In the service business, customer sentiment and referrals are the lifeblood of your business.  If you're keeping clients happy, you should theoretically have a never ending referral system.  Referrals are pretty easy to get, but only if you know who's happy.

Introducing Net Promoter Scores

Net Promoter Scores (NPS) is a simple polling process which asks your clients two questions:

1. On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to refer us to a friend?
2. Why?

This simple, poll is wildly effective because it solves THE key question:

Who is a likely promoter of your business?  

Better yet, it does so virtually unobtrusive to your client base.

How Does NPS Work?

At a glance, it's easy to see this business is pretty healthy, but there's a few people that need attention.

NPS is meant to poll your customers periodically to see how they feel about your business.  There's no bigger indicator of their impression of your business than if they would refer you to a friend.  This is why it's the only question of the survey.  

Anyone who answers a 9 or a 10 is considered a Promoter.  You can reasonably expect that these individuals are delighted with your business.  These people are most likely to give you glowing reviews on social media, participate in testimonials or marketing efforts, or even let their friends know about your business.

Anyone who answers between 0 and 6 is considered a Detractor.  Man, that seems unfair doesn't it?  Such is psychology.  If someone is not thrilled with your business, they are likely unhappy with your business.  These people are the most likely to take up lots of your time and energy,  and ultimately, leave.

Anyone who answers a 7 or 8 is considered Passive.  These people neither love nor hate your business.

Simple Key Takeaways From NPS

• The Trend is Your Friend (or enemy).  Pay attention to the trend.  If you find, on average, your overall NPS score is trending away from Promoters, you need to take action.
• Watch For People Who Move Out of Their Bucket.  Depending on direction, there's some things you can and should do when people change buckets.   If someone falls out of Promoter, you should have a conversation with them immediately.  If someone moves into Promoter, this might be the opportune time to ask for referrals.

How To Implement an NPS System

Implementing an NPS system for your facility is actually pretty simple.  Follow these simple steps to get going in minutes:

1. Join Wootric (here).  While there are many expensive NPS systems out there, Wootric has a free plan that's perfect for gyms, martial arts and yoga studios, and other fitness related businesses.
2. Setup Your Survey.  You have a couple options here.
   1. Email Delivery. If you're very non-technical, you can import your client emails into Wootric and have Wootric send off emails on your behalf.    This will be a little more time consuming on your end, as you'll have to remember to keep going back to Wootric every now and then to keep this list up to date.
   2. Website / Blog Delivery.  If you have a little technical chops, you can add some code directly to your website or blog.  Most common website systems like WordPress will give you access to dropping in snippets of code like this.  Once it's dropped, Wootric will do all the rest of the work to get survey results for you.
3. Plan How To Process Responses. This is a longer topic, and we might do a blog post explaining how to best process responses later.  But for now, you have to come up with a game plan on how to use the data you get.  At my gym, we will take anyone who is a Promoter, and ask them for social reviews and testimonials.  We will take anyone who's NOT a Promoter and proactively try to figure out why we aren't a 10 in their eyes. You would be surprised how this little action of reaching out and asking how to be a 10 helps fix client issues before they begin.

Looking for Gym Member Retention Software?

Schedule a quick 10 minute call with a gym-owning PushPress customer satisfaction representative today.  We will quickly find out your needs and objectives and let you know if we are a good fit for your business.