I admit that, at first sight, this question may seem a little tricky. NPS is known to be a single-question survey, after all, and that pretty much answers it, right? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well, not quite. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
NPS is based on a single question. It\u2019s usually a variation of \u201cOn a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend [PRODUCT] to friends or family?<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n As I said, the question can be a variation of the above. But in general, the primary NPS question asks for the likelihood of a person being willing to recommend your product to others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But note I called it the primary NPS question. That\u2019s because it isn\u2019t the only one. In fact, depending on your goals, you could follow it up with several other questions. We refer to them as NPS follow-up questions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Needless to say, usually, it\u2019s those questions that cause problems when constructing an NPS survey. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The primary NPS question provides one important insight – It shows you how many satisfied customers you have and as a result, how well your product responds to the audience\u2019s needs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It does so by dividing your customers into three groups:<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is a powerful insight to have, right?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It helps you evaluate your customer satisfaction. It tells you how well your product matches the audience\u2019s expectations. It can also help you predict the potential for word-of-mouth and referral growth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But it doesn\u2019t tell you why those people answered the way they did. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n You can\u2019t tell what makes someone so enthusiastic about your product. You don\u2019t know why another person is happy with your product but isn\u2019t over the moon about it. And you have no way of knowing why someone is borderline raging about you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n You need to follow up to find out, and that\u2019s where the problem starts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Why? Because it is so easy to want to probe deeper and deeper. But in reality, no customer will want to spend much time responding to your survey. If they answered the primary question, you\u2019re already lucky. Any more insights from them are a bonus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So, if you keep presenting customers with more and more questions, you\u2019re going to lose them along the way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n (Not to mention that with too many follow-up questions, you\u2019re bound to start asking about irrelevant things eventually.<\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Short answer<\/strong> – No more than two. The primary NPS question and one follow-up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Long answer<\/strong> – No more than two per customer<\/em>. Every customer will see the primary NPS question and you might ask them a specific follow-up based on their answer. This means that you\u2019ll prepare a whole range of follow-up questions and will trigger the right one using survey logic<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The term – survey logic<\/em> – refers to the use of conditional branching and skip patterns in surveys. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When you use survey logic, you allow subsequent questions or sections to be determined based on respondents’ previous answers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s an example of a survey logic jump that defines criteria for displaying a particular follow-up question. In this case, only users who responded with 10 will see the question.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n EXAMPLE: <\/strong>This survey logic defines criteria for displaying a particular follow-up question. In this case, only users who selected 9 or 10 in an NPS survey will see the follow-up question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is how I’ve set it up in Refiner<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus lies the beauty of survey logic<\/strong> – It allows you to easily strike a balance between obtaining highly-valuable feedback and keeping the survey concise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For one, you can ask relevant questions to different user groups. You can find out what Promoters love about your product the most. You can trigger a separate follow-up question to find out where your app fell short and find out what makes Detractors dissatisfied with it, and so on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But in spite of having so many potential questions, your customers will always see just two options – the primary NPS question and a relevant follow-up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There is one other thing we must discuss, though\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n The length of a survey will directly affect its completion rate. There’s plenty of data to prove it. Our internal research<\/a>, for example, proved that completion rates drop with every question you add to the survey. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But….<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are two additional factors that can make your NPS survey seem endless (in a bad way!), even if you included only two questions there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The first factor is the type of question you ask and the amount of effort someone needs to put into replying. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Look at the primary NPS question again. <\/p>\n\n\n It\u2019s so ridiculously easy to answer, right? All you have to do is to select a value, and you\u2019re done. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Next, compare it with this potential follow-up question.<\/p>\n\n\n Now, I admit it – The actual question is ridiculous. No one would have asked that (erm, at least I hope so\u2026), but that\u2019s not the point. The point is that it probably made you think in terms of \u201cWhat the heck?!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s a difficult question to answer, after all. It requires you to think, remember the interface, review it, see if there are any elements that you prefer to others\u2026 In short, it requires work. An awful lot of work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t think anyone would be willing to invest their time into doing it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The same goes for this example. <\/p>\n\n\n Again, no sane person would have the time or desire to review eleven different options, make a decision on them, and provide their reply. <\/p>\n\n\n\n They\u2019d just abandon the survey instead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But note that in either scenario, our survey was only two questions long – The primary NPS question and a follow-up. And yet, it turned out to be too long for anyone to answer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The other factor is the question\u2019s relevance to the survey.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In short, unless your follow-up question directly relates to a.)<\/strong> the topic of the survey and b.)<\/strong> the person\u2019s response to the primary question, they are going to abandon it. It\u2019s that simple. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Luckily, this factor is easy to eliminate with survey logic. Sure, you might need to set up some additional options. But at least in doing so, you\u2019ll reduce the potential of a customer seeing an irrelevant follow-up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n PRO TIP:<\/strong> Run pilot tests – initial runs of your survey that you conduct with small groups of respondents only – to identify any potential issues with your survey length or question clarity.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The easiest way to do it is by creating a “test segment” and delivering your survey to those users initially. This is how the setup looks like in Refiner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the segment created, I can quickly trigger my new survey to that segment only.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n And that\u2019s it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now you know how long your NPS survey should be, how many questions to ask, and how to use survey logic and branching to make the survey more relevant. <\/p>\n\n\n\n All that\u2019s left is to launch your first NPS survey. <\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/refiner.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/NPS-question.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nIt\u2019s easy to be tempted to ask for too much in an NPS survey<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n
![\"NPS](\"https:\/\/refiner.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/NPS-score.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nSo, how many questions to include in an NPS survey?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What is survey logic?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n
![\"Logic](\"https:\/\/refiner.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/logic-jump-NPS.png\")
<\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\nYour survey\u2019s length is affected not only by the number of questions you ask.<\/strong> And it’s a hugely important thing to know.<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Survey](\"https:\/\/refiner.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/image1-1024x799.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n![\"Example](\"https:\/\/refiner.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/bad-example.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n![\"Another](\"https:\/\/refiner.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/bad-example-2.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n![\"survey-audience-segment.\n\"](\"https:\/\/refiner.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/create-user-segment-1024x627.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"survey-target-audience.\n\"](\"https:\/\/refiner.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/target-audience-1.png\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\nGood luck! Planning to create an NPS survey? <\/strong>Check out Refiner<\/strong><\/a>, an advanced NPS survey software. Free trial available.<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n\n