Improve Patron Loyalty by Asking One Simple Question

Improve Patron Loyalty by Asking One
Simple Question

June 19, 2018

I’ve been chatting with the folks at Wootric and realized that the services they provide for free to nonprofits might be of interest to our blog readers. I invited Lisa to write this post to introduce the idea of NPS surveys and explain how to get started. – Michelle Paul, Managing Director, PatronManager

Today’s guest blog post is written by Lisa Abbott, VP Marketing, Wootric.

Regular, repeat attendees are the lifeblood of arts organizations. Ensuring that they have a positive experience keeps them coming back.

One of the easiest ways to monitor experience and address the challenges of patron loyalty is to start a customer feedback program, which helps your organization build a relationship with your patrons through communication and listening.

Customer Feedback Programs for Increased Patron Loyalty

Modern customer relationship management doesn’t have to be complicated or involve annoying customers into filling out long, drawn out surveys for feedback. An effective customer feedback program allows you to gather useful information about your customers’ experiences simply and enables you to follow up on comments conveniently.

This feedback cycle will improve the experience your audience has and demonstrate to them that you take their comments to heart. People who know their voices are heard are more likely to become loyal customers. Loyal customers spread positive word of mouth and bring in new patrons.

All you have to do to reap the benefits of an effective feedback program is ask a single, evidence-backed question: the Net Promoter Score question.

What is Net Promoter Score?

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a loyalty metric, researched and introduced by Fred Reichheld of Bain & Co, that asks respondents to answer on a scale from 0 to 10, “How likely are you to recommend (product, service, company or organization) to a friend or colleague?” After the respondent has given a score, they are presented with the option to give open feedback about why they chose that score.

Respondents fall under one of three groups depending on the score they give. Those who respond with a 9 or 10 are called “promoters,” and those who respond with a 7 or 8 are called “passives.” Individuals who respond with any score 6 and lower are called “detractors.” Your final NPS is calculated by taking your percentage of respondents who are detractors and subtracting that from your percentage of respondents who are promoters. The score itself is an index that ranges from negative one hundred (-100) to one hundred (100).

Why is NPS so popular?

NPS has gained popularity because the question asks respondents to draw an opinion based on the sum total of their experience with an organization rather than just the most recent interaction. As a metric, NPS transcends single experiences to gather feedback about the overall relationship a customer has with a company.

Pairing this question with an open-ended comment box means your organization can receive rich qualitative feedback that helps guide and prioritize improvement initiatives.

For example, as an arts organization, you may choose to:

ask subscribers at the end of a season “How likely are you to recommend Shotgun Players season tickets to a friend or colleague?”
ask members 60 days before their membership expiration date “How likely are you to recommend museum membership to a friend or colleague?”
ask donors after a major campaign or donor event… “How likely are you to recommend the Film Society Donor’s Circle to family and friends?

Sending an NPS survey at any of these points will give you a good indicator for whether or not a patron will renew a subscription, membership, or continue to attend donor events. The comments you receive may reveal logistical issues they encountered during an event, or a nuance about your membership terms that wasn’t explained clearly enough.

The most enthusiastic respondents, also known as your “promoters” among NPS practitioners, are also likely to want to get involved with your organization in other ways, including volunteering, sharing their opinions on social media, or writing reviews for different websites and publications.

Where do I start with NPS?

Getting started with NPS can be as easy as sending an email form to your patrons that asks the NPS question. While email makes it easy to start asking for feedback, managing responses can become time-consuming and complicated. Fortunately, there are simple, modern software programs that specialize in Net Promoter Score feedback management. Using this software, you can quickly and easily send surveys to your patrons. Survey responses then appear in real-time in one dashboard where it is easy to review the feedback for insights and respond to patrons.

Wootric may be a great customer feedback solution for you to start using NPS at your arts organization! Wootric offers software and professional services free of charge as part of its commitment to pledge 1% of product and service to the nonprofit community. Click here to learn more about NPS surveys. Or, click here to request a demo.