It’s common knowledge these days that happy customers can help lead a business to profitable, sustainable organic growth. Historically, Net Promoter Score (NPS) has been the go-to method businesses rely on to quantify customer happiness as they’re trying to improve the services they offer. Let’s get started by quickly understanding the difference in some of the language behind NPS.
Detractors are customers and users who were not satisfied and rated their experience between a 0 and a 6, whereas promoters provided scores of 9 or 10.
These numbers are important as more recently, staffing firms have begun to use NPS to measure the satisfaction of their contractors and employees as well.
Just like customer promoters can lead a business to organic growth, happy employees can lead to more engaged and productive contractors and a more profitable business.
As the most objective measure of the contractor experience, NPS is quickly becoming a standard for staffing firms to understand detractors vs promoters.
Why, you ask? Because the contractor experience has a direct impact on your growth. According to CareerBuilder, 42% of candidates who have a bad experience never seek employment at the company again. And 22% of candidates who have a bad experience tell others not to work there!
For staffing companies, this means that the contractor experience has a direct impact on improving redeployment rates, and therefore increasing profitability.
Candidates look at NPS when they’re applying to a staffing firm. Enterprise buyers also look at NPS before they invite a staffing company to be a supplier to them, as it’s the most objective measure of a staffing firm’s ability to supply good candidates.
If your goal is more promoters, sending an NPS survey once or twice a year won’t cut it.
We’ve seen first-hand at Sense, through our work with staffing companies, how the key to increasing employee engagement is to measure NPS on a continuous basis and resolve the problems that are presented with a personal touch. The key is understanding the detractors and how you can convert them with a better and improved experience.
We have one client who increased their Net Promoter Score (NPS) from +12 to +74 in 6 months.
It really can be done. Our candidate engagement software gives staffing companies real-time feedback, which is the key to happiness, engagement, and productivity for your contractors.
If you’re just starting to measure your NPS, or you’ve surveyed for NPS within your company and are disappointed by the results, don’t be discouraged. But do consider changing your approach. Once you start measuring NPS continually and are getting real-time feedback, you have the opportunity to prevent negative contractor experiences from stunting your company’s growth.
For those of you who haven’t yet used or calculated a Net Promoter Score, here’s a quick tutorial. NPS is a way for a company to quantify opinions about the company. This might be the customer’s opinion, the contractor’s opinion, or even the employee’s opinion.
The simplest way to measure your company’s NPS is through a one question survey. The survey asks, “How likely is it that you would recommend this company to a friend?”
Survey takers then choose a number between 0 and 10 to rate the company. Sometimes there is a field for additional notes, which you can use to mine for ideas on how to improve. A score of 10 is “highly likely to recommend” and a score of 0 is “definitely won’t recommend.”
To get your NPS, you subtract the percentage of Promoters (9s and 10s) from the percentage of Detractors (0s through 6s), leaving out the Passives (7s and 8s) entirely.
NPS = Percentage of Promoters - Percentage of Detractors
So if you had 50% of people respond with 9 or 10, 20% of people with 7 or 8, and 30% with 0 through 6, your net promoter score would be 20.
NPS Score: 50 - 30 = 20
Anything between 0 and 50 is considered “good” for NPS. So you can see how our client with an NPS of 74 attracts more talent than they can possibly hire. An NPS of 74 is incredible.
Since raising their NPS, our client has changed their entire strategy of marketing their firm and recruiting talent.
This client now includes their continuously-measured NPS score on their recruiting collateral and in discussions with candidates.
Now, instead of spending time and money recruiting, they get the pick of the best talent because experienced consultants are seeking them out. For new candidates, NPS is as close as they can get to an objective measure of a staffing firm’s quality, and the experience they can expect there.
Measuring NPS can do other great things for your marketing, too, like help you find the people who will say good things about your firm online and to their friends.
Knowing who your Promoters are is a huge advantage, as they’re also the ones most likely to refer you new business and spread the word about how great your company is. Of those who have a good candidate experience, 56% consider seeking employment with the company again in the future, and 37% recommend the company to others, according to a CareerBuilder study.
We suggest treating Promoters extra special: target them for exciting new job opportunities and help them succeed. In return, they’ll review your company on social media (if you ask nicely), and send new candidates your direction. This is the kind of word-of-mouth marketing that’s possible with a high-touch focus on Net Promoter Score.
If you don’t have a lot of Promoters yet, don’t worry. With continuous measurement, you’ll have lots of opportunities to improve. With a little personal touch and an open mind, you can turn Detractors and Passives into Promoters. Use targeted interventions to reach out to them, listen to their feedback, and fix the problems they identify.
Here’s just one example: a Sense client had a consultant give a Detractor-level NPS score because of some issues at work. Without Sense’s NPS survey, that problem may have gone unnoticed for months. Instead, our client immediately reached out and used the feedback to identify the problem. They worked with that consultant to find a job that was a better fit for them.
Next time, this contractor gave our client a Promoter-level score. A Detractor became a Promoter with a little bit of targeted intervention. The consultant, the staffing firm, and the enterprise buyers all benefited from this interaction.
Contractors want to work with a staffing firm that redeploys and takes care of their talent. A high NPS tells candidates that your staffing firm takes care of its talent and that your company is a good place to work.
NPS can help you identify your brand ambassadors, build your online reputation, and improve the funnel of referrals and applicants.
By dramatically improving their NPS score to +74, our client now gets more resumes and applicants organically than via their recruiting staff or from job boards. This has resulted in significant cost savings.
NPS might seem simple and small on the surface, but it can have a dramatic effect on your company’s organic growth and profitability. If you want to learn more about how Sense can help you continuously measure contractor NPS and increase your profitability, visit sensehq.com or request a demo.
