How to run an NPS survey inside your web app

Net Promoter Score is one question: “How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?”, answered 0 to 10. Asking it inside your app, while people are using it, gets more answers than email and lets you tie each answer to what that person actually did.

Who to ask

Ask people who have used the product enough to have an opinion. A reasonable start: signed-in people who have been around for at least two weeks. Do not ask on the first visit and do not ask the same person more than about twice a year.

When to ask

• Not on login. People came to do something. Wait 20 to 60 seconds, or show it after they finish a task.
• Not in a modal. A small card in the corner can be ignored. A modal that blocks work gets angry 0s.
• One question, then one optional follow-up. “What would make it better?” for low scores, “What do you like most?” for high ones.

Work out the score

9 and 10 are promoters, 7 and 8 passives, 0 to 6 detractors. NPS is percent promoters minus percent detractors. Use the NPS calculator if you have a list of scores.

What to do with the answers

1. Read every comment from a detractor and look at what that person did in the app that week. A low score after a failed export is a bug report.
2. Reply to a few people personally. Small teams can do this, and it turns detractors around more often than any feature.
3. Group comments into themes once a month and count them. The theme with the most detractor comments goes near the top of the roadmap.
4. Track the score over time, not against other companies. Your trend is the useful number.

Setting it up

With OnboardingTours you add the script, call hintwick("identify", user.id) after sign-in, create an NPS survey, set a delay and a page rule, preview it with ?hintwick_preview=, then publish. Each person answers once, and answers show up next to their activity.