When and How Often Should You Send NPS Surveys: What's the Best Time?
Gain insights into the best timing and frequency for running Net promoter Score (NPS) surveys to gain the most valuable feedback. Know when and how often to send NPS surveys and enhance your understanding of customer satisfaction
Timing a Net Promoter Score survey can be tricky.
You have to ensure your customer isn’t flooded with feedback requests while collecting the best, most authentic response for your customer service metrics.
Taking into account industry-wide benchmarks, this article explains how you can effectively time your Net Promoter Score surveys to get the best results and insight into how customers perceive your brand.
Before diving in, let’s quickly recap what a Net Promoter Score survey is!
What is an NPS Survey?
A Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey is a quick set of questions to gauge customer loyalty and help measure customer satisfaction. It is structured around a single question:
“On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our product or service to a friend or colleague?”
This question is important because it yields a quantitative value with which to segment your customers into
Promoters - loyal customers who are more than willing to recommend your product
Passives - satisfied customers who are nonetheless unenthusiastic about your service
Detractors - customers who leave negative feedback and might even go out of their way to dissuade others from buying your product or service because they are dissatisfied
A simple formula of deducting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters is then used to calculate your company’s Net Promoter Score (NPS).
NPS in turn helps you understand your brand’s reputation in a holistic sense, which can further inform your market strategy and product development.
What are the Different Types of NPS Surveys
There are two different NPS survey types:
Relational NPS Survey
A relational Net Promoter Score (rNPS) Survey, also known as a relationship survey, determines your customer’s overall experience and satisfaction with the company.
The standard NPS question is relational in nature: “How likely are you to recommend us to a friend?”
It is like a general health check-up–unavoidable, but redundant and time-consuming if you don’t space it well.
A good rNPS Survey can help
Gain insights into your brand’s perception as opposed to competitors
Compare year-on-year progress or declines in your NPS, and thus, customer satisfaction
Measure company-level KPIs, and thus,
Benchmark against both internal and external NPS data.
Transactional NPS Surveys
A transactional Net Promoter Score (tNPS) Survey measures customer loyalty and satisfaction in the immediate aftermath of a customer event or interaction.
An example of a typical tNPS survey question would be: “How likely are you to recommend us based on (insert your most recent interaction)?”
These interactions could be in the form of support calls, service provided, installation completed, or product purchased.
A good tNPS can help
Alter a customer’s bad experience into a good one
Set an individual metric for different teams based on real-time feedback
Identify strengths and pain points after every customer interaction in the customer journey, and thus,
Find actionable insights throughout the buyer’s lifecycle!
Both relational and transactional NPS surveys together can be used to address your customer’s primary concerns and cultivate a strong customer experience (CX).
Using both transactional and relationship surveys according to their key strengths is integral to integrating customer feedback with your overarching business goals.
When Should You Send NPS Surveys?
There are some common practices to keep in mind when sending out NPS surveys.
Studies have found that short B2B surveys are best sent on Tuesdays, whereas longer surveys are better sent on Wednesdays and Fridays. Transactional NPS surveys are usually short and frequent, whereas relational NPS surveys are a bit longer and more generalized.
It’s advisable to stick to working hours during the working week, and to avoid Fridays, especially in B2B relationships, since businesses usually have cluttered inboxes waiting to be addressed by the end of the week.
However, to know when exactly to send NPS Surveys, it is important to understand which kind of NPS survey you’re dealing with.
When to Send rNPS Surveys?
Deciding when to send a relational NPS Survey is a delicate matter. Customers are less likely to engage with them since they are not as short as tNPS surveys.
It's best to send it when you need to understand the overall perception of your company or brand. It can also help target customers with low interaction or non-returning customers.
Experts recommend sticking to a frequency schedule and sending relational surveys on a quarterly or biannual basis, as per your business’ needs to avoid survey fatigue.
This helps you stay consistent and prepares your customers, thus increasing the likelihood of them responding!
When to Send tNPS Surveys?
Some key transactional NPS survey points that you can use for sending your survey are:
Post-purchase
7 to 10 days after customers have purchased your product or service is a good time to send an NPS survey.
This way they get ample time to use and assess your product or service.
During Onboarding
The process of customer onboarding can be successfully evaluated with the help of NPS data.
In the SaaS world, this is especially useful because your service requires the customer to interact with and operate the software directly.
By ensuring that pop-up and in-app surveys are customized and ready to go whenever your customers access a significant feature of your service, you can get immediate actionable feedback for your product development team!
Post Contact Center Interaction
Immediately send an NPS survey and follow-up questions to any contact center interaction to gauge customer satisfaction while the experience is still fresh in their mind.
This way you are likely to get the most authentic feedback.
Product Update or Redesign
Sending a transactional NPS survey within a month of having introduced a product update or redesign helps you understand how your customers are adapting to the change and whether your service’s trajectory is aligned with their needs.
Be sure to not send this survey immediately upon the introduction of an update, since initial reactions to sudden change are usually negative.
If possible, roll out a trial version of the update among your beta testers and send a survey to them first!
How Often Should You Send NPS Surveys?
Timing your surveys can make a big difference in how positively they’re received by your customers. Here, we’ve compiled some pointers to keep in mind while defining the
Frequency of Relational NPS Surveys
Most companies ask for feedback on a quarterly, biannual, or annual basis.
Keeping in mind that higher frequency (within reason) yields a better response rate, you can adjust this according to how often users are likely to have dynamic growth with your company during their entire customer journey.
For instance,
Quarterly surveys are better for companies that have established customer bases and predictable dynamics with their customers, such as online subscription services,
Annual surveys are best suited for services that require you to make periodic transactions such as household services and banks,
More frequent surveys are ideal for companies with less predictable customer dynamics, such as convenience stores or cable enterprises
Frequency of Transactional NPS Surveys
Good timing is of greater importance for transactional NPS surveys, and determining their regularity for your business needs is a much simpler task once you have that down.
When it comes to tNPS surveys, aim to
Identify how often your customers interact with your product or service
Be prompt with your survey and follow-up questions to customer interaction
Do not wait too long before sending your survey, or your response rates will lower
To correctly apply the above knowledge, you need to familiarize yourself with industry-wise benchmarks that will help you identify the timing ideal for your business.
Read on to know more!
Industry-wise Benchmarks of NPS Survey Frequency Practices
Understanding industry-wise benchmarks is crucial to planning the frequency of your industry. Some important brand and industry-specific practices and tips that can help you time your customer surveys effectively are outlined below!
Timing of NPS Surveys for Retail and E-commerce Brands
A physical good has relatively straightforward survey timing. A week after delivery or purchase is a good time to survey in such cases.
Consumables expire quickly, so surveys for that require immediate action.
Staggering your surveys so that one is sent immediately after delivery and one a few days after to give your customer time to use the product is also a good strategy.
Don’t forget to survey returning customers, the difference in their experiences can yield important actionable insights!
When in doubt, send out surveys every couple of months for unique orders.
Don’t survey customers more than once every quarter if your product or service is unchanging.
Timing of NPS Surveys for B2B and SaaS Brands
Divide the customer journey into phases according to your buyer’s lifecycle stage.
3-5 days after the free trial, survey customers who have not upgraded to the paid version, or have canceled their trial.
Customers still in the early phase can be surveyed upon SaaS onboarding, typically within a month of subscribing to your premium Saas tool.
Comfortably settled customers can be subjected to purely relational surveys on a quarterly, annual, or semiannual basis.
Survey existing customers 3-5 days after launching a new core feature or update.
Space out your surveys if your service is unchanging!
How Do NPS Surveys Give the Most Useful Feedback?
How can you conclude that the timing and frequency you have decided on for your NPS surveys is the most effective way to obtain actionable insights and meaningful feedback?
Let’s take a quick look at how the process of surveying has evolved over the years.
The following table explains the key differences between the traditional method of sending out customer surveys and the modern plan of action for NPS surveys that we’ve outlined in this article:
Traditional Customer Feedback Surveys Modern NPS Surveys Sent at random intervalsSent at customized timed intervalsCustomers might be targeted too long after interaction, thus rendering their feedback irrelevantTransactional surveys specifically designed to immediately collect feedback post interactionAll customers are sent the same surveyTargeted surveys are sent to different customer segments. Generic and repetitive surveys are likely to be marked as spamPersonalized and well-timed surveys are often in-app and thus give a higher response rate
Key Takeaways
To summarize, important applicable insights outlined in this article to keep in mind are:
It is best to match NPS frequency and timing to the NPS survey type: either relational or transactional.
Don’t overwhelm your users with too many relational surveys. It’s best to space them out.
Transactional surveys are only sent after significant interactions with your brand.
Segment your users to customize the kind of surveys they receive.
Understand your business needs, take into account industry practices, and only then draw up a schedule for sending your surveys.
Schedule your Surveys Right with 1Flow
Using 1Flow makes NPS integration much easier and smoother. With its intuitive AI, you can focus on features that matter to customers and create a product that stands out in the market.
Designed with product managers and researchers in mind, 1Flow doesn’t need a developer or someone with technical expertise to operate it.
You can directly integrate NPS in post-interaction communications and time your flows for prompt customer feedback.
Some salient features of 1Flow that make scheduling NPS surveys seamless are:
Insightful Dashboards for User Engagement
1Flow’s pre-built reporting and analytical dashboard lets you monitor user behavior and campaign performance effectively.
You can customize your surveys, time your flows according to your convenience, and trigger interactions post a customer event for maximum user engagement.
No-code Hassle-free Interface
1Flow’s easy operability ensures that you can incorporate perfectly seamless surveys into your user flow.
By presenting flows and interactions at the right time you also significantly increase the likelihood of honest, insightful and valuable feedback.
High response Rate
1Flow surveys boast a higher-than-average response rate of 38 percent.
This tried and tested service can greatly help you align with user goals and accelerate your research timeline by collecting more quantitative and qualitative feedback over a short period.
To know more about how this powerful tool can help boost your NPS survey response rates, get started and sign up for 1Flow NPS survey software today!
Timing a Net Promoter Score survey can be tricky.
You have to ensure your customer isn’t flooded with feedback requests while collecting the best, most authentic response for your customer service metrics.
Taking into account industry-wide benchmarks, this article explains how you can effectively time your Net Promoter Score surveys to get the best results and insight into how customers perceive your brand.
Before diving in, let’s quickly recap what a Net Promoter Score survey is!
What is an NPS Survey?
A Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey is a quick set of questions to gauge customer loyalty and help measure customer satisfaction. It is structured around a single question:
“On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our product or service to a friend or colleague?”
This question is important because it yields a quantitative value with which to segment your customers into
Promoters - loyal customers who are more than willing to recommend your product
Passives - satisfied customers who are nonetheless unenthusiastic about your service
Detractors - customers who leave negative feedback and might even go out of their way to dissuade others from buying your product or service because they are dissatisfied
A simple formula of deducting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters is then used to calculate your company’s Net Promoter Score (NPS).
NPS in turn helps you understand your brand’s reputation in a holistic sense, which can further inform your market strategy and product development.
What are the Different Types of NPS Surveys
There are two different NPS survey types:
Relational NPS Survey
A relational Net Promoter Score (rNPS) Survey, also known as a relationship survey, determines your customer’s overall experience and satisfaction with the company.
The standard NPS question is relational in nature: “How likely are you to recommend us to a friend?”
It is like a general health check-up–unavoidable, but redundant and time-consuming if you don’t space it well.
A good rNPS Survey can help
Gain insights into your brand’s perception as opposed to competitors
Compare year-on-year progress or declines in your NPS, and thus, customer satisfaction
Measure company-level KPIs, and thus,
Benchmark against both internal and external NPS data.
Transactional NPS Surveys
A transactional Net Promoter Score (tNPS) Survey measures customer loyalty and satisfaction in the immediate aftermath of a customer event or interaction.
An example of a typical tNPS survey question would be: “How likely are you to recommend us based on (insert your most recent interaction)?”
These interactions could be in the form of support calls, service provided, installation completed, or product purchased.
A good tNPS can help
Alter a customer’s bad experience into a good one
Set an individual metric for different teams based on real-time feedback
Identify strengths and pain points after every customer interaction in the customer journey, and thus,
Find actionable insights throughout the buyer’s lifecycle!
Both relational and transactional NPS surveys together can be used to address your customer’s primary concerns and cultivate a strong customer experience (CX).
Using both transactional and relationship surveys according to their key strengths is integral to integrating customer feedback with your overarching business goals.
When Should You Send NPS Surveys?
There are some common practices to keep in mind when sending out NPS surveys.
Studies have found that short B2B surveys are best sent on Tuesdays, whereas longer surveys are better sent on Wednesdays and Fridays. Transactional NPS surveys are usually short and frequent, whereas relational NPS surveys are a bit longer and more generalized.
It’s advisable to stick to working hours during the working week, and to avoid Fridays, especially in B2B relationships, since businesses usually have cluttered inboxes waiting to be addressed by the end of the week.
However, to know when exactly to send NPS Surveys, it is important to understand which kind of NPS survey you’re dealing with.
When to Send rNPS Surveys?
Deciding when to send a relational NPS Survey is a delicate matter. Customers are less likely to engage with them since they are not as short as tNPS surveys.
It's best to send it when you need to understand the overall perception of your company or brand. It can also help target customers with low interaction or non-returning customers.
Experts recommend sticking to a frequency schedule and sending relational surveys on a quarterly or biannual basis, as per your business’ needs to avoid survey fatigue.
This helps you stay consistent and prepares your customers, thus increasing the likelihood of them responding!
When to Send tNPS Surveys?
Some key transactional NPS survey points that you can use for sending your survey are:
Post-purchase
7 to 10 days after customers have purchased your product or service is a good time to send an NPS survey.
This way they get ample time to use and assess your product or service.
During Onboarding
The process of customer onboarding can be successfully evaluated with the help of NPS data.
In the SaaS world, this is especially useful because your service requires the customer to interact with and operate the software directly.
By ensuring that pop-up and in-app surveys are customized and ready to go whenever your customers access a significant feature of your service, you can get immediate actionable feedback for your product development team!
Post Contact Center Interaction
Immediately send an NPS survey and follow-up questions to any contact center interaction to gauge customer satisfaction while the experience is still fresh in their mind.
This way you are likely to get the most authentic feedback.
Product Update or Redesign
Sending a transactional NPS survey within a month of having introduced a product update or redesign helps you understand how your customers are adapting to the change and whether your service’s trajectory is aligned with their needs.
Be sure to not send this survey immediately upon the introduction of an update, since initial reactions to sudden change are usually negative.
If possible, roll out a trial version of the update among your beta testers and send a survey to them first!
How Often Should You Send NPS Surveys?
Timing your surveys can make a big difference in how positively they’re received by your customers. Here, we’ve compiled some pointers to keep in mind while defining the
Frequency of Relational NPS Surveys
Most companies ask for feedback on a quarterly, biannual, or annual basis.
Keeping in mind that higher frequency (within reason) yields a better response rate, you can adjust this according to how often users are likely to have dynamic growth with your company during their entire customer journey.
For instance,
Quarterly surveys are better for companies that have established customer bases and predictable dynamics with their customers, such as online subscription services,
Annual surveys are best suited for services that require you to make periodic transactions such as household services and banks,
More frequent surveys are ideal for companies with less predictable customer dynamics, such as convenience stores or cable enterprises
Frequency of Transactional NPS Surveys
Good timing is of greater importance for transactional NPS surveys, and determining their regularity for your business needs is a much simpler task once you have that down.
When it comes to tNPS surveys, aim to
Identify how often your customers interact with your product or service
Be prompt with your survey and follow-up questions to customer interaction
Do not wait too long before sending your survey, or your response rates will lower
To correctly apply the above knowledge, you need to familiarize yourself with industry-wise benchmarks that will help you identify the timing ideal for your business.
Read on to know more!
Industry-wise Benchmarks of NPS Survey Frequency Practices
Understanding industry-wise benchmarks is crucial to planning the frequency of your industry. Some important brand and industry-specific practices and tips that can help you time your customer surveys effectively are outlined below!
Timing of NPS Surveys for Retail and E-commerce Brands
A physical good has relatively straightforward survey timing. A week after delivery or purchase is a good time to survey in such cases.
Consumables expire quickly, so surveys for that require immediate action.
Staggering your surveys so that one is sent immediately after delivery and one a few days after to give your customer time to use the product is also a good strategy.
Don’t forget to survey returning customers, the difference in their experiences can yield important actionable insights!
When in doubt, send out surveys every couple of months for unique orders.
Don’t survey customers more than once every quarter if your product or service is unchanging.
Timing of NPS Surveys for B2B and SaaS Brands
Divide the customer journey into phases according to your buyer’s lifecycle stage.
3-5 days after the free trial, survey customers who have not upgraded to the paid version, or have canceled their trial.
Customers still in the early phase can be surveyed upon SaaS onboarding, typically within a month of subscribing to your premium Saas tool.
Comfortably settled customers can be subjected to purely relational surveys on a quarterly, annual, or semiannual basis.
Survey existing customers 3-5 days after launching a new core feature or update.
Space out your surveys if your service is unchanging!
How Do NPS Surveys Give the Most Useful Feedback?
How can you conclude that the timing and frequency you have decided on for your NPS surveys is the most effective way to obtain actionable insights and meaningful feedback?
Let’s take a quick look at how the process of surveying has evolved over the years.
The following table explains the key differences between the traditional method of sending out customer surveys and the modern plan of action for NPS surveys that we’ve outlined in this article:
Traditional Customer Feedback Surveys Modern NPS Surveys Sent at random intervalsSent at customized timed intervalsCustomers might be targeted too long after interaction, thus rendering their feedback irrelevantTransactional surveys specifically designed to immediately collect feedback post interactionAll customers are sent the same surveyTargeted surveys are sent to different customer segments. Generic and repetitive surveys are likely to be marked as spamPersonalized and well-timed surveys are often in-app and thus give a higher response rate
Key Takeaways
To summarize, important applicable insights outlined in this article to keep in mind are:
It is best to match NPS frequency and timing to the NPS survey type: either relational or transactional.
Don’t overwhelm your users with too many relational surveys. It’s best to space them out.
Transactional surveys are only sent after significant interactions with your brand.
Segment your users to customize the kind of surveys they receive.
Understand your business needs, take into account industry practices, and only then draw up a schedule for sending your surveys.
Schedule your Surveys Right with 1Flow
Using 1Flow makes NPS integration much easier and smoother. With its intuitive AI, you can focus on features that matter to customers and create a product that stands out in the market.
Designed with product managers and researchers in mind, 1Flow doesn’t need a developer or someone with technical expertise to operate it.
You can directly integrate NPS in post-interaction communications and time your flows for prompt customer feedback.
Some salient features of 1Flow that make scheduling NPS surveys seamless are:
Insightful Dashboards for User Engagement
1Flow’s pre-built reporting and analytical dashboard lets you monitor user behavior and campaign performance effectively.
You can customize your surveys, time your flows according to your convenience, and trigger interactions post a customer event for maximum user engagement.
No-code Hassle-free Interface
1Flow’s easy operability ensures that you can incorporate perfectly seamless surveys into your user flow.
By presenting flows and interactions at the right time you also significantly increase the likelihood of honest, insightful and valuable feedback.
High response Rate
1Flow surveys boast a higher-than-average response rate of 38 percent.
This tried and tested service can greatly help you align with user goals and accelerate your research timeline by collecting more quantitative and qualitative feedback over a short period.
To know more about how this powerful tool can help boost your NPS survey response rates, get started and sign up for 1Flow NPS survey software today!
Timing a Net Promoter Score survey can be tricky.
You have to ensure your customer isn’t flooded with feedback requests while collecting the best, most authentic response for your customer service metrics.
Taking into account industry-wide benchmarks, this article explains how you can effectively time your Net Promoter Score surveys to get the best results and insight into how customers perceive your brand.
Before diving in, let’s quickly recap what a Net Promoter Score survey is!
What is an NPS Survey?
A Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey is a quick set of questions to gauge customer loyalty and help measure customer satisfaction. It is structured around a single question:
“On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our product or service to a friend or colleague?”
This question is important because it yields a quantitative value with which to segment your customers into
Promoters - loyal customers who are more than willing to recommend your product
Passives - satisfied customers who are nonetheless unenthusiastic about your service
Detractors - customers who leave negative feedback and might even go out of their way to dissuade others from buying your product or service because they are dissatisfied
A simple formula of deducting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters is then used to calculate your company’s Net Promoter Score (NPS).
NPS in turn helps you understand your brand’s reputation in a holistic sense, which can further inform your market strategy and product development.
What are the Different Types of NPS Surveys
There are two different NPS survey types:
Relational NPS Survey
A relational Net Promoter Score (rNPS) Survey, also known as a relationship survey, determines your customer’s overall experience and satisfaction with the company.
The standard NPS question is relational in nature: “How likely are you to recommend us to a friend?”
It is like a general health check-up–unavoidable, but redundant and time-consuming if you don’t space it well.
A good rNPS Survey can help
Gain insights into your brand’s perception as opposed to competitors
Compare year-on-year progress or declines in your NPS, and thus, customer satisfaction
Measure company-level KPIs, and thus,
Benchmark against both internal and external NPS data.
Transactional NPS Surveys
A transactional Net Promoter Score (tNPS) Survey measures customer loyalty and satisfaction in the immediate aftermath of a customer event or interaction.
An example of a typical tNPS survey question would be: “How likely are you to recommend us based on (insert your most recent interaction)?”
These interactions could be in the form of support calls, service provided, installation completed, or product purchased.
A good tNPS can help
Alter a customer’s bad experience into a good one
Set an individual metric for different teams based on real-time feedback
Identify strengths and pain points after every customer interaction in the customer journey, and thus,
Find actionable insights throughout the buyer’s lifecycle!
Both relational and transactional NPS surveys together can be used to address your customer’s primary concerns and cultivate a strong customer experience (CX).
Using both transactional and relationship surveys according to their key strengths is integral to integrating customer feedback with your overarching business goals.
When Should You Send NPS Surveys?
There are some common practices to keep in mind when sending out NPS surveys.
Studies have found that short B2B surveys are best sent on Tuesdays, whereas longer surveys are better sent on Wednesdays and Fridays. Transactional NPS surveys are usually short and frequent, whereas relational NPS surveys are a bit longer and more generalized.
It’s advisable to stick to working hours during the working week, and to avoid Fridays, especially in B2B relationships, since businesses usually have cluttered inboxes waiting to be addressed by the end of the week.
However, to know when exactly to send NPS Surveys, it is important to understand which kind of NPS survey you’re dealing with.
When to Send rNPS Surveys?
Deciding when to send a relational NPS Survey is a delicate matter. Customers are less likely to engage with them since they are not as short as tNPS surveys.
It's best to send it when you need to understand the overall perception of your company or brand. It can also help target customers with low interaction or non-returning customers.
Experts recommend sticking to a frequency schedule and sending relational surveys on a quarterly or biannual basis, as per your business’ needs to avoid survey fatigue.
This helps you stay consistent and prepares your customers, thus increasing the likelihood of them responding!
When to Send tNPS Surveys?
Some key transactional NPS survey points that you can use for sending your survey are:
Post-purchase
7 to 10 days after customers have purchased your product or service is a good time to send an NPS survey.
This way they get ample time to use and assess your product or service.
During Onboarding
The process of customer onboarding can be successfully evaluated with the help of NPS data.
In the SaaS world, this is especially useful because your service requires the customer to interact with and operate the software directly.
By ensuring that pop-up and in-app surveys are customized and ready to go whenever your customers access a significant feature of your service, you can get immediate actionable feedback for your product development team!
Post Contact Center Interaction
Immediately send an NPS survey and follow-up questions to any contact center interaction to gauge customer satisfaction while the experience is still fresh in their mind.
This way you are likely to get the most authentic feedback.
Product Update or Redesign
Sending a transactional NPS survey within a month of having introduced a product update or redesign helps you understand how your customers are adapting to the change and whether your service’s trajectory is aligned with their needs.
Be sure to not send this survey immediately upon the introduction of an update, since initial reactions to sudden change are usually negative.
If possible, roll out a trial version of the update among your beta testers and send a survey to them first!
How Often Should You Send NPS Surveys?
Timing your surveys can make a big difference in how positively they’re received by your customers. Here, we’ve compiled some pointers to keep in mind while defining the
Frequency of Relational NPS Surveys
Most companies ask for feedback on a quarterly, biannual, or annual basis.
Keeping in mind that higher frequency (within reason) yields a better response rate, you can adjust this according to how often users are likely to have dynamic growth with your company during their entire customer journey.
For instance,
Quarterly surveys are better for companies that have established customer bases and predictable dynamics with their customers, such as online subscription services,
Annual surveys are best suited for services that require you to make periodic transactions such as household services and banks,
More frequent surveys are ideal for companies with less predictable customer dynamics, such as convenience stores or cable enterprises
Frequency of Transactional NPS Surveys
Good timing is of greater importance for transactional NPS surveys, and determining their regularity for your business needs is a much simpler task once you have that down.
When it comes to tNPS surveys, aim to
Identify how often your customers interact with your product or service
Be prompt with your survey and follow-up questions to customer interaction
Do not wait too long before sending your survey, or your response rates will lower
To correctly apply the above knowledge, you need to familiarize yourself with industry-wise benchmarks that will help you identify the timing ideal for your business.
Read on to know more!
Industry-wise Benchmarks of NPS Survey Frequency Practices
Understanding industry-wise benchmarks is crucial to planning the frequency of your industry. Some important brand and industry-specific practices and tips that can help you time your customer surveys effectively are outlined below!
Timing of NPS Surveys for Retail and E-commerce Brands
A physical good has relatively straightforward survey timing. A week after delivery or purchase is a good time to survey in such cases.
Consumables expire quickly, so surveys for that require immediate action.
Staggering your surveys so that one is sent immediately after delivery and one a few days after to give your customer time to use the product is also a good strategy.
Don’t forget to survey returning customers, the difference in their experiences can yield important actionable insights!
When in doubt, send out surveys every couple of months for unique orders.
Don’t survey customers more than once every quarter if your product or service is unchanging.
Timing of NPS Surveys for B2B and SaaS Brands
Divide the customer journey into phases according to your buyer’s lifecycle stage.
3-5 days after the free trial, survey customers who have not upgraded to the paid version, or have canceled their trial.
Customers still in the early phase can be surveyed upon SaaS onboarding, typically within a month of subscribing to your premium Saas tool.
Comfortably settled customers can be subjected to purely relational surveys on a quarterly, annual, or semiannual basis.
Survey existing customers 3-5 days after launching a new core feature or update.
Space out your surveys if your service is unchanging!
How Do NPS Surveys Give the Most Useful Feedback?
How can you conclude that the timing and frequency you have decided on for your NPS surveys is the most effective way to obtain actionable insights and meaningful feedback?
Let’s take a quick look at how the process of surveying has evolved over the years.
The following table explains the key differences between the traditional method of sending out customer surveys and the modern plan of action for NPS surveys that we’ve outlined in this article:
Traditional Customer Feedback Surveys Modern NPS Surveys Sent at random intervalsSent at customized timed intervalsCustomers might be targeted too long after interaction, thus rendering their feedback irrelevantTransactional surveys specifically designed to immediately collect feedback post interactionAll customers are sent the same surveyTargeted surveys are sent to different customer segments. Generic and repetitive surveys are likely to be marked as spamPersonalized and well-timed surveys are often in-app and thus give a higher response rate
Key Takeaways
To summarize, important applicable insights outlined in this article to keep in mind are:
It is best to match NPS frequency and timing to the NPS survey type: either relational or transactional.
Don’t overwhelm your users with too many relational surveys. It’s best to space them out.
Transactional surveys are only sent after significant interactions with your brand.
Segment your users to customize the kind of surveys they receive.
Understand your business needs, take into account industry practices, and only then draw up a schedule for sending your surveys.
Schedule your Surveys Right with 1Flow
Using 1Flow makes NPS integration much easier and smoother. With its intuitive AI, you can focus on features that matter to customers and create a product that stands out in the market.
Designed with product managers and researchers in mind, 1Flow doesn’t need a developer or someone with technical expertise to operate it.
You can directly integrate NPS in post-interaction communications and time your flows for prompt customer feedback.
Some salient features of 1Flow that make scheduling NPS surveys seamless are:
Insightful Dashboards for User Engagement
1Flow’s pre-built reporting and analytical dashboard lets you monitor user behavior and campaign performance effectively.
You can customize your surveys, time your flows according to your convenience, and trigger interactions post a customer event for maximum user engagement.
No-code Hassle-free Interface
1Flow’s easy operability ensures that you can incorporate perfectly seamless surveys into your user flow.
By presenting flows and interactions at the right time you also significantly increase the likelihood of honest, insightful and valuable feedback.
High response Rate
1Flow surveys boast a higher-than-average response rate of 38 percent.
This tried and tested service can greatly help you align with user goals and accelerate your research timeline by collecting more quantitative and qualitative feedback over a short period.
To know more about how this powerful tool can help boost your NPS survey response rates, get started and sign up for 1Flow NPS survey software today!
Timing a Net Promoter Score survey can be tricky.
You have to ensure your customer isn’t flooded with feedback requests while collecting the best, most authentic response for your customer service metrics.
Taking into account industry-wide benchmarks, this article explains how you can effectively time your Net Promoter Score surveys to get the best results and insight into how customers perceive your brand.
Before diving in, let’s quickly recap what a Net Promoter Score survey is!
What is an NPS Survey?
A Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey is a quick set of questions to gauge customer loyalty and help measure customer satisfaction. It is structured around a single question:
“On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our product or service to a friend or colleague?”
This question is important because it yields a quantitative value with which to segment your customers into
Promoters - loyal customers who are more than willing to recommend your product
Passives - satisfied customers who are nonetheless unenthusiastic about your service
Detractors - customers who leave negative feedback and might even go out of their way to dissuade others from buying your product or service because they are dissatisfied
A simple formula of deducting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters is then used to calculate your company’s Net Promoter Score (NPS).
NPS in turn helps you understand your brand’s reputation in a holistic sense, which can further inform your market strategy and product development.
What are the Different Types of NPS Surveys
There are two different NPS survey types:
Relational NPS Survey
A relational Net Promoter Score (rNPS) Survey, also known as a relationship survey, determines your customer’s overall experience and satisfaction with the company.
The standard NPS question is relational in nature: “How likely are you to recommend us to a friend?”
It is like a general health check-up–unavoidable, but redundant and time-consuming if you don’t space it well.
A good rNPS Survey can help
Gain insights into your brand’s perception as opposed to competitors
Compare year-on-year progress or declines in your NPS, and thus, customer satisfaction
Measure company-level KPIs, and thus,
Benchmark against both internal and external NPS data.
Transactional NPS Surveys
A transactional Net Promoter Score (tNPS) Survey measures customer loyalty and satisfaction in the immediate aftermath of a customer event or interaction.
An example of a typical tNPS survey question would be: “How likely are you to recommend us based on (insert your most recent interaction)?”
These interactions could be in the form of support calls, service provided, installation completed, or product purchased.
A good tNPS can help
Alter a customer’s bad experience into a good one
Set an individual metric for different teams based on real-time feedback
Identify strengths and pain points after every customer interaction in the customer journey, and thus,
Find actionable insights throughout the buyer’s lifecycle!
Both relational and transactional NPS surveys together can be used to address your customer’s primary concerns and cultivate a strong customer experience (CX).
Using both transactional and relationship surveys according to their key strengths is integral to integrating customer feedback with your overarching business goals.
When Should You Send NPS Surveys?
There are some common practices to keep in mind when sending out NPS surveys.
Studies have found that short B2B surveys are best sent on Tuesdays, whereas longer surveys are better sent on Wednesdays and Fridays. Transactional NPS surveys are usually short and frequent, whereas relational NPS surveys are a bit longer and more generalized.
It’s advisable to stick to working hours during the working week, and to avoid Fridays, especially in B2B relationships, since businesses usually have cluttered inboxes waiting to be addressed by the end of the week.
However, to know when exactly to send NPS Surveys, it is important to understand which kind of NPS survey you’re dealing with.
When to Send rNPS Surveys?
Deciding when to send a relational NPS Survey is a delicate matter. Customers are less likely to engage with them since they are not as short as tNPS surveys.
It's best to send it when you need to understand the overall perception of your company or brand. It can also help target customers with low interaction or non-returning customers.
Experts recommend sticking to a frequency schedule and sending relational surveys on a quarterly or biannual basis, as per your business’ needs to avoid survey fatigue.
This helps you stay consistent and prepares your customers, thus increasing the likelihood of them responding!
When to Send tNPS Surveys?
Some key transactional NPS survey points that you can use for sending your survey are:
Post-purchase
7 to 10 days after customers have purchased your product or service is a good time to send an NPS survey.
This way they get ample time to use and assess your product or service.
During Onboarding
The process of customer onboarding can be successfully evaluated with the help of NPS data.
In the SaaS world, this is especially useful because your service requires the customer to interact with and operate the software directly.
By ensuring that pop-up and in-app surveys are customized and ready to go whenever your customers access a significant feature of your service, you can get immediate actionable feedback for your product development team!
Post Contact Center Interaction
Immediately send an NPS survey and follow-up questions to any contact center interaction to gauge customer satisfaction while the experience is still fresh in their mind.
This way you are likely to get the most authentic feedback.
Product Update or Redesign
Sending a transactional NPS survey within a month of having introduced a product update or redesign helps you understand how your customers are adapting to the change and whether your service’s trajectory is aligned with their needs.
Be sure to not send this survey immediately upon the introduction of an update, since initial reactions to sudden change are usually negative.
If possible, roll out a trial version of the update among your beta testers and send a survey to them first!
How Often Should You Send NPS Surveys?
Timing your surveys can make a big difference in how positively they’re received by your customers. Here, we’ve compiled some pointers to keep in mind while defining the
Frequency of Relational NPS Surveys
Most companies ask for feedback on a quarterly, biannual, or annual basis.
Keeping in mind that higher frequency (within reason) yields a better response rate, you can adjust this according to how often users are likely to have dynamic growth with your company during their entire customer journey.
For instance,
Quarterly surveys are better for companies that have established customer bases and predictable dynamics with their customers, such as online subscription services,
Annual surveys are best suited for services that require you to make periodic transactions such as household services and banks,
More frequent surveys are ideal for companies with less predictable customer dynamics, such as convenience stores or cable enterprises
Frequency of Transactional NPS Surveys
Good timing is of greater importance for transactional NPS surveys, and determining their regularity for your business needs is a much simpler task once you have that down.
When it comes to tNPS surveys, aim to
Identify how often your customers interact with your product or service
Be prompt with your survey and follow-up questions to customer interaction
Do not wait too long before sending your survey, or your response rates will lower
To correctly apply the above knowledge, you need to familiarize yourself with industry-wise benchmarks that will help you identify the timing ideal for your business.
Read on to know more!
Industry-wise Benchmarks of NPS Survey Frequency Practices
Understanding industry-wise benchmarks is crucial to planning the frequency of your industry. Some important brand and industry-specific practices and tips that can help you time your customer surveys effectively are outlined below!
Timing of NPS Surveys for Retail and E-commerce Brands
A physical good has relatively straightforward survey timing. A week after delivery or purchase is a good time to survey in such cases.
Consumables expire quickly, so surveys for that require immediate action.
Staggering your surveys so that one is sent immediately after delivery and one a few days after to give your customer time to use the product is also a good strategy.
Don’t forget to survey returning customers, the difference in their experiences can yield important actionable insights!
When in doubt, send out surveys every couple of months for unique orders.
Don’t survey customers more than once every quarter if your product or service is unchanging.
Timing of NPS Surveys for B2B and SaaS Brands
Divide the customer journey into phases according to your buyer’s lifecycle stage.
3-5 days after the free trial, survey customers who have not upgraded to the paid version, or have canceled their trial.
Customers still in the early phase can be surveyed upon SaaS onboarding, typically within a month of subscribing to your premium Saas tool.
Comfortably settled customers can be subjected to purely relational surveys on a quarterly, annual, or semiannual basis.
Survey existing customers 3-5 days after launching a new core feature or update.
Space out your surveys if your service is unchanging!
How Do NPS Surveys Give the Most Useful Feedback?
How can you conclude that the timing and frequency you have decided on for your NPS surveys is the most effective way to obtain actionable insights and meaningful feedback?
Let’s take a quick look at how the process of surveying has evolved over the years.
The following table explains the key differences between the traditional method of sending out customer surveys and the modern plan of action for NPS surveys that we’ve outlined in this article:
Traditional Customer Feedback Surveys Modern NPS Surveys Sent at random intervalsSent at customized timed intervalsCustomers might be targeted too long after interaction, thus rendering their feedback irrelevantTransactional surveys specifically designed to immediately collect feedback post interactionAll customers are sent the same surveyTargeted surveys are sent to different customer segments. Generic and repetitive surveys are likely to be marked as spamPersonalized and well-timed surveys are often in-app and thus give a higher response rate
Key Takeaways
To summarize, important applicable insights outlined in this article to keep in mind are:
It is best to match NPS frequency and timing to the NPS survey type: either relational or transactional.
Don’t overwhelm your users with too many relational surveys. It’s best to space them out.
Transactional surveys are only sent after significant interactions with your brand.
Segment your users to customize the kind of surveys they receive.
Understand your business needs, take into account industry practices, and only then draw up a schedule for sending your surveys.
Schedule your Surveys Right with 1Flow
Using 1Flow makes NPS integration much easier and smoother. With its intuitive AI, you can focus on features that matter to customers and create a product that stands out in the market.
Designed with product managers and researchers in mind, 1Flow doesn’t need a developer or someone with technical expertise to operate it.
You can directly integrate NPS in post-interaction communications and time your flows for prompt customer feedback.
Some salient features of 1Flow that make scheduling NPS surveys seamless are:
Insightful Dashboards for User Engagement
1Flow’s pre-built reporting and analytical dashboard lets you monitor user behavior and campaign performance effectively.
You can customize your surveys, time your flows according to your convenience, and trigger interactions post a customer event for maximum user engagement.
No-code Hassle-free Interface
1Flow’s easy operability ensures that you can incorporate perfectly seamless surveys into your user flow.
By presenting flows and interactions at the right time you also significantly increase the likelihood of honest, insightful and valuable feedback.
High response Rate
1Flow surveys boast a higher-than-average response rate of 38 percent.
This tried and tested service can greatly help you align with user goals and accelerate your research timeline by collecting more quantitative and qualitative feedback over a short period.
To know more about how this powerful tool can help boost your NPS survey response rates, get started and sign up for 1Flow NPS survey software today!
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