cy NPS: How to get client and employee satisfaction

Many agencies fall for the trap of thinking clients will be happy if they invest more in marketing.

We assume that employees will be happy if they are focused on culture and doing the right thing.

Are these things true?

To gather objective data, our agency uses two simple metrics – net promoter score (NPS) and employee net promoter score (eNPS).

Agency Net Promoter Score

Even if NPS is something you haven’t heard of, chances are you’ve received an email or text asking a simple question: “Would your friend, family member or colleague recommend us?”

This single question can be used to measure client satisfaction by companies and help agencies understand if clients feel happy or just comfortable.

People who give you a 9/10 are considered to be “promoters” and will be your greatest advocates. They are likely to be your biggest advocates, and will stick with you.

A detractor is anyone who gives you a score below 6. This means they are not fans of yours and are generally unwilling to defend their relationship. Scores greater than 7 or 8 are not considered passive and will not count towards your NPS.

To calculate the Net Promoter, you need to add up all survey responses and subtract the percentage detractors from promoters. Your Net Promoter Score is the delta.

Let’s take, for example:

• Respondents are 65% promoters.
• 25% are detractors.
• 10% of passives

Your NPS in this instance would be 65-25=40.

A score of 70 or more is considered world-class. The benchmark for digital marketing agencies in the United States is 68.

Digital marketing agencies have to be able to meet their clients’ expectations. If they don’t like it, unhappy clients will take their business elsewhere.

Net Promoter Scores are a way to see how your agency’s overall health is trending and can be used to help predict or stop future client churn.

Since perceptions of results and external factors can change, I recommend that you capture the score quarterly or semi-annually.

AskNicely allows us to ask questions and trigger workflows based upon responses.

Clients may be delighted by communication or technical knowledge. We can also understand the reasons for dissatisfaction.

We can also slice data based upon the employee working with the client in order to determine if there is risk based either on that person or the line of service (e.g. SEO, PPC and strategy).

This feedback is added to the score and allows us the opportunity to find the “why” behind the rating and make any necessary corrections.

The other side of the coin: Employee Net Promoter Scores (eNPS).

Agency leaders are well aware that the market for digital marketing talent in this area is extremely competitive, particularly with remote roles. Remote work has made it very easy to switch jobs, so managers need to keep an eye on employee satisfaction.

The eNPS question looks very similar to that for NPS. “On a scale from 0-10, how likely are your odds of recommending our organization to others as a place where to work?”

While you may have some loyal fans, eNPS scores tend to be more passive or neutral than traditional NPS scores for your service offerings. Most employees won’t mind giving you an 8 score, which is considered neutral sentiment and will eventually be tossed.

A score of 40 or more is considered to be excellent. Employees are more likely to hold companies to a high standard than clients, and often to a higher standard than clients.

Similar to NPS it is important to trend this score quarterly or semi-annually. This is for various reasons.

• Happy employees lead to happy customers. You want to be able to spot any dissatisfaction.
• Expectations rise over time. You can ensure that your agency is improving or maintaining its current status.
• Changes in client lists and contacts can have an impact on how employees feel.
• Temporary factors, such as project launches and other very busy periods, can have a negative or positive impact on scores.

Smaller firms should also track the eNPS score. I recommend looking at the average score. If your agency has many 9s and 10s but only a few people who are giving you problems, your overall satisfaction could be high.

Smaller firms can benefit from a larger sample size, particularly if they don’t receive a 100% response rate.

Why should you care about your agency?

It is part of managing an agency. However, it is possible to avoid client and employee churn by tracking these objective metrics.

Reach out to clients who give you anything other than a 9 or 10. Even those who drop from 10 to 9. Ask for their honest feedback on how you can turn them into promoters to improve your business relationship.

Anonymity is the best way to get accurate feedback from employees. It makes it a little more difficult to gather actionable insights.

If you get a lower score than you would like, you can use eNPS to follow up with an anonymous survey asking employees their top and worst parts about working at your agency.

Getting started

It’s simple to get started with NPS or eNPS because they are based on one question. SurveyMonkey and Typeform offer free solutions.

Many solution providers are experts in collecting satisfaction feedback, such as Survey Sparrow, AskNicely and Retently. These SaaS companies will help you get more information than a simple form.

You will need to connect to other data sources, such as your CRM, to perform more sophisticated analysis. However, the solution must meet your business’s requirements in terms of pricing and features.

Start today to find out if your agency’s on the right path.

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