The Right Time to Send NPS Surveys

According to Esteban Kolsky, 72% of satisfied customers or promoters of a brand will share their positive experiences with 6 or more people. And 13% of unsatisfied customers will share their bad experience with 15 or more people.  

Negative experiences do not stay limited to your customers. Bad word-of-mouth marketing affects your potential clients and sends them back even before they come in. To recover from this, brands' most preferred customer experience metric is Net Promoter Score. A Net Promoter Score Survey helps in identifying promoters and detractors, i.e., people who would recommend your brand to others and people who would not. This further helps in finding out challenges and recovering from bad customer experiences. 

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However, your NPS survey strategy is most likely to be successful if you get the time right. If the NPS surveys are not sent out at the right time, you may not receive as many responses as you anticipated. So…

Customers have different journeys with your brand since they interact with it at various touchpoints. The key is identifying which stage of the customer journey they are at because this will help you understand when and where to send NPS surveys in a way that they are completely relevant to the customers.

To do that, let's briefly discuss the types of NPS surveys.

When to Send Transactional NPS Surveys?

Transactional surveys must be sent while the experience of the product/service is still fresh in customers' minds so that they can share genuine feedback. And this time can vary depending on what your offering is. Some of the events where transactional NPS surveys are the best fit may include training, workshops, household services, product purchase, app or software download, shipping, delivery, etc.  

When to Send Relational NPS Surveys?

Since Relational NPS surveys are sent to understand the overall relationship or experience of customers with the brand over a continuous journey, they must be sent at predefined, regular intervals. Some of the events where relational NPS surveys are the best fit may include customer onboarding, subscriptions, subscription renewals, frequent purchases, banking, insurance, etc. 

Why NPS Survey Timing is Important?

NPS survey timing can make a huge difference in terms of response rate. Here’s why:

• If NPS surveys are sent too long after the purchase, the experience doesn’t stay fresh in customers’ minds, which can affect their responses, and hence, the quality of data collected.
• Customers may often find email or SMS survey links too suspicious to click on if the survey request is seemingly untimely. This can tremendously affect your NPS response rate.
• When customers are used to receiving your surveys at fixed intervals, they can confidently click on the survey links and be more engaged in their own journey with your brand.

Often, the time or the day that the NPS survey is sent can also have an impact on the survey response rate. Here’s why:

• Email surveys sent on Fridays and Weekends may get lost among other accumulated emails.
• Surveys sent at the end of the day may get pushed below by other important or spam emails that would accumulate over the night.
• Surveys, especially email surveys, sent in the evening when people are usually with their families or going to sleep might go unnoticed.

If possible, try to schedule your NPS surveys during the weekdays when people are more likely to check their phones and computers.

The Right Time to Send NPS Surveys

The ideal timings for sending out NPS surveys may vary depending on what you have to offer. So, to give you a clear idea, we have explained survey events depending on various categories. This will certainly help you create a better NPS strategy. 

NPS survey timing for retail and e-commerce

Survey timings are relatively simple and straightforward when it comes to physical goods. You must give customers enough time to use the product and form an opinion of it to be able to genuine feedback. For some products like foods, customers would generally like to share reviews as soon as they consume them. For other products like a mattress or a washing machine, they would usually like to experience the product for a few days to make sure it is working fine. Moreover, some customers may not even unbox a package for a few days of the delivery.

So, for items that can be consumed immediately, send NPS surveys 1 or 2 days after the delivery date. And for products that require a longer period to experience, such as an electronic product or mattress, send NPS surveys after 10 days or longer.

In the retail and e-commerce spaces, the NPS survey timings may vary as per the uniqueness of the products. So, categorize your products and identify the right timings.

Remember:

In the retail and e-commerce space, purchases may be frequent. So, refrain from sending NPS surveys post all purchases. Remember, the aim of NPS surveys is to understand customers’ relationship with the brand based on different experiences.

NPS survey timing for B2B and SaaS brands

The buying process is longer when dealing with businesses or selling SaaS products. Moreover, in these scenarios, the purchase may often be followed by ongoing support, updates, and suggestions. So, for ongoing relationships, for example, subscriptions, you may want to collect feedback on a quarterly, semi-annual, or annual basis. 

When the relationship with a customer is on the basis of a project, ask for feedback when the project is completed.

Remember:

If the experience you deliver to customers stays stable, then you could choose a longer time period to survey them. But if your delivery experience is all about changes and updates, then it is suggested to collect feedback quarterly or after the updates.

NPS Survey Timing for On-Demand Products

For brands that deliver an experience or product based on the unique demands of customers, it is ideal to send NPS surveys once the experience is over. For example, if a customer books a two-day stay at a hotel, the experience manager can ask for feedback once the guests check-out and have had the opportunity to experience everything from the stay to food.

So, in similar scenarios, it is ideal to ask for feedback 0 to 24 hours after the experience.

Remember:

When the experience or product is delivered on-demand, the surveys shouldn’t be sent out frequently. In the case of regular customers, consider collecting feedback after the first experience and then quarterly, half-yearly, and annually.

NPS survey timing in healthcare

In healthcare, NPS survey timing may vary depending on the duration of the treatment. For example, outpatients can be surveyed about the facility, communication, appointment, etc., 0-24 hours post consultation with a medical expert. And in-patients can be surveyed once they are discharged from the hospital.

And when it comes to the quality of the treatment, NPS surveys should be timed based on the recovery duration and post-consultation formalities.

Remember:

In the case of inpatient surveys, you can conduct satisfaction surveys towards the beginning of their treatment so that you can highlight the challenges, if any, while the patient is still being treated. This can help you recover from negative experiences and ensure that patients leave with a positive impression of the facility and treatment.

NPS survey timing for service transactions

When you’re looking to gauge customer loyalty in return for services, such as consultation, household, salon, delivery, installation, repair services, etc., it’s best to survey customers once the service is completed. In most cases, the right NPS timing would be 0-24 hours after the service is completed. And for services that may take more time, consider the time period of 1 to 10 days. Collecting transactional feedback is suggested here since customers’ loyalty in these cases usually depends on the quality of service. And it’s best to understand their experience while it is still fresh in their mind.

Remember:

Do not overwhelm frequent customers with surveys every time they avail a service. Instead, send them surveys on a half-yearly or annual basis.

Conclusion

NPS Score can be the most important metric to measure customers’ relationship or loyalty to your brand. But it is also important to see how NPS plays out with other customer satisfaction metrics, such as Customer Satisfaction Score and Customer Effort Score. So, create a comprehensive customer feedback strategy and retain customers efficiently.