissatisfaction among the senior buyers. Through segmentation, brands can target the right audience and make informed decisions about marketing and product development strategies.

Broader Perspective

Product reviews can be very helpful in providing detailed information about a product. However, NPS goes beyond product information to provide data on a range of other aspects of a company’s performance. Let’s go through some of these examples to see how it works.

• Inform the CX strategy – by analyzing NPS feedback, brands can understand customer needs, spot pain points, and make informed decisions about product selection, pricing, delivery policy, or UX/UI experience. Customer satisfaction levels and feedback trends are the ones to inform the CX strategy and overall business direction, allowing ecommerce companies to be competitive in a crowded industry.
• Understand the buyer’s journey – by figuring out the key touchpoints in the buyer’s journey and how customers feel about each, brands can make adjustments to improve the individual experiences. It can include providing additional self-service resources, updating the refund policy, or improving the check-out process. By acting on NPS data, you can ensure that every touchpoint is tailored to meet customer expectations, leading to increased customer loyalty.
• Impact customer relationships – a high NPS score points to an increased number of happy customers likely to repurchase. On the other hand, a low NPS score speaks of prevailing unsatisfied buyers who may choose to do business with a competitor. By using NPS surveys to understand customer sentiment, follow up with at-risk customers, and drive the necessary improvements, brands can strengthen relationships and build a loyal audience.
• Optimize marketing efforts – brands can see if campaigns resonate with their customers, drive sales, and create positive customer experiences. A high NPS score indicates that customers respond positively and are more likely to repurchase. In contrast, a low NPS score hints at a need to fine-tune marketing strategies and optimize efforts for maximum impact.

Data Cross-Referencing

NPS surveys are an effective method of measuring customer satisfaction and loyalty, but they become even more powerful when cross-referenced with other data sources. By combining NPS data with other metrics, such as CSAT and CES, demographics, purchase history/sales data, and customer service interactions, companies can gain a comprehensive understanding of their customer experience.

For example, suppose NPS data shows that customers are satisfied with a company’s products but not customer service. In that case, the brand can use cross-referenced data to uncover the issue and take steps to address it. Additionally, cross-referencing NPS with purchase history would help ecommerce businesses identify opportunities for upselling. Brands can use this information to develop targeted campaigns that increase customer engagement and boost sales.

Neutralizing Bias

Product reviews may be affected by positive or negative bias, as customers are more likely to leave a review if they are satisfied or highly disappointed with a product. Fake reviews can also get in the way and skew the overall product perception, providing an incorrect representation of customer satisfaction. In this context, NPS surveys can provide a more representative and objective view of customer satisfaction. 

The benefit of having multiple perspectives when evaluating data is that it grants a more accurate picture of customer sentiment and a more comprehensive understanding of the overall performance. When relying on one source, there is also a risk of missing important information or misinterpreting data. For example, combining data from customer surveys and product reviews allows brands to quickly identify improvement areas, whether in product design, customer service, or marketing.

Best Practices for Incorporating Product Reviews and NPS Surveys

When used in conjunction, product reviews and NPS surveys can surface relevant insights into customer satisfaction and help ecommerce businesses make informed decisions about customer experience. However, it is important to follow some best practices when combining these two feedback sources to make the most of it. Here are three main tips we would like to touch upon:

1. Throttle and Sampling

Throttling and sampling are essential considerations when harnessing product reviews and NPS surveys to gather customer feedback. Throttling controls the rate at which feedback is collected, while sampling refers to selecting a representative customer segment.

By limiting the number of daily surveys and reviews, brands can avoid overwhelming the team while still capturing enough data to drive improvements. Furthermore, throttling can make sure that the customer experience remains positive. Brands can thus prevent consumer frustrations caused by flooding survey or review requests, and keep the feedback collection process engaging.

With a representative customer sample, ecommerce companies can ensure a more accurate picture of customer experiences and drive meaningful improvements. A suitable sampling method can, as a result, increase data validity by eliminating potential biases. 

Still, throttling and sampling methods will depend on the specific goals of the company. For example, a brand that wants to gather more in-depth feedback on a particular product or stage in the buyer’s journey may need to collect feedback more frequently than a business that simply wants to gauge overall customer satisfaction every once in a while.

2. Timing

Ideally, ecommerce businesses should aim to trigger product review requests and NPS surveys at different stages in the buyer’s journey. For example, they can collect reviews after a consumer used a specific product, and send NPS surveys to inquire about the delivery process (right after the product was delivered),  the check-out process (after the order was placed), or at regular intervals to monitor overall sentiment. Additionally, it’s essential to consider the type of surveyed customer, as feedback from repeat customers may weigh more than that from new customers.

A popular scenario among ecommerce brands is sending a product review request two days after delivery and NPS surveys in 10 or 14 days. While the first aims to find out more about the quality of the product, the NPS survey looks into the overall shopping experience and satisfaction with the brand.

Incorporating product reviews and NPS surveys into a comprehensive customer feedback strategy can enable brands to gain a deeper understanding of their consumers and encourage informed decisions that drive business success. We recommend adopting a 50%-50% approach when implementing the two methods jointly, meaning send product review requests to half of your audience and NPS surveys to the rest, to avoid messaging fatigue.

3. Closing the Feedback Loop

Closing the feedback loop is critical to driving CX improvements. It involves not only collecting feedback but also analyzing it, taking action based on the data, and communicating results to customers.

One key benefit of closing the feedback loop is that it helps build trust. Consumers are more likely to feel valued and appreciated if companies actively listen to and act on their feedback. That, in turn, builds brand loyalty and increases customer satisfaction.

Additionally, closing the feedback loop surfaces areas for improvement in the customer experience. By analyzing the received feedback, companies can spot common topics, patterns, trends and use this information to make changes that will positively impact CX and, as a result, drive growth.

Another essential aspect is sharing feedback with relevant departments and stakeholders. By doing so, brands can ensure that the feedback is acted upon and improvements are effectively implemented.

Final Thoughts: A Recap

Product reviews and NPS surveys are irreplaceable tools for collecting insightful customer feedback. But while providing complementary information, they also have their unique strengths, meaning brands should consider their specific goals when deciding which method to use. 

By understanding the strengths and limitations of each type of feedback, ecommerce businesses can make the most of both to improve the overall customer experience. Combining these two sources can help DTCs gain a more well-rounded understanding of their customer’s needs and help brands target their efforts more effectively.

Take control of your customer experience! Retently provides a simple yet effective way to gather and analyze customer feedback. With its user-friendly interface and advanced analytics capabilities, you can easily measure customer satisfaction, identify areas for improvement, and track progress over time. Sign up for a free trial to see the difference it can make for your brand.

The post An In-Depth Comparison of Product Reviews and NPS Surveys appeared first on Retently CX.

Table of Contents

• Key Takeaways
• The Philosophy Behind CES
• What Is Customer Effort Score?
• When Is the Right Time to Send a CES Survey?
• How to Put Together a Good Customer Effort Score Question
• How to Interpret Customer Effort Score Results
• Customer Effort Score – The Good and the Bad
• Actionable Insights: What CES Scores Are Really Telling You
• Is Only Using Customer Effort Score Surveys Enough?
• Bottom line

Disloyal customers are costing businesses billions. But what actually triggers disloyalty? Former CEB Global’s research (now part of Gartner) explained that the level of effort consumers put into interacting with a brand directly impacts loyalty levels. In fact, according to CEB Global, around 96% of consumers who reported having difficulty solving a problem were more disloyal.

How do you know how easy it is for your clients to interact with your business, though? Well, that’s where the Customer Effort Score comes into play.

Curious about how CES can transform your customer experience strategy? Let’s dive in!

Key Takeaways

• Customer Effort Score measures how easy it is for customers to complete a task or resolve an issue, and low effort is proven to drive higher loyalty and reduce churn.
• CES helps businesses identify friction points in real-time, allowing them to address issues before they escalate and improve the overall customer experience.
• It can be customized to specific touchpoints, such as onboarding, checkout, or post-support interactions, making it a versatile tool for mapping customer effort across the journey.
• CES scores are only valuable if paired with actionable steps, whether through process improvements, better communication, or self-service tools.

The Philosophy Behind CES

Let’s get real for a moment: it doesn’t matter how amazing your product is if using it feels like a marathon with hurdles. The harsh truth is that customers will walk away – even from a brilliant product or service – if the experience is too complicated, frustrating, or time-consuming.

This is where the “ease breeds loyalty” principle is front and center. We’re wired to favor experiences that are smooth and effortless. Think about the last time you breezed through a self-checkout or got fast support. Chances are, you walked away feeling good about the interaction and the brand behind it.

Now flip that around. Ever had to call customer support five times to resolve a simple issue? Or wade through a confusing returns process? Even if the end result was fine, the effort you spent probably left a sour taste. This is the paradox of high-effort experiences: even the best products or outcomes can fail if getting there feels like too much work. Here’s where CES takes the floor.

What Is Customer Effort Score?

A general Customer Effort Score definition describes it as a type of customer survey that measures how easy it was for a client to interact with your business (solving an issue with customer support, making a purchase, signing up for a trial, etc.).

Consumers are generally asked how they agree with a statement (“The company made it easy for me to solve my problem”, for instance), to rate their level of effort, or just to answer a question (“How easy was it for you to solve your problem today?”, for example).

CES Survey Types

There are a few metrics you can use to measure your Customer Effort Score, but keep in mind that they can change the way you calculate and score surveys:

• The Likert scale –  This method involves a “Strongly Disagree/Strongly Agree” scale structured as such: Strongly Disagree – Disagree – Somewhat Disagree – Undecided – Somewhat Agree – Agree – Strongly Agree. The answers are usually numbered 1 to 7, and you can also color code each one to make everything more visually intuitive for respondents (having “Strongly Agree” in green and “Strongly Disagree” in red, for instance).

• The 1-10 scale – This metric involves having respondents offer an answer to your question in the 1-10 range. Generally, the 7-10 segment is associated with positive responses (if you’re asking customers how easy it was to do something, for instance). However, if your question asks the respondent to rate the level of effort, the 1-3 segment will be associated with positive results instead (since they represent low effort).

• The 1-5 scale – In this case, the answer options are as follows: Very Difficult – Difficult – Neither – Easy – Very Easy, and they are numbered from 1 to 5. You can also reverse the order.

• Emotions Faces – While this metric is pretty simple, it’s useful if you run a lot of CES surveys for minor aspects of your product/service/website. Plus, it also makes it easy and intuitive for respondents to quickly answer. Basically, you use Happy Face, Neutral Face and Unhappy Face images as responses, with the Happy Face usually meaning there was little effort required.

When Is the Right Time to Send a CES Survey?

Generally, CES web surveys are sent to customers during these key moments:

After an Interaction That Led to a Purchase

Sending out Customer Effort Score surveys after a client interacts with your product/service or service team and ends up purchasing is a great way to collect real-time feedback about what improvements you need to make to streamline the buying experience.

For example, you should always send out a CES survey after a customer signs up for a free trial or finishes the onboarding period. That’s especially relevant since poor onboarding accounts for 23% of average customer churn. It helps you quickly determine if any adjustments are necessary to make others more likely to buy from you.

Where CES Fits In:

• Onboarding: Ask, “How easy was it to get started with [our product/service]?” to gauge how smoothly new users can complete the setup process.
• Sign-Up or Registration: Use CES to measure how seamless your sign-up process is. Questions like “How simple was it to create an account?” can help you identify if there’s unnecessary friction.
• Product Discovery: For ecommerce or in-store shopping, ask something like, “How easy was it to find/locate the product you were looking for?” to uncover whether customers are struggling to navigate your offerings.

They say first impressions last a lifetime, and this couldn’t be more true for customer experience. Whether it’s a first-time user navigating your app or a shopper exploring your website, the ease of these initial interactions can set the tone for your entire relationship.

Right After a Client’s Interaction with Customer Service

Sending out a CES survey after a customer service touchpoint (such as email support tickets) lets you quickly assess the efficiency of your support team and identify areas for improvement to boost overall performance. You should also consider sharing such a survey after a customer finishes reading a Knowledge base article, since it will help you find out how helpful your content is.

In this case, sending out CES questionnaires at a specific interval is unnecessary. Since the question asks respondents how much effort they had to put into solving a problem, it makes more sense to deploy the survey after customer service touchpoints.

Where CES Fits In:

• Support Follow-Up: After a live chat, email, or phone call, ask, “How smooth was your experience getting support via [phone/email]?” This gives you direct feedback on how your support team is performing.
• Self-Service Tools: For FAQs or knowledge bases, try, “How easy was it to find the answer you needed?” to measure the effectiveness of your resources.

Even the best brands can’t avoid occasional issues. What sets great businesses apart is how easy they make it to fix those problems. 

After Any Interaction Surfacing Usability Experience

The CES survey can be sent out after any interaction that, in one way or another, could cause friction and result in a negative customer experience. This can be related to the launch of a new feature to follow up on its adoption and inquire about potential pain points, to learn more about the efficiency of your internal processes or the overall usability experience. 

The question needs to revolve around that interaction and be triggered upon its completion to make recollections accurate and the received feedback actionable. With Retently you can now create survey questions tailored to specific events with just a click, so you are never short of ideas.

Where CES Fits In:

• Checkout and Payments – Ask, “How smooth was your checkout experience?” to uncover pain points like slow-loading pages, complicated forms, or unexpected fees –  areas where customers may abandon their cart due to unnecessary friction.
• New Feature Adoption – After launching a new product feature, ask, “How easy was it to start using [new feature]?” to measure the learning curve.
• Subscription or Plan Changes – For subscription-based businesses, ask, “How easy was it to upgrade or modify your plan?” to ensure the process isn’t discouraging users from making changes.

Introducing the Concept of “Effort Hotspots”

Effort hotspots are those specific stages in the customer journey where friction tends to pile up. These are moments where customers are more likely to feel overwhelmed, frustrated, or stuck – and they’re prime candidates for CES measurement.

How CES identifies hotspots? By mapping CES scores across the customer journey, you can identify recurring low scores at specific touchpoints. For example, if your checkout process consistently receives low CES scores, it’s a clear sign to review and simplify it.

Hotspots can also vary by audience. A tech-savvy customer might find onboarding easy, while a less-experienced user may struggle – CES helps you uncover these differences.

Fixing effort hotspots is one of the fastest ways to improve overall customer satisfaction and loyalty. When you focus on reducing friction at these critical moments, you’re creating a smoother, more enjoyable experience that keeps customers coming back.

How to Put Together a Good Customer Effort Score Question

For starters, make sure the wording is as unambiguous as possible. Don’t ask customers about anything that doesn’t have to do with customer effort. Also, the tone of your question should be neutral so that the respondent doesn’t feel like you’re trying to favor a particular answer.

Ideally, you should also avoid using the word “effort”  – ironic, we know. That’s because the word’s meanings can differ from language to language, so there’s a chance you might get irrelevant answers.

And make sure your CES survey question marks off an area of analysis – be it the overall experience a customer had with your website/brand, or just a singular customer interaction moment (like live chat).

Lastly, there are two ways to format the question:

1. Make it a statement – This format is handy when using the 1-7 Likert scale. Here’s a Customer Effort Score question example of that: “How much do you agree with the following statement: The company’s website makes buying items easy for me.” 
2. Make it a direct question – This format is more suited to surveys that use the 1-10 and Happy/Unhappy face metrics. Here’s an example: “How much effort did it take to solve your problem?”/”How difficult was it for you to solve your problem?”

We personally recommend using the statement format – both because the 1-7 Likert scale is more accurate to work with when calculating your CES score, and because the direct question format usually relies on using the word “effort,” which we already mentioned can be a bit problematic if you have an international client base. If that’s not a concern, though, the direct question format can work well too.

How to Interpret Customer Effort Score Results

One of the easiest ways to measure CES results is to get an average score (X out of 10). This is generally done with the 1-10 Customer Effort Score scale. Simply take the total sum of your CES scores and divide it by the number of responses you have received.

So, if 100 people responded to your Customer Effort Score survey, and the total sum of their scores amounts to 700, that means your CES score is 7 (out of 10).

If you’re using other metrics (like Happy/Unhappy faces or an Agree/Disagree scale), you could also try performing a Customer Effort Score calculation by subtracting the percentage of people who responded positively from the percentage of respondents who offered a negative response. The neutral responses are normally ignored.

For instance, let’s say you had 400 respondents; 250 of them responded positively and the rest negatively. By subtracting 37.5% negative answers (150/400 x 100) from the 62.5% positive answers, you get a CES score of 25%.

If you’re using the 1-7 Disagree/Agree scale, we also found it’s best to divide the total number of people who offered a 5-7 response (Somewhat Agree – Agree – Strongly Agree) by the total number of respondents. Afterward, multiply the result by 10 or 100 (depending on whether you use a 1-10 or 1-100 scale). You could do the same with the 1-5 scale (with 4 and 5 being the positive responses).

Here’s an example – if you had 100 respondents and 70 of them offered a positive response, your CES score will either be 7 or 70 (70/100 x 10/100).

What Is a Good Customer Effort Score?

The answer is a bit tricky – mostly because performing a Customer Effort Score benchmark against competitors is difficult since there is no clear industry-wide standard to compare against, and also because whether or not your CES score is a good one depends on your Customer Effort Score question and the metrics you use.

After all, if you use the Disagree/Agree scale for answers, where “Strongly Disagree” is numbered with 1 and “Strongly Agree” is numbered with 7, and have a statement like “The company made it easy for me to solve my problem,” you’ll clearly want to have a high CES score – ideally, one that’s over 5/50.

On the other hand, if your CES survey response scale associates 1/Happy Face metrics with “Less Effort” and 10/Unhappy Face metrics with “A Lot of Effort”, and directly asks customers how much effort they had to put into performing a certain action, you should strive to have a low CES score.

As in the case of other customer satisfaction scores, in order to get a grasp of where you stand, you should compare the CES with your score over a specific period of time, to see if your efforts are paying off. If you are experiencing an increase, it means you are on the right track; otherwise, you should dig deep into customer feedback to see what you are missing.

Customer Effort Score – The Good and the Bad

CES has both good and bad sides, but let’s see if the cons pale compared to the pros of using such a survey.

Advantages

One of the great things about CES surveys is that they are actionable and specific – they can quickly show which areas need improvement to streamline the customer experience.

Besides that, Customer Effort Score results have been found to be a strong predictor of future purchase behavior. In fact, according to this HBR’s research, approximately 94% of customers who reported they experienced “low effort” in interactions with a business said they would buy again from it. Also, 88% of those consumers said they would spend more money too.

The same research also shows us that CES can give you an idea of how likely your customers are to refer your brand to others, and how they would speak of it. Basically, around 81% of customers who reported they put in a lot of effort when interacting with a business said they intended to speak negatively of the brand in question. So, it’s possible to assume that consumers who are happy with the low level of effort asked of them will likely recommend the brand to others or, at the very least, speak positively of it.

Disadvantages

While CES drawbacks aren’t really a deal-breaker, they are worth highlighting. For one, the Customer Effort Score can’t really tell you what kind of relationship a consumer has with your brand in general. A low effort score can improve customer satisfaction levels, but it does not necessarily point to loyalty toward a brand. Also, CES can’t tell you how your customers and their ratings are influenced by factors such as your competitors, products, and pricing.

Another issue worth mentioning is the fact that CES surveys don’t offer a way to segment customers by type. While the Customer Effort Score surveys have good predicting purchase power, this is limited to only a specific group of customers who, for example, interact with the support team or go through your self-service options. Since CES are transactional in nature, they focus only on specific interactions and, therefore – a limited group of users.

As one-off surveys, CES offers data with short-term relevancy. Hence they must be triggered right after and wherever the said interaction or transaction takes place (be it email, in-app or chat), so that the feedback is tied to context.

And lastly, CES surveys can tell you a customer had difficulty solving a problem, but they don’t tell you why. For example, if a consumer says it was hard to try and get something your brand can’t actually offer, that’s not a relevant result for your business.

Actionable Insights: What CES Scores Are Really Telling You

Measuring CES is great, but the real value comes from understanding what’s behind the numbers. A low CES score doesn’t just mean customers had a hard time – it tells you exactly where the friction is happening and what you can do about it.

By breaking CES down into actionable themes, you can pinpoint the real problem areas and build a strategy to make customer interactions smoother, faster, and more enjoyable.

1. Process Friction: What’s Slowing Customers Down?

Sometimes, the issue isn’t what customers are trying to do – it’s how they have to do it. If customers consistently report high effort, it’s a sign that something in the process is slowing them down.

Signs of Process Friction:

• Customers take too many steps to complete a simple action (e.g., checkout, returns, sign-ups).
• There are unexpected roadblocks, like mandatory account creation before making a purchase.
• Forms or workflows are too long, confusing, or repetitive.

How to Fix It:
Streamline steps – reduce unnecessary clicks, auto-fill forms, and remove redundant steps.
Optimize for speed – improve website load times and make sure mobile experiences are just as smooth as desktop ones.
Test your own processes – walk through your customer journeys like a first-time user and find pain points firsthand.

2. Communication Gaps: Are Customers Getting the Right Information?

Customers don’t like feeling lost. If they can’t easily find answers or if instructions are unclear, they’ll feel like they have to work too hard to get what they need.

Signs of Communication Gaps:

• Customers ask the same support questions repeatedly, suggesting FAQs or help docs aren’t effective.
• There’s inconsistent messaging across channels (e.g., website says one thing, customer support says another).
• Instructions are too vague or technical, making it hard for non-experts to follow.

How to Fix It:
Clarify instructions – rewrite FAQs, tooltips, and support content in simple, direct language.
Align messaging across teams – make sure customer support, marketing, and product teams are all on the same page.
Proactively provide information – send clear post-purchase or onboarding emails to guide customers before they hit friction.

3. Empowerment Issues: Are Customers Too Dependent on Support?

If customers frequently reach out for help, it’s a red flag that they don’t feel empowered to solve issues on their own.

Signs of Empowerment Issues:

• High volume of repeat support tickets for the same problem.
• Customers can’t complete basic tasks without assistance (e.g., changing account settings, tracking orders).
• Your self-service options (like chatbots or help centers) aren’t being used or aren’t helpful.

How to Fix It:
Improve self-service resources – make sure help articles, chatbots, and FAQs are easy to find and actually useful.
Enhance UI/UX – sometimes the issue isn’t the process, but how it’s presented. A more intuitive design can eliminate confusion.
Educate customers proactively – consider short video tutorials, walkthroughs, or onboarding emails to help customers navigate your product without needing support.

The Effort Action Plan: Reducing Friction, One Step at a Time

Fixing high-effort experiences isn’t just about tweaking one thing – it’s about creating a system for continuous improvement. That’s where an Effort Action Plan is needed.

Here’s how to build one:

Identify Effort Hotspots: Look at CES scores by touchpoint (onboarding, checkout, support, etc.) to see where customers struggle most.
Categorize the Issues: Determine whether the problem is process friction, communication gaps, or an empowerment issue.
Prioritize Fixes: Start with high-impact areas (e.g., if checkout is a major pain point, focus there first).
Implement and Test Changes: Reduce unnecessary steps, clarify messaging, or improve self-service options – then track CES scores over time to measure improvement.
Make It a Habit: Keep measuring and refining to ensure effort stays low as your business grows.

If customers tell you something was hard, believe them – and take action. CES gives you the blueprint for removing friction, helping you turn frustrating moments into effortless experiences that keep customers happy and loyal.

Is Only Using Customer Effort Score Surveys Enough?

While CES app surveys are a great source of customer insight, it’s better when you pair them with a satisfaction-oriented survey – like Net Promoter Score, for example.

For the sake of this article, we’ll throw in a quick definition: NPS is a customer satisfaction survey that asks consumers how likely they are (on a scale from 0 to 10) to recommend your brand to other people. NPS surveys allow you to send follow-up questions to ask why the customer gave a particular rating, essentially letting you find out what exactly you need to improve to boost customer loyalty.

Using CES alongside NPS will let you accurately measure both consumer effort and loyalty. The two metrics effectively complement each other and allow you to focus on two vital aspects of your business instead of just one – especially since NPS lets you segment customers. Moreover, it seems that top-performing low-effort companies tend to have an NPS that is 65 points higher than top-performing high-effort businesses, further showing the link between Customer Effort Score and Net Promoter Score.

Bottom line

CES is one more transactional instrument in your toolbox that can help you pinpoint weaknesses across service interactions and a product’s ease of use. Since customer experience expectations are ever-evolving, consistently keeping an eye on effort scores, overall customer satisfaction and trends in the data is already a necessity. However, more data isn’t necessarily better data. The metrics have value only when the respective feedback is converted into follow-up actions and product improvements. 

Whether you are looking for a single customer satisfaction metric or a more complex approach, Retently got you covered. You can have all your data – NPS, CSAT, CES – under one roof with insightful analytics helping you sift through the conglomerate of feedback. Sign up for your free trial to see for yourself how easy it is to get started.

The post What is Customer Effort Score (CES) & How to Measure It? appeared first on Retently CX.

Table of Contents

• Key Takeaways
• The Basics of TikTok SEO
• Step-by-Step Guide to Optimizing TikTok Content for SEO
• Advanced TikTok SEO Strategies
• Emerging Trends in TikTok SEO
• Final Thoughts

Let’s face it: TikTok isn’t just about dance trends and catchy soundtracks anymore. It’s become a powerhouse for brands looking to connect with customers in a fun, engaging, and organic way. With about a billion users scrolling through their feeds daily, TikTok is no longer just a social media platform – it’s a discovery engine where shoppers stumble upon products they never knew they needed (but can’t resist buying!).

But here’s the kicker: standing out on TikTok isn’t just about creating cool videos, but making sure your content is found. That’s where TikTok search engine optimization steps in – your golden ticket to landing on the For You Page (FYP) and in front of shoppers actively searching for products like yours.

The best part? TikTok SEO isn’t reserved for big brands with massive budgets. With the right strategies, you can boost your visibility, drive organic growth, and turn curious scrollers into loyal customers – all without spending a fortune on ads.

In this article, we’re diving into the essentials of TikTok SEO, breaking it down into actionable tips you can start using today. Let’s get started!

Key Takeaways

• Use relevant keywords in captions, hashtags, video text, and audio to improve discoverability on TikTok’s search results and even Google SERPs. A mix of trending, niche, and branded hashtags can significantly boost reach.
• TikTok’s algorithm prioritizes content with high engagement, including likes, shares, comments, and video completion rates. Focus on creating interactive, visually appealing content that encourages users to engage.
• Participating in trending sounds, hashtags, and challenges increases the chances of appearing on the For You Page and connecting with your target audience.
• The first 3 seconds of a video are critical for capturing attention. Short, engaging, and visually dynamic videos help maintain viewer retention and improve rankings.
• Monitor TikTok Analytics regularly to track keyword performance, audience behavior, and video engagement. Use these insights to continuously optimize your TikTok SEO approach.

The Basics of TikTok SEO

If you’ve ever searched for something on TikTok, you’ve already experienced the magic of TikTok’s search functionality. But what makes TikTok’s search and algorithm unique? Let’s break it down.

How TikTok’s Search and Algorithm Work

TikTok is like a matchmaker between your content and the people most likely to love it. Its algorithm analyzes tons of data – what people search for, how they interact with videos, and even how long they watch – then serves up content that fits their preferences. Think of it as a super-smart assistant constantly guessing what users want to see next.

A study by Karan Vombatkere from Boston University and colleagues analyzed TikTok’s algorithm using GDPR-enabled user data and bot comparisons. It found that 30% to 50% of videos are recommended based on past interests, driven by factors like liked videos and followed accounts. The research highlights TikTok’s balance between reinforcing user preferences and introducing new content, offering fresh insights into its personalization system.

When someone types a keyword into the TikTok search bar (yes, people search on TikTok a lot!), the algorithm prioritizes videos that are relevant, engaging, and optimized for those keywords. That’s where TikTok SEO comes into play.

How TikTok SEO Differs from Traditional SEO

Sure, TikTok SEO has the same basic idea as traditional SEO: optimize your content to get it in front of the right people. But here’s the twist:

• Speed Over Long-Term Gains: TikTok trends move fast. Unlike traditional SEO, where results take time, TikTok content can go viral in hours if it hits the right notes.
• Engagement is Everything: On TikTok, the more people interact with your video – likes, shares, comments, even rewatches – the better it performs. In traditional SEO, you’d focus more on backlinks or dwell time.
• Visual & Audio Elements Matter: TikTok SEO isn’t just about written keywords. Your video’s text overlays, captions, and even the audio you use can influence how your content ranks.

The Power of Keywords, Hashtags, and Trends

To make the most of TikTok SEO, keywords are your best friends. These are the words your potential customers are searching for, and they should show up in your:

• Video captions
• On-screen text
• Hashtags
• Spoken audio (yes, TikTok even picks up on what you say!)

Hashtags play a huge role, too. Mixing niche hashtags (#EcoFriendlySkincare) with trending ones (#TikTokMadeMeBuyIt) can help your videos get discovered by the right audience.

And don’t forget trends! TikTok thrives on trending challenges, sounds, and formats. Jumping on trends relevant to your brand can boost your visibility and put you in front of a massive audience in no time. But we’ll get soon into the details.

The Role of the For You Page

The For You Page is prime real estate on TikTok. This is where users spend most of their time, scrolling through a curated feed of content tailored to their interests. Getting your videos on the FYP means more eyeballs, more engagement, and, ultimately, more sales.

How do you land on the FYP? By combining all the elements above – optimized keywords, catchy trends, and engaging content – and letting the algorithm work its magic. The more TikTok notices people enjoying your videos, the more it will push them to others.

TikTok SEO may sound a bit different from what you’re used to, but it’s all about making your content easy to find and impossible to ignore. Nail the basics, and you’ll set yourself up for success!

Step-by-Step Guide to Optimizing TikTok Content for SEO

So, you’re ready to make your TikTok content shine and get discovered by the right audience. The secret sauce? Keywords. Let’s start with how to find them and make them work for your ecommerce goals.

1. Keyword Research for TikTok

Think of keywords as the glue that connects your content to the people searching for it. But instead of traditional tools like Google Keyword Planner, TikTok has its own unique ways to help you find those magic words.

Tools and Techniques to Find Trending Keywords

• TikTok Search Bar: The search bar is your best friend. Start typing a term related to your niche (like “skincare” or “fitness gear”), and TikTok will auto-suggest popular phrases people are searching for. These suggestions are pure gold for finding trending topics. Also, try typing your main keyword followed by a letter (e.g., “skincare a,” “skincare b”) to see what TikTok suggests. This helps uncover long-tail keywords that are less competitive but highly specific.

• Competitor Analysis: Check out what successful competitors in your niche are doing. This can provide insights into what’s working and inspire your keyword strategy. Look at the captions, hashtags, and on-screen text in their most popular videos. Take note of recurring themes and keywords – they’re clearly resonating with your shared audience.

• TikTok’s Keyword Insights Tool: Head over to TikTok’s Creative Center and explore the Keyword Insights section. You can filter keywords by region, industry, and more to see what’s trending in your specific market. This tool provides data on keyword popularity, click-through rates, and other metrics to help you make informed decisions.

• Third-Party Tools: Explore tools like KeywordTool.io, which taps into TikTok’s autocomplete feature to generate a list of popular and hidden keywords, or ContentStudio’s TikTok Keyword Generator, a free tool for discovering trending keywords. These are just a couple of examples – there are many other tools available to help you optimize your TikTok SEO strategy.

How to Align Keywords with Your Ecommerce Goals

Finding keywords is one thing, but making them work for your brand is another. Here’s how to align them with your ecommerce objectives:

• Focus on Relevance: Ensure the keywords you choose are directly related to your products or services. Irrelevant keywords might bring views but won’t convert into sales.
• Match Search Intent: Consider the intent behind a keyword. Is the user looking to buy, learn, or just browse? To attract potential customers, prioritize keywords that indicate a buying intent, such as “best deals on organic skincare” or “shop minimalist furniture online.”
• Blend Keywords into Your Content Naturally: Keywords should enhance, not overwhelm. Use them in captions, hashtags, and even on-screen text, but make it sound authentic. Nobody likes keyword stuffing – especially TikTok’s algorithm.
• Leverage Long-Tail Keywords: These are longer, more specific phrases (like “organic vegan skincare for dry skin”). They might have lower search volumes but often attract more qualified and ready-to-buy traffic.
• Data-Driven Decisions: Use the metrics provided by tools like TikTok’s Keyword Insights to choose keywords with high engagement rates. For instance, a keyword with a high CTR indicates that content using this term resonates well with the audience.

Keyword research might feel like a small step, but it’s the foundation for getting your content seen by the right people. By knowing what your audience is searching for and aligning it with your ecommerce goals, you’ll set your TikTok SEO strategy on the right path.

2. Crafting SEO-Friendly Captions and Hashtags

Now that you’ve nailed your keyword research, it’s time to put those magic words to work! Your captions and hashtags are your best tools for making TikTok’s algorithm fall in love with your content. Let’s dive into how to craft them like a pro.

Best Practices for Integrating Keywords into Captions

Think of your captions as your elevator pitch – they’re short, sweet, and packed with purpose. Here’s how to make them work for TikTok SEO:

• Front-Load Important Keywords: Place your primary keywords at the beginning of your caption. This ensures they’re immediately visible and grab attention.
• Be Concise: TikTok allows up to 2,200 characters in captions, but that doesn’t mean you should use them all. Aim for clarity and brevity to maintain engagement.
• Keep it Conversational: TikTok thrives on authentic, relatable content. Instead of cramming keywords, make them flow naturally. Your captions should sound like you’re talking to a friend, not writing an ad.
• Include a Call-to-Action: Encourage engagement by adding CTAs like “Drop your favorite color in the comments!” or “Tag a friend who needs this.” The more people interact, the more the algorithm boosts your content.

Using Niche and Trending Hashtags Strategically

Hashtags are like breadcrumbs that lead users straight to your content. But it’s not just about throwing in #FYP and calling it a day. Here’s the winning formula:

• Mix Niche and Popular Hashtags: Niche hashtags (like #SustainableSkincare or #PlantParentLife) connect you with a specific audience who’s already interested in what you offer. Trending hashtags (like #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt or #LifeHacks) help you ride the wave of what’s currently popular and reach a broader audience. Mix both to broaden your reach while targeting the right audience.
• Don’t Overdo It: TikTok isn’t Instagram. You don’t need 30 hashtags. Aim for 3-5 that are highly relevant and impactful. Quality beats quantity every time.
• Get Creative: Hashtags can be playful and fun. Create branded hashtags like #ShopWith[YourBrand] or #MadeBy[YourBrand]. Not only do they boost discoverability, but they also encourage your audience to join the conversation.
• Research Hashtag Trends: Check out TikTok’s Discover page to find trending hashtags in your niche. Aligning with popular trends can give your videos an extra boost.

By crafting captions that are keyword-rich yet conversational and using hashtags with strategy and purpose, you’ll improve your content’s visibility while creating an engaging experience for your audience. It’s all about helping people find your content and love what they see.

3. Optimizing Video Content

Alright, you’ve got your keywords, captions, and hashtags on point – now it’s time to focus on the heart of TikTok: your videos. TikTok’s algorithm loves content that’s visually appealing, engaging, and easy to understand. Here’s how to make sure your videos hit all the right notes.

The Importance of High-Quality, Engaging Visuals

Let’s be real: TikTok is a visual playground. If your video looks blurry, poorly lit, or just plain boring, people will scroll past faster than you can say “For You Page.” Here’s how to keep their attention:

• Natural light works wonders. Shoot during the day or use affordable ring lights to give your videos a professional touch.
• Shoot in HD whenever possible. TikTok loves sharp, high-quality videos.
• Keep your camera steady to avoid shaky footage. A tripod or stabilizer can help.
• The first 2–3 seconds are everything. Start with a hook that makes people stop scrolling – whether it’s a bold statement, a cool transition, or a product reveal.

Creating Content That Aligns with Popular Formats and Trends

TikTok thrives on trends. Jumping on popular formats can increase your content’s reach. Notably, 61% of users discover new brands on TikTok, and 25% make purchases after seeing content on the platform.

So your content needs to stay fresh and relevant. Here’s how to do it:

• Follow the Trends: Keep an eye on trending challenges, sounds, and effects. Even if the trend isn’t directly related to your product, you can get creative and tie it back to your brand. For example, if a popular dance is trending, why not showcase your product mid-dance?
• Stick to TikTok’s Format: Quick, snappy videos generally work best. Aim for 15-30 seconds of fast-paced, entertaining content. However, if your content is engaging, longer videos can still perform well – videos over 54 seconds have been shown to maintain an average engagement rate of approximately 6.7%.
• Add Personality: TikTok users love authentic, relatable content. Show behind-the-scenes moments, share stories, or just have fun with your audience.

Adding Text Overlays with Keywords for Better Searchability

Did you know TikTok can pick up on the text in your videos? Adding text overlays not only grabs attention but also boosts your discoverability. Here’s how to make it work:

• Highlight Your Keywords: Use text overlays to reinforce the main keywords you’re targeting. For example, if you’re promoting skincare, include phrases like “Glow-Boosting Serum” or “Hydration for Dry Skin.”
• Keep It Readable: Use bold, simple fonts and place text where it’s easy to read (avoid the corners or overlapping visuals). Your text should be legible, even on smaller screens.
• Keep It Concise: Short and sweet messages are more likely to be read.
• Time It Right: Sync your text overlays with your message. For instance, if you’re showing off a product, have the text appear as you highlight its best features.
• Call to Action in Text: Add CTAs like “Shop Now” or “Follow for More Tips” to encourage engagement.

Now grab your camera and start creating – your next viral video is just one post away!

4. Leveraging TikTok Sounds and Audio

TikTok is as much about what you hear as what you see. The right audio can skyrocket your content’s discoverability and make your video irresistible to both viewers and TikTok’s algorithm.

Trending sounds are like golden tickets on TikTok. The algorithm loves them, users recognize them, and they can help your content ride the wave to more views. Here’s how to make the most of trending audio:

• Find What’s Hot and Align the Sound with Your Content: Pick a trending sound that fits your video’s vibe. Selling cozy blankets? Use a relaxing, chill sound. Promoting a fun product? Go for upbeat, energetic audio. Even if the sound doesn’t seem directly related, a little creativity can make it work for your brand.
• Use Sounds Strategically: Sync the sound with key moments in your video. For example, if you’re doing a product reveal, time it with the sound’s drop or climax. Keep it short and sweet – TikTok’s audience loves quick, snappy videos.

When you use trending sounds, your video gets a better chance of being pushed to the For You Page. Here’s why:

• Trending Sounds Attract Engagement: Popular sounds are already familiar to TikTok users, so they’re more likely to stop and watch your video. In fact, incorporating popular audio clips can boost your video views by up to 30%. That engagement tells the algorithm your content is worth sharing.
• Community Connection: Using trending audio connects your video to a broader community. When people search for or watch videos with the same sound, your content gets grouped into that trend, increasing its discoverability.
• Keeps You Relevant: TikTok is all about staying current. Using a trending sound shows the algorithm you’re in tune with what’s happening now, giving your video an extra push.

So, turn up the volume, get creative, and let the sounds do some of the heavy lifting!

5. Encouraging Engagement

Here’s the deal: TikTok loves engagement. The more people interact with your videos – liking, commenting, and sharing – the more TikTok’s algorithm thinks, “Hey, this video is a hit!” That means better rankings, more visibility, and, ultimately, more opportunities for your content to shine. Let’s break it down and talk about how to create videos that people can’t help but interact with.

How Comments, Shares, and Likes Improve SEO Rankings

TikTok’s algorithm is basically an engagement addict. Here’s why every like, comment, and share matters:

• Likes Signal Quality: When people like your video, it’s a green flag for TikTok. The algorithm assumes your content is worth showing to more people, so it pushes it out to a wider audience.
• Comments Boost Reach: Comments are gold because they show that your content is sparking conversation. More comments = more engagement = better rankings.
• Shares Mean Virality: When someone shares your video, it’s like they’re saying, “This is too good not to share!” TikTok notices and rewards your video with even more exposure.

Creating Content That Drives Interaction

So, how do you create videos that people can’t just passively watch? Here’s your playbook:

• Ask Questions in Your Videos: End your video with a simple, engaging question like:
  • “Which color would you pick?”
  • “Tag someone who needs this!”
  • “What’s your go-to skincare hack?”
    This invites viewers to comment and share their thoughts.
• Use Call-to-Actions: A strong CTA can make all the difference. Include phrases like:
  • “Double-tap if you agree!”
  • “Comment your favorite below!”
  • “Share this with your BFF!”
    CTAs are simple, but they guide viewers to take action.
• Hop on Trends: Trending challenges or formats naturally encourage people to engage. For example, if you’re doing a popular challenge, people are more likely to comment on how well you nailed it or tag friends to try it too.
• Be Relatable: Content that hits close to home gets more engagement. Show behind-the-scenes moments, funny fails, or relatable stories that make people think, “That’s so me!”
• Leverage TikTok’s Interactive Features: Use features like Q/A stickers, polls, duets, and stitches to encourage participation. 
• Respond to Comments: Engaging with your audience keeps the conversation going and encourages others to chime in. Plus, every reply adds another comment, boosting your video even further.
• Leverage User-Generated Content (UGC): Create branded hashtag challenges and feature user submissions to highlight your audience’s contributions. This fosters loyalty while driving interactions.
• Cross-Promote Content: Share TikTok videos across Instagram, Facebook, and blogs. Embed TikToks into your website to increase exposure and engagement.

Remember, the more interactive your content, the more the algorithm will favor it, leading to greater visibility and success on the platform.

Advanced TikTok SEO Strategies

So, you’ve nailed the basics of TikTok SEO – now it’s time to level up. These advanced strategies will help you amplify your reach, get smarter with your content, and turn TikTok into a major growth engine for your brand.

1. Collaborating with Influencers

Think of influencers as your TikTok amplifiers. They’ve already built an audience that trusts them, making them perfect partners for spreading the word about your brand. A great influencer collaboration can put your content in front of thousands (or even millions) of potential customers who are genuinely interested in what you offer. 

But how do you find the right influencers?

• Search by Keywords and Hashtags: Look for creators posting about topics in your niche. For example, if you sell eco-friendly products, search hashtags like #SustainableLiving or #EcoFriendlyFinds.
• Focus on Engagement: Don’t just chase follower counts. Look for influencers whose videos get tons of likes, comments, and shares – they have an audience that’s paying attention.
• Consider Micro-Influencers: These are creators with 5K–50K followers who often have more engaged communities than mega-influencers. They’re affordable and can bring authentic exposure to your brand.

When working with influencers, ensure their content includes your target keywords. For instance:

• In captions: “Loving this eco-friendly skincare routine!”
• In hashtags: #VeganBeauty or #PlasticFreeProducts.
• On-screen text: Highlight product features or benefits using your keywords.

This not only boosts discoverability but also aligns their audience with your TikTok SEO goals.

2. Leveraging TikTok Ads for SEO Insights

Once you’ve tapped into influencer collaborations to boost visibility and engagement, it’s time to take a more data-driven approach with TikTok ads. Running ads isn’t just about generating clicks or sales – it’s an opportunity to gather invaluable insights about your audience and content performance. By analyzing the data from your paid campaigns, you can refine your organic TikTok SEO strategy to deliver even better results.

How to Use Paid Campaigns for SEO Insights

TikTok ads allow you to test ideas, understand audience preferences, and identify what drives engagement. Here’s how to make the most of them:

• Test Keywords: Try different keywords in your ad captions, hashtags, and on-screen text. The ones that get the most engagement are gold for your organic content.
• Understand Audience Behavior: Ads let you see who’s engaging with your content – age, location, and interests. Use this data to tweak your organic videos for your target audience.
• Analyze Content Performance: Experiment with various formats (tutorials, testimonials, product demos) to see which type resonates most with viewers.

Transitioning Ad Success to Organic Strategy

The insights from your paid campaigns can provide a strong foundation for your organic TikTok strategy. Here’s how to bridge the gap:

• Double Down on What Works: If a specific keyword or format crushed it in your ads, incorporate it into your organic videos.
• Reuse Winning Content: Repurpose high-performing ad creatives into organic posts. A good video is worth sharing again!
• Target Your Organic Content: Use audience insights from ads to craft videos that speak directly to your ideal customer.

Together, these approaches create a cohesive and powerful TikTok presence. Ready to take it further? Let’s dive into the importance of analytics.

3. Monitoring Analytics

After leveraging TikTok ads to refine your content strategy, the next step is keeping a close eye on your performance with TikTok Analytics. Think of it as your personal cheat sheet for optimizing SEO efforts. Analytics provide the insights you need to understand what’s working, identify trends, and make data-driven adjustments to maximize your content’s impact.

Here’s how to use TikTok analytics for SEO performance:

• Track Video Views: High views mean your content is hitting the mark. Pay attention to which keywords, hashtags, and formats are driving this success.
• Monitor Traffic Sources: See how people are finding your videos – search, hashtags, or the For You Page. If search traffic is climbing, your TikTok SEO is on point!
• Engagement Metrics: Comments, likes, shares, and saves signal how well your content resonates with your audience. High engagement? Keep it coming.

Once you understand what’s working, you can build on it for future content. Here’s how:

• Find What Clicks: Identify your top-performing videos and look for patterns – trending sounds, catchy captions, or specific keywords.
• Test New Ideas: Experiment with fresh keywords or formats based on what’s working, then use analytics to see how they perform.
• Ride the Wave: If a trend helped your video blow up, keep riding it until it’s no longer relevant.

With the right approach, you’ll create content that’s not only engaging but also perfectly optimized to reach the right audience. Ready to crush it? 

Emerging Trends in TikTok SEO

TikTok is evolving fast, and staying ahead of the game means understanding where it’s headed. From AI-driven search to exciting new features, the future of TikTok SEO offers endless opportunities for ecommerce brands to grow and connect with their audience. Let’s explore what’s next and how you can make the most of it.

1. AI-Driven Search

TikTok’s search capabilities are getting smarter by the day. With AI-driven algorithms, TikTok is getting better at understanding not just keywords but also the context of your videos. What does this mean for your brand?

AI can match your content with highly specific user searches. For instance, a video showcasing “affordable workout gear” could pop up even if the user’s query is something like “cheap fitness clothes for beginners.”

Videos with clear themes, engaging captions, and relevant text overlays will perform even better as TikTok refines its search capabilities.

2. Voice Search

TikTok is leaning into voice-activated tech, and voice search is set to play a bigger role in how people discover content. Think about it – users could simply say “best skincare for dry skin” and instantly find videos like yours.

Adding spoken keywords to your videos could help your content rank higher. Including popular product phrases or benefits in your dialogue is a future-proof strategy.

3. Hyper-Personalized Content

TikTok’s algorithm is already great at serving personalized content, but it’s only getting better. The platform could start factoring in even more details – like shopping preferences and past interactions – making it essential for your content to target niche audiences with laser focus. Brands that use audience insights (via TikTok Analytics) to create hyper-relevant content will win big.

How TikTok’s Evolving Features Can Benefit Ecommerce Brands

TikTok’s evolving features, like shoppable videos, livestream shopping, and interactive tools, are transforming how brands engage and sell. Here’s how these innovations can boost your ecommerce success:

• Shoppable Videos

TikTok is doubling down on ecommerce integrations. Features like in-app shopping and live shopping events allow users to go from watching to buying in just a few clicks. Why this matters? In January 2023, 89% of beauty and personal care sales on TikTok came from live sales, highlighting the importance of real-time, interactive shopping experiences. As this feature evolves, expect smoother checkout experiences and more opportunities for ecommerce brands to show their products. SEO-friendly videos showcasing your products in action can directly drive sales. Optimize shoppable content with clear product descriptions, trending sounds, and hashtags to increase discoverability.

• Interactive Features

TikTok is rolling out more interactive tools like polls, quizzes, and AR filters, which are perfect for boosting engagement. Imagine a quiz like “Which skincare routine matches your vibe?” that links directly to your products. Use keywords in your interactive captions and overlays to keep the content searchable.

• Expanding Search Behaviors

TikTok is becoming the go-to search engine for Gen Z, overtaking platforms like Google for product recommendations. This means your content needs to cater to how people search on TikTok – short, specific queries.

• Video SEO Meets Visual Commerce

As TikTok evolves, video SEO and visual commerce are becoming inseparable. High-quality visuals that highlight your product features, paired with keyword-rich captions, can help your content rank higher and convert better.

The future of TikTok SEO is all about adaptability. From AI-driven search to shoppable videos, the platform is making it easier than ever for ecommerce brands to connect with their ideal audience.

Final Thoughts

Let’s wrap this up! TikTok SEO might sound like a fancy term, but it’s really just about making your content easy to find and impossible to ignore. With the right strategies, you can turn TikTok into a powerhouse for growing your ecommerce brand. Here’s a quick recap of what we’ve covered:

• Use the right keywords in captions, hashtags, and even text overlays to help TikTok’s algorithm connect your videos with the right audience.
• Mix niche and trending hashtags to boost your content’s discoverability without overloading your captions.
• High-quality, relatable videos with trending sounds and clear messages keep your audience hooked.
• Use TikTok Analytics and paid campaigns to gather valuable data, refine your strategy, and replicate what works.
• People love real, relatable content. Keep it genuine and fun – your audience will thank you!

The beauty of TikTok is that there’s always room to try new things. Test different formats, sounds, and trends to see what resonates with your audience. Not every video will be a hit, but every upload teaches you something valuable. The more you experiment and tweak your strategy, the better your results will be.

It’s time to put everything into action. Start optimizing your TikTok content today – refine your captions, choose your hashtags wisely, and create videos that truly connect with your audience. Stay consistent, stay creative, and watch your brand grow!

The post TikTok SEO for Ecommerce Brands: Unlocking Organic Growth appeared first on Retently CX.

Table of Contents

• Key Takeaways
• What Is NPS?
• What Is RFM?
• The Link Between NPS and RFM
• Ready to Measure Your NPS?

In a highly competitive environment, assessing the success of a DTC brand just by checking the revenue and customer lifetime value is not enough. Predicting customer behavior and future growth is essential, and multiple methodologies are available to achieve this.

RFM and NPS are widely used in ecommerce for these purposes. RFM stands for Recency, Frequency, and Monetary value and is an efficient analysis model that allows brands to gauge and identify high-value customers for further targeting. Analysis of purchase frequency and timing provides a clear picture of buyers’ future actions, allowing the calculation of future revenue.

Yet, while observation is arguably the most straightforward approach to forecasting customer behavior, it still requires significant effort. For a quicker result, NPS will do the job as it assesses customer attitude and loyalty to the brand. As a result, the higher the score, the higher the likelihood of future purchases.

While different in their approach, NPS and RFM are important metrics that help ecommerce businesses better understand their customers and drive growth. In this article, we’ll explore the workings of these models, find out whether there’s any link between them, and how brands can leverage them to gain insights into customer behavior and experience.

Key Takeaways

• RFM analysis helps segment customers based on their behavior, while NPS reveals their loyalty and likelihood to recommend. Together, they give a holistic view of customer value and satisfaction.
• Combining RFM segments with NPS feedback enables highly personalized retention, upselling, and cross-selling strategies tailored to customer needs and preferences.
• By identifying at-risk customers through low RFM scores and negative NPS feedback, businesses can take timely actions to prevent churn and improve customer retention.
• NPS feedback provides qualitative insights that, when paired with RFM data, allow businesses to improve customer experience for specific high-value segments.
• Integrating RFM and NPS into ecommerce growth strategies helps prioritize efforts on high-value customers and maximize ROI, leading to sustainable growth.

What Is NPS?

NPS, or Net Promoter Score, is a popular metric that serves as a measure of customer satisfaction, loyalty, and advocacy. A simple question, “On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend our company to a friend or colleague” is used to assess the success of a business and the loyalty of its customers. 

Respondents are grouped into three categories based on their answers. Customers who rate 9 or 10 are the Promoters, as they genuinely love your product. Passives choose between 7 and 8, and while they may keep buying, they will quickly turn to a competitor. Anyone giving a score of 6 or lower is considered a Detractor – a dissatisfied customer who will likely purchase again only if you take appropriate steps. 

Your NPS score is the difference in percentage between Promoters and Detractors. For example, if 55% of our customers are Promoters, and 15% are Detractors, your NPS is 55%-15%=40%. It’s worth mentioning that companies with high NPS show higher growth rates, which is natural since satisfied customers are willing to recommend the business to others. That translates into increased sales, positive word-of-mouth, and a strong brand reputation. 

The rating is followed up by open-ended questions that provide more details on the reasons for customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction. The captured feedback helps concentrate efforts on the most relevant business areas, identify any difficulties customers may face, and single out customers who will gladly promote the brand or never purchase again.  

Another important consideration is that NPS facilitates customer segmentation, which, in turn, simplifies marketing efforts by providing clarity on the specific follow-up required for each group. Promoters are the right customers for cross-selling, upselling, and referral programs. Passives need further encouragement and will be happy with discounts and additional offers to keep them engaged. Winning Detractors will require more work, but solving their concerns will allow reaping benefits later.

The NPS concept is based on customer self-assessment, which leaves out biases and assumptions while giving relevant and actionable feedback for ecommerce businesses willing to improve customer experience and reduce churn.

What Is RFM?

RFM (Recency-Frequency-Monetary) is a customer segmentation model used to identify and target high-value customers. The RFM concept differs from NPS as it relies on the data gathered by marketers and salespeople, yet, it is another way to measure customer value.

Understanding the Key Factors

As the name implies, the RFM model relies on three key factors:

• Recency: When did the last purchase occur? Customers who have made a more recent purchase are more likely to return than those who have not purchased in a long time.
• Frequency: How often does a customer purchase? Customers who make frequent purchases are more likely to be loyal and purchase more.
• Monetary value: How much money did your brand earn from a customer? Those who spend more on their purchases will likely be more valuable.

The RFM model assigns a score to each customer by analyzing these factors. The scores segment buyers into groups, including high-value, loyal customers and those targeted for improvement.

How to calculate RFM?

When doing the RFM analysis, you will naturally want a list of customers who buy frequently and spend the most. Just like in the case of NPS, there is a way to calculate the RFM value of every customer. Usually, marketers use a 1-5 (the standard) or 1-10 scale and assign scores based on every parameter, with a year as a timeframe. A 1-10 scale allows for more granularity but can also increase the complexity of the RFM analysis.

Let’s start with Recency. Depending on the specifics of your business and buyer’s journey, you must decide on the time frames, and score ranges to best suit your needs. For example, if you sell clothes and people generally buy anything new every two months, you will give 10 to any customer who purchased during that period. Then keep decreasing the number, giving a 9 to those who bought anything during the last three months, etc. You can continue this pattern for each time frame until you reach a minimum score for customers who have not purchased in a long time.

The same goes for Frequency, which is based on the number of customer purchases over a certain period. In this respect, a customer who makes six purchases a year will receive a higher score than those who purchased once. 

As for the Monetary value, 10 goes to those who spend the most. It can be a straightforward calculation considering the total spend in a given period. It may also take into account other factors, such as the average order value or the customer’s lifetime value.

To combine the three scores for Recency, Frequency, and Monetary value into a single RFM score, you can use different methods depending on your brand’s specific needs and goals. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to this. 

To calculate the RFM score, brands can combine the assigned value to each of the three factors.

Now, if you have given a customer 8 on Recency, 5 on Frequency, and 5 on Monetary, the three-digit score is 855. 

Another method is averaging the three scores. Based on our example, this would result in: (8+5+5)/3=6. Naturally, customers with higher scores are considered more valuable. These are the most common approaches used.  

Depending on the nature of your business, Frequency may be insignificant, and you may want to decrease its influence on the final score. In this case, you may use a different scoring scale to measure it, but you must adjust the formula accordingly. 

Hence, another standard method is to assign weights to each of the three scores based on their importance and add them up.

For instance, if Recency is deemed more critical than Frequency and Monetary value, you could assign a weight of 60% to Recency, 30% to Frequency, and 10% to Monetary value. Then, you would multiply each score by its corresponding weight, add up the results, and get a final weighted RFM score.

Analyzing the same example, we would get:

RFM score = (8 x 0.6) + (5 x 0.3) + (5 x 0.1)

RFM score = 6,8

Regardless of the favored method, make sure to apply it consistently across your customer base.

Benefits of the RFM model

Analyzing RFM data has multiple benefits that extend beyond its ability to segment customers and improve marketing efforts. It provides valuable insights into customer behavior that can inform various business decisions.

Just like NPS, it allows projecting future revenue by identifying the expenditures of existing and new customers. This information can guide marketing strategies and improve customer retention efforts. 

RFM analysis can provide ecommerce businesses with insights into the most popular products among their customers. By expanding their product offering in that category, they can improve satisfaction levels and prompt positive word-of-mouth. By identifying the most frequent customers and their purchase patterns, brands can also better anticipate demand and adjust their stock accordingly. This way, they can minimize the risk of product shortage.

In addition, RFM can spot opportunities for cross-selling and upselling. Based on the purchasing behavior, companies can single out products frequently purchased together and use this information to offer targeted recommendations to active customers.

It also allows brands to pinpoint the most valuable customers: those making the most frequent and high-value purchases. Ecommerce businesses can use this information to allocate resources more effectively and make strategic decisions that increase customer lifetime value and revenue. Proper data analysis also helps identify patterns in customer behavior to fine-tune existing offers and predict your clients’ needs.  

The Link Between NPS and RFM

Are the two approaches really that different, or do they actually share a common thread in the data they provide? 

When it comes to the RFM model, it is natural to think that Frequency is the most important characteristic here: you can predict customer behavior just by looking at this data. However, it turns out that Recency is a more reliable metric as it best predicts the likelihood of future purchases. The reasoning is simple: if the transaction was recent, customers have that specific brand in mind and will likely return for new purchases. Clients who haven’t purchased anything for months are less likely to buy again unless targeted by costly marketing campaigns. 

As for Frequency, depending on what you sell, it may be a minor characteristic: people buy groceries daily and purchase laptops once in a couple of years. The same is true for the Monetary part: if a client buys an expensive item and never returns, their monetary value may be higher than that of a regular customer who buys frequently but spends less in the same timeframe. That’s why Recency is the most critical parameter, though all three should be taken into account to get a reliable data set.

Recency is important in NPS as well. Usually, the survey is sent immediately or shortly after the transaction to get the most relevant and actionable feedback. It’s when customers are “fresh” and more willing to share comments and suggestions. Consequently, the more you wait to send the survey, the less accurate information you will receive. In addition, you may not get any feedback at all, instead confusing customers with your survey if the interaction happened ages ago. 

Anyway, it doesn’t mean you’ll get high NPS scores if you send the survey immediately since many factors influence it, including the quality of your product, delivery, packaging, website experience, and even the customer’s current mood. Still, many companies notice that the NPS decreases when they survey customers who last interacted with them long ago and return to normal after a new transaction.

Of course, given the broad use of NPS, there is an exception to it to consider, which is relevant for subscription-based companies who measure their customer satisfaction on a regular base, let’s say every 6 months. That might also be the case for big-ticket-item ecommerce brands that can inquire about their experience with the product 3 months after the purchase.

Basically, Recency is the parameter that should be considered when using both NPS and RFM models to predict customer behavior, improve their experience, and increase future revenues. 

Advantages of a combined NPS-RFM approach in ecommerce

While RFM and NPS are generally used separately, they can provide complementary insights, offering brands a more comprehensive view of their customers. RFM looks into customer behavior based on past purchases, while NPS measures customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Yet, even if Recency in the RFM model is the best predictor of future behavior, it still can’t be taken for granted. To better understand customers, compare the list of people with the highest scores for both RFM and NPS: if the names match, those clients will surely return.

Cross-referencing the results is another way to use both models to your benefit. After you spot the recent customers, checking their NPS survey results and analyzing the feedback is more than recommended. This way, you can predict their behavior and solve any issues they may encounter in good time to ensure they return for future purchases. 

The same procedure is relevant for NPS: identify your Promoters and check their Recency score. If they didn’t get a 10 (in case you use a 10-point scale for the RFM analysis), it is time to remind them about your existence and encourage them to visit your website.  RFM analysis can help reveal which products they may be interested in for future purchases.

Here are a few more examples of why your brand needs to use RFM and NPS analysis together:

1. Efficiently segment customers

RFM segments buyers based on purchase behavior and engagement level, while NPS seeks to understand each group’s customer satisfaction. For example, customers with high RFM and NPS scores can be classified as loyal advocates. These clients are frequent spenders and vocal advocates for the brand, making them valuable assets for word-of-mouth marketing. Identifying high-value customers can bring many benefits, including effective resource allocation and increased revenue. 

2. Build targeted marketing and leverage personalization

By segmenting customers based on their RFM score and NPS rating, ecommerce companies can develop targeted marketing campaigns, personalized product recommendations, and effective customer service strategies. Analyze the data to determine which groups are most likely to respond to specific offers, tailor marketing efforts to each customer segment and address any pain points to improve conversion rates. For example, a brand can use RFM analysis to find customers most likely to purchase a new product and then use NPS data to craft a marketing campaign that speaks directly to their needs.

3. Enable campaign analysis

While RFM can pin the most valuable customers, NPS can assess the impact of a marketing campaign on these customers. In this context, a high NPS score indicates that the campaign resonates with the target audience. The same is valid for loyalty programs. 

4. Improve customer experience

By blending RFM scores and NPS feedback, brands can learn why customers are satisfied or dissatisfied with their experience. For example, if you spot Detractors in high-value customer segments, take steps to address their concerns, improve overall satisfaction, and drive positive word-of-mouth. This way,  ecommerce businesses can develop products that better meet their needs, while positive word-of-mouth will fuel long-term growth.

5. Increase customer loyalty

While RFM scores can provide insight into the Frequency and Monetary value of customer purchases, they do not directly measure customer satisfaction or loyalty. Yet, NPS singles out the drivers of customer loyalty. By combining these two metrics, brands can determine RFM segments with the highest NPS scores and focus on strategies to improve loyalty within those segments (e.g., reward customers for their loyalty with exclusive offers). By taking steps to retain these high-value customers, you can build long-term relationships and increase the likelihood of repeat purchases.

6. Reduce churn

Via RFM and NPS analysis, brands can determine at-risk customers and engage them with retention campaigns. For example, customers with low RFM and NPS scores are, without a doubt, heading to the front door and requiring special attention. These customers have not made recent purchases, spent little money in the past, and are unlikely to recommend the company to others. Brands can proactively take immediate measures to retain them before it’s too late by addressing their pain points and using targeted offers.

Managing the joint challenges of RFM and NPS

Besides the clear connection between NPS and RFM, there are potential data conflicts to it. Obviously, the two metrics may not always align. A customer who makes frequent purchases may have a high RFM score yet still not be satisfied with specific aspects (like customer support or the ordering process), experiencing a low NPS score. At the same time, a very satisfied customer may still rarely purchase,  having a lower RFM score.

Therefore, relying too much on either has its drawbacks. As a brand, you may focus solely on a high RFM score and disconsider NPS, losing customers in the long run. Also, reaching a high NPS score, you may be prone to neglect high-value clients, failing to seize opportunities to boost revenue.

Yet, we’ve got you covered with some tips to follow for the best possible outcome:

• Prioritize CX – RFM analysis can indeed identify valuable buyers but don’t ignore the role of customer satisfaction. Only by adopting a customer-centric approach and using NPS feedback to improve their experience can ecommerce businesses nurture long-term success.
• Look for patterns –  As such, patterns offer invaluable insights into customer behavior and preferences, hence when analyzing RFM and NPS data, seek them out. For example, if Detractors are more likely to be low-value customers, this could hint at product value issues or price sensitivity. Make sure you’re not looking at isolated data points but taking a holistic view of how customers interact with your brand. 
• Inform decisions –  Remove the guesswork and use data to back up decisions. Create a more comprehensive customer profile by cross-referencing RFM and NPS data with other sources such as demographic data, customer service interactions, and social media comments. Ensure that customer data is collected consistently across all touchpoints.
• Treat it as an ongoing process – Customer behavior and preferences are not static, so it’s essential for brands to regularly review data and adjust the RFM and NPS strategies to match their goals. Keep track of key performance indicators and use them to inform decision-making.
• Leverage automation – RFM and NPS data analysis can be challenging and time-consuming, especially if done manually. And while for smaller shops, a manual approach might still work, things will get complicated as they scale their business and larger data sets pour in. Specialized tools can streamline the process and reduce data errors, empowering brands to respond more effectively to ever-changing customer needs.

Ready to Measure Your NPS?

Running a successful ecommerce business isn’t as easy as it sounds, right? Between attracting new customers, keeping the ones you have, and staying ahead of competitors, the challenges can feel endless. One big hurdle? Understanding your customers well enough to keep them coming back for more.

Here’s the thing: growth means more than getting more traffic to your site or running flashy marketing campaigns. Real, sustainable growth comes from knowing your customers inside out – what they want, how they shop, and why they stick around (or leave). And that’s where the role of customer insights kicks in.

Although both RFM and NPS center on customer behavior, they approach it differently. RFM focuses on the transactional history, analyzing how recently and frequently a customer has made purchases and how much money they spent. NPS dwells on customer attitude towards the brand, measuring the likelihood of recommending it to others.

Yet, when used jointly, RFM and NPS give ecommerce businesses a more nuanced understanding of their customers. A good grasp of purchase behavior and satisfaction with the brand facilitates informed decision-making, tailored experiences, and improved customer relationships.

Here at Retently, we specialize in NPS surveys: the templates are tailored to match brands’ needs, the computations are done automatically, and the advanced reports help interpret data and detect feedback patterns. In addition, we offer native integrations with your store, email & SMS marketing, customer support, call center, and CDP platforms. Try it out for 14 days to get a new perspective on customer needs and identify new growth opportunities.

The post The Link Between RFM & NPS in Ecommerce Growth appeared first on Retently CX.

Table of Contents

• Key Takeaways
• What Is Product-Market Fit?
• Why Is Product-Market Fit so Important?
• How to Achieve Product-Market Fit
• How to Measure Product-Market Fit
• Is Finding Product-Market Fit Enough for Success?
• Find Out if You’ve Achieved Product-Market Fit

Achieving the much-desirable product-market fit is the ultimate goal of any SaaS business. After all, it means that a company has identified its business niche, has found a profitable market, and has a product that is well-liked by customers – the true Promoters. They don’t have to worry about going bust because what they sell is what the market needs.

Product-market fit (PMF) doesn’t happen overnight. It requires thorough research, analysis, planning, and time. And, as it was duly noted, if you have to ask yourself whether you achieved it, it’s most likely that you haven’t.

Before attempting to measure it, let’s first try to define what product-market fit is.

Key Takeaways

• Achieving product-market fit means your product resonates deeply with your target audience, leading to higher retention, customer satisfaction, and a foundation for scalable growth.
• The classic PMF survey question – “How would you feel if you could no longer use this product?” – is a powerful tool to measure customer dependency and uncover areas for improvement.
• If at least 40% of respondents say they would be “very disappointed” without your product, it’s a strong indicator that you’ve achieved product-market fit.
• PMF surveys go beyond the numbers – qualitative insights from open-ended questions help identify what users love, what’s missing, and what to fix to better meet their needs.
• Conduct PMF surveys at the right stage of your product lifecycle and ensure thoughtful survey design, targeting the right user segments to maximize the quality of insights.

What Is Product-Market Fit?

The term product-market fit is relatively recent, being coined by Marc Andreessen in 2007 in his guide for startups, “The only thing that matters”. The best definition was given by Marc Andreessen himself: 

Product-market fit means being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market. 

In other words, to be successful, a business has to find a suitable market, define its needs and fulfill them with its products or services. 

The market is the crucial factor here, though many would argue that a business starts with an idea, not with identifying a target audience. Actually, 35% of startups list “no market” as one of the top reasons for failure.  Even if you have a great product, it doesn’t matter if no one needs it. 

However, there may be a need in the market that the target audience is not yet aware of. But that’s until you demonstrate how your solution can benefit them. This way, you not only create a demand for your offering, but you are also directly addressing a previously unacknowledged need within your market niche.

Andreessen argues that it is easy to define whether a business achieved product-market fit. When the product is sold in large quantities, word-of-mouth works better than paid advertising, and when you can finally concentrate on growth instead of development, you know you’ve nailed it.

PMF behind the scenes

Let’s break it down with some examples:

• Slack: When Slack launched, it wasn’t just another communication tool. It nailed PMF by solving a real problem – making team communication faster, more organized, and dare we say, fun. Businesses flocked to it, and Slack grew into one of the most popular collaboration tools in the world.
• Airbnb: Airbnb’s early days were rough, but once they figured out how to connect travelers with affordable, unique stays while also helping hosts earn extra income, it was game over. They hit PMF, and the rest is history.
• Netflix: Remember when Netflix shifted from DVD rentals to streaming? They saw where the market was headed and built a product that perfectly matched customers’ desires for convenience and on-demand entertainment. The result? Industry leadership.

When you achieve PMF, your product doesn’t just fit into the market – it owns a space in your customers’ lives. That’s why PMF is so critical, especially for startups. It’s not just about having a great idea; it’s about creating something your audience truly values.

Why Is Product-Market Fit so Important?

Well, there are reasons beyond just steady high profits that come with achieving it.

The main advantage of adhering to the product-market fit strategy is that when building a product, the market for it is already there. Starting a business and knowing that an audience is ready to buy your product considerably eases sales and marketing efforts. Once achieved, it allows you to concentrate on growth and scale up operations. Without product-market fit, attempting to scale the business too early can lead to failure and wasted resources.

Product-market fit also allows companies to focus on the most promising market opportunities. When one has found the right market, it can devote its efforts to expanding in that market and developing new products that will appeal to the same audience. 

Another reason why product-market fit is essential is that it helps to create a loyal customer base. When a product meets the target market’s needs, customers are likelier to become advocates for the product. That can increase brand awareness, which is vital for the long-term success of any business.

Last but not least, product-market fit helps understand customers better. Even if your product gets enthusiastic reviews from customers and niche media, it doesn’t mean that you are there yet. This happened to the Daily app launched by Buffer. Everyone seemed to love it, but it took the team some time to realize that people simply didn’t use it after the initial stage. 

By analyzing the market consistently and gathering customer feedback, a company can stay informed about the needs of its target market and create a product that addresses those evolving needs in the long run. 

Moreover, systematic market analysis and research will help identify whether the product still solves the problem and whether the market still needs it.  

In short, PMF allows prioritizing tasks and concentrating efforts on the most critical aspects of your business at a specific stage of product development. 

How to Achieve Product-Market Fit

While finding product-market fit isn’t easy, there are some actionable steps businesses should take at the early stages. Dan Olsen, the author of The Lean Product Playbook, developed these as a guide to achieving product-market fit. These steps focus on the audience and the product itself.

1. Define the target audience

The first step any business should take is defining its target audience. Start with creating the so-called persona, a perfect customer. Analyze their background, who they are, what they do, and what their typical work day looks like. Understand their interests and everyday struggles, and when you do, you can see whether your product is relevant. 

2. Identify your audience’s needs

The next thing to do is identify the needs of your target audience, but not any needs. You have to find the pain points that existing options can’t adequately solve. Even if you created a great product, look at it from a customer’s perspective and try to understand whether it will deliver added value.

Analyzing competitors is crucial as it is most likely that your potential customers are now using their products/services to solve their issues. 

3. Test your value proposition

Your value proposition is the benefits of your product and how it will solve your audience’s existing pain points. Make a list of features your product has and compare it to your competitors to determine whether you can outperform them. Identify unique ideas or improvements to differentiate yourself and offer a better solution.  

4. Create a minimum viable product

A minimum viable product is the initial version of your product. It should have enough features for your customers to try and provide feedback on – used for further development. It’s the best way to find out whether customers will benefit from your product, and the cheapest – as there will be no need to invest big money in the project. 

First, outline the minimum number of features that will satisfy your customers’ needs and create a prototype. It will most likely have bugs, but don’t let this stop you. Send this prototype to your target audience and ask for feedback. Collect and analyze the customer data, check whether they encountered similar issues, and use it to improve your end product.  

5. Product-market fit pyramid

To structure the steps for achieving PMF, Dan Olsen came up with a 5-layer pyramid. He put the audience and its needs into the lower two levels and the product itself – into the top three layers. 

The target customer is the foundation of the pyramid: this is the market you will sell your product to. It is followed by the needs your product should solve. Businesses can only analyze and research these two layers, as they do not have control over them.

The product comes next, featuring a value proposition that addresses customer needs and includes the necessary features; followed by the user experience where customers test/use your product. 

It should be noted that if you skip any layer or don’t pay proper attention to all of them, the pyramid will collapse, and the desired product-market fit won’t be achieved. 

Hence, before jumping into product development, it’s important to first identify and answer the key questions about the target market, customer needs, and potential demand for the product. By understanding these factors, you can make sure that you are building and launching a product that truly meets customer expectations and has a viable market.

How to Measure Product-Market Fit

There are many metrics you should consider as, in many cases, you will be measuring satisfaction and engagement levels. You should look into churn rates and changes in the CLV (Customer Lifetime Value), but sending surveys is the quickest and easiest way available to any business. So far, the Product Market Fit, or PMF survey designed by Sean Ellis, serves the purpose best. So, what is a product-market fit survey?

1. PMF survey example  

While customer satisfaction surveys give you an idea about the customer’s attitude towards your product, it doesn’t really help with identifying how necessary that product is. Sean Ellis, an entrepreneur and investor, came up with a simple question to assess this need – which makes up the core of the product/market fit survey template.

It features the question: “How would you feel if you could no longer use our product?”. Respondents must choose from several alternatives: Very disappointed – Somewhat disappointed – Not disappointed (it really isn’t that useful) – N/A as I don’t use it anymore.

The PMF score is calculated by dividing the % of Promoters – customers who responded with “very disappointed” – by the total number of responses. Hence, if you have 40 Promoter responses and a total of 60 responses, your PMF score will be 60% (PMF score= 40 “very disappointed” responses/60 total responses * 100).

Ellis argues that if at least 40% of respondents would be very disappointed, then a company achieved product-market fit. Another requisite is sending the survey to customers who have used your product for some time and fully understand its features. And, it turns out that there is no need for big numbers to get to a result: in many cases, 40-50 responses are enough to get an idea about the need for a product. 

2. Open-ended Product-Market Fit survey questions

As in the case of customer satisfaction surveys, by itself, this question alone isn’t enough. You can always follow up with open-ended questions allowing respondents to expand on the details behind their answers. In case they wouldn’t be disappointed, you could ask them whether it is because they found a better alternative (and which alternative) or they simply don’t need your product. 

Still, there are three essential follow-up questions that must be addressed to get more relevant and actionable feedback, to be further used in development and growth strategies.  

As one of the product-market fit conditions is finding the right target audience, why not ask your customers about it? They have used your product for some time and could give you additional insights and show you the right direction. Ask them what type of people would benefit most from using your service/product and create a persona based on the responses. Describe their job, everyday life, and duties, their potential problems and expectations – this will be your perfect customer – and build your product for them. Though it may seem that this approach narrows your audience too much, in practice, it is not. 

It is now time to understand the strengths of your product. Ask your customers about the main benefit they get: speed, easy navigation, reliability, or customization options. Concentrate half of your efforts and time on improving that specific feature.

As customers know their needs better, ask them how you can improve your product. You will most likely receive multiple suggestions, but, you should carefully analyze them to ensure they suit your target audience. Instead of jumping into the creative fever and adding as many features as possible, narrow down the suggestions and choose the most relevant ones. This is where you should concentrate the other half of your efforts. 

Rahul Vohra used this approach to help his company Superhuman reach product-market fit. He sent his clients a short survey that included the question from Sean Ellis and these three additional questions to gain new insights into the perfect customer and the features they value most. 

By segmenting and analyzing responses, he improved the already existing beneficial features and created a product roadmap that included some of the most relevant customer suggestions. He then split the suggestions further into different categories depending on the cost and impact and concentrated his efforts on high-impact/low-cost options. 

But the most important thing Rahul Vohra did was proper segmentation of customers. Instead of trying to understand why customers wouldn’t be disappointed if they could no longer use Superhuman, he analyzed the responses and suggestions of the other two groups and split them further based on the created persona. This exercise helped him get a better understanding of the product-market fit score and customer needs and concentrate his efforts on truly relevant features. Considering that their score went from 22% to 58% in three quarters, the approach works. 

Is Finding Product-Market Fit Enough for Success?

Though the idea behind product-market fit seems easy to understand, not everyone is convinced: some entrepreneurs find faults in the system. Rand Fishkin, the founder of Sparktoro, is concerned that people who blindly follow the concept commit errors on their way.

For instance, he argues that switching from developing a product to scaling the business isn’t the best move as the product should keep evolving to correspond to customers’ demands. In addition, startups refuse to consider other aspects of making the product appealing, like pricing.

Another problem is that companies don’t optimize their marketing efforts before and after product-market fit and fail to build a client base. In search of investments, they work hard to achieve product-market fit, forgetting about other aspects. 

Another concern is that there is no reliable way of finding whether product-market fit has been achieved, thus meaning that the consequent actions based on ‘feeling’ may harm a startup instead of helping it to prosper. 

Fishkin suggests simultaneously working on product development and its promotion. If a startup has a small loyal client base, it is a good idea to search for similar customers, adjusting the product to suit their current and future needs. His idea is to split the customer base by size, brand awareness, and conversion and analyze it further to make the right decisions about when to develop the product and when and to whom to promote it. 

Find Out if You’ve Achieved Product-Market Fit

Having the correct product available in the right market at the appropriate time is the essence of product-market fit. Though achieving it requires considering many factors, measuring it is simpler by analyzing customer behavior and running customer surveys. Only by understanding your users will you be able to optimize your product to turn it into a must-have, as well as adjust your marketing efforts for a better reach-out. 

Actively engage with customers from the initial stages of developing a product idea. By gaining a clear perception of their needs and wants, you can create a value proposition that leverages the company’s unique strengths to create a meaningful competitive advantage. 

PMF and NPS surveys are the most suitable engagement methods, as they clearly show customers’ attitudes toward your product or service. Retently offers the possibility to send these types of surveys by customizing templates, including the questions, and integrating with many online services like Salesforce, Zapier, Slack, Hubspot, etc. In addition, when signing up for an account with Retently, you will get a 7-day trial to make sure it meets your requirements before committing.  

The post A Guide to Measuring Product-Market Fit with PMF Surveys appeared first on Retently CX.

Satisfied customers translate into growth through word of mouth. They mean that your product or service delivers significant, measurable benefits. They prove that your business is capable of growing into an even larger, more profitable operation than it currently is.

Just like measuring and monitoring your personal health is an ongoing process, keeping track of the health of your business isn’t something you can do once and then forget about. Instead, it’s also a long-term commitment and an ongoing process that, when done correctly, yields lasting rewards.

How aware are you of your business health? Do you have up-to-date insights into your customers’ perception of your product or service? Or are you relying on outdated statistics from months or even years ago?

Below, we’ve explained why measuring customer satisfaction is a long-term process, and how you can leverage Retently and Net Promoter Score® to get an accurate gauge not just of how customers feel about your product but how their thoughts, feelings and feedback change over time.

Let’s explore how shifting your mindset can transform your approach to customer feedback – and your business.

Key Takeaways

• NPS is a journey, not a destination. Treating NPS as an ongoing process rather than a one-time metric unlocks its true potential to drive customer loyalty and business growth.
• Regular NPS tracking ensures your business stays aligned with evolving customer expectations, giving you a competitive edge.
• Continuous NPS tracking helps you spot emerging patterns, enabling proactive adjustments before issues escalate.
• Small, consistent changes based on NPS feedback compound over time, driving meaningful and sustained progress.
• Automation tools enable you to efficiently collect, analyze, and act on NPS feedback, helping you scale your efforts as your business grows.

NPS Beyond the Metric

Let’s be honest – when you first hear about NPS, it’s tempting to focus only on the score. After all, who doesn’t want to brag about a high NPS? But here’s the thing: NPS is much more than a vanity metric. At its core, it’s a feedback loop – a dynamic conversation between you and your customers.

Think of NPS as a signal, not the final answer. When customers rate their likelihood of recommending your business, they’re giving you valuable clues about what’s working and what’s not. Their score is just the starting point. The real gold lies in their comments and the trends behind those numbers. Are Detractors frustrated with your support? Do Promoters rave about your product’s ease of use? Understanding this context is where NPS becomes powerful.

Let’s dig in.

As Your Customers Grow, Their Needs Change

In B2B, customers rarely remain constant. Companies grow over time, and if they use your product or service as a core part of their business, their needs are also likely to change with time.

That is particularly common for the technology industry, where growth can happen overnight, and a company that had 1,000 customers last week can have 5,000 the next.

Staying up-to-date is also important because products can quickly become obsolete. A product that looks and feels new at one point in time may lose its appeal within a few years, especially if it’s in a fast-growing market segment with rapidly developing needs.

Your customers will inevitably change. The speed of change depends primarily on your industry – in tech, it’s fast; in others, slow. Since your customers will grow and their needs will progress, it’s important that you stay aware of their thoughts and feedback over time.

By treating NPS as a one-time survey, you miss out on the opportunity to capture the evolving nature of customer sentiment – a wealth of data that enables you to make informed decisions about your products and the overall customer experience.

Embracing NPS as an ongoing process and measuring customer satisfaction on a consistent basis lets you stay up-to-date with exactly how your customers feel at any given moment. Instead of using data points from months ago to keep track of customer needs and sentiment, you can access current data exactly when you need it the most.

This data allows you to identify emerging needs and trends before they reach the point at which your business could be affected. Rather than reacting to a shifting industry too late, you’ll stay ahead of the curve and deliver what your customers need before it becomes mission-critical.

Moreover, a proactive approach to customer satisfaction, fueled by an ongoing NPS process, will help you foster long-term customer loyalty and leverage advocacy marketing.

As Your Company Grows, Your Product (and Service) Changes

Not only will your customers grow over time – if your business is a success and your customer base expands over time, your ability to deliver your product will also change. Your marketing and service approach will likely evolve with it as you adapt to the new scale of your business.

That could result in your business’s customer experience and satisfaction improving. It could also have the exact opposite effect and lead to more dissatisfied customers. Without recording your customers’ thoughts and feedback on a regular basis, it’s impossible to predict the outcome.

Every business needs to make compromises as it grows. When these compromises affect your ability to deliver the right product or service to your customers, it’s essential to be aware of their response.

Measuring customer satisfaction with NPS on an ongoing, long-term basis lets you identify areas where you’re falling short due to growth and scale. If these weaknesses frustrate or annoy customers, you can quickly act on their feedback and implement new processes to win them back.

Ignore customer feedback as your business grows and you could find yourself replacing one set of customers with another. Measure, track and respond to feedback, and you’ll develop your existing base of satisfied, loyal customers.

What’s more, a dynamic NPS process doesn’t just help you retain customers – it also opens the door to new revenue opportunities. Promoters, for example, are more than just satisfied customers; they’re advocates who are likely to purchase more and refer others to your business. Identifying these Promoters through NPS allows you to nurture them with targeted upselling and cross-selling campaigns.

On the flip side, addressing the concerns of Detractors can turn them into loyal customers who might have otherwise left. Imagine a customer who gives a low score due to confusion about your pricing. By reaching out, clarifying their concerns, and offering a tailored solution, you could transform their experience – and secure additional revenue in the process.

As Your Market Matures, New Competitors Increase the Stakes

The more competitive your marketing becomes, the more critical customer feedback is for staying one step ahead of your competitors.

It’s easy to be the best product in a small market with no competition. It’s far harder to be the best in your niche when you have 10, 20, or 30 competitors, all working hard to poach as many of your customers as possible.

In industries with a low barrier to entry, all it takes is a single better offering from a competitor to disrupt your business and start losing customers.

That is particularly troubling if you offer a product with low customer investment. If it’s easy for customers to switch from your product to an offering from a competitor, there’s a real chance that they will eventually do so.

The key to avoiding this situation is customer feedback. Feedback lets you stay one step ahead of your competitors by identifying and addressing needs before they can. It also lets you gain a deeper level of awareness of what your customers truly value in your product category.

An ongoing NPS process and continuous feedback keep you aware of how your customers respond to the products offered by your competitors, not just what they think of your product. This data is highly valuable in creating a product that not only acquires customers but retains them for the long term, hence increasing their customer lifetime value.

Even in a highly competitive market, a consistent NPS process has proven to be an invaluable strategy for market leaders like Apple, Tesla, Amazon, Airbnb, or Rackspace. These companies have capitalized on customer feedback to tailor their products, proactively address pain points and elevate the customer experience. Regardless of your size or niche, a similar approach will help you pinpoint growth opportunities while maintaining a loyal customer base.

The Less You Talk to Your Customers, the More You Need NPS®

Some businesses naturally have more customer interaction than others. An agency delivering a service will have frequent contact with its customers, whereas a product-based B2C company is unlikely to speak to any of its customers on a daily basis.

In businesses with frequent customer interaction, there’s less of a need for continual feedback, as concerns and questions are communicated naturally. However, in businesses with little or no customer interaction, systems like NPS are essential for measuring customer satisfaction.

Treating NPS as an ongoing process lets you stay in tune with customer needs and expectations and, as a result, deliver meaningful experiences. If you are looking to make NPS an integral part of your operations, consider investing in dedicated NPS software, following up on the received feedback and regularly reviewing performance.

NPS is a Journey, Not a Destination

When was the last time you asked your customers, “How are we doing?” Chances are, you’ve used Net Promoter Score to find out. NPS is one of the simplest ways to gauge customer sentiment – it’s quick, easy, and gives you a number to work with. But here’s the catch: many businesses treat NPS like a one-and-done survey. Send it out, get a score, and move on. Sound familiar?

In reality, NPS is so much more than just a number. It’s a window into how your customers feel about your business, and more importantly, it’s a tool for building better relationships over time. Treating NPS as a static metric misses the point. The real value lies in using it as a continuous process – a way to listen, learn, and adapt to your customers’ needs.

Now’s the time to shift your mindset. Don’t let NPS sit as just another KPI on a dashboard – turn it into a critical part of your strategy. Start small: map feedback touchpoints, close the loop with customers, and share insights across teams. Over time, this commitment to continuous improvement will lead to sustainable growth and a loyal customer base that champions your brand.

Retently lets you automate customer feedback using a simple NPS survey. Start using Net Promoter Score to gather, analyze and act on customer feedback to improve retention and grow your business. Find out more about Retently’s unique features or test it out in a free trial to witness the positive impact this ongoing input can have.

The post Why Net Promoter Score is an Ongoing Process (Not a One-Time Survey) appeared first on Retently CX.