A School strategy after a Net Promoter Score Survey: Our 5-Step Process to grow your NPS Points

For NPS to mean something, a school needs to calculate the score and act on it. Here are five tips that can help your school grow from its results:

Step 1: Strategic NPS analysis

Export your NPS data into a CSV file. Put all the comments/replies in buckets, and categorize them. Next, analyze the content of these buckets and share it with your entire school. Sharing these results empowers your staff to develop more empathy and consider how they can improve the parent experience individually.

First, start by taking steps to put in effect pressing changes, attempt more support or coaching. That's called the operational aspect of NPS feedback. But let's be honest. You can't possibly meet every parent's wish or suggestion. This is when you need to get a bit more strategic by analyzing remarks, sentiments, and topics.

Some NPS follow-up conversations expose problems that can be easily corrected, while some reveal serious issues that you can't resolve with a bunch of short fixes. Rather, you need to examine and plan.

Usually, schools concentrate on "fixing what's broken" – i.e., offering detractors what they require. Still, that will only help you settle urgent obstacles and won't fix your parents' long term experience.

Based on the breakdown of your NPS results, you should have a better perception of:

- how detractors are risking your enrollment retention,

- what's holding passives from recommending your school,

- and why your promoters love your school.

Step 2: Start with Detractors

Start with detractors. Make a list of all the negative scores and gather this information. Look for common themes or concerns that emerge and define how you'll work to resolve them. You need to figure out what are the 2-3 issues that can be easily fixed. Then act on them immediately.

As for your detractors, concentrate on your "high" detractors (e.g., rating 4-6) and try moving them up at least to the passives. We suggest conducting focus groups and talking to individual parents to determine and address their concerns as soon as you can.

When a parent leaves a weak score, it's a chance to learn more about that parent. Follow up and start a conversation about what went wrong with their experience. You want to understand why they gave you a low rating, prevent future occurrences, and raise your Net Promoter Score over time.

Step 3: Don't overlook the passives

Passives are tricky as they feel indifferent about your school. They can swiftly turn into detractors if left without consideration, or they can grow into your school's advocates if they feel valued. This is the reason why if passives leave a comment on the survey, don't neglect it – give them a call! This way, you can turn the passives into promoters.

Step 4: Get your promoters in the frontline

When you receive a high NPS score, all you want to do is celebrate and move on. Still, these scores signify more than a pat on the back. They can be employed to promote your school. Reach out to these parents, praise them for their review, and discuss if they would share their excellent experiences on social media. Boost engagement by conducting polls or asking questions. Plan a Testimonial Facebook Campaign and let them inspire your online community.

Step 5: Follow up on your scores & make NPS part of your strategy

Handle NPS to align your efforts across teams to make your families content with what you offer. It can help everyone in your organization see how you're doing collectively to keep parents happy and loyal.

NPS results should be communicated to everyone, and everyone should be on board. Holding short, results-driven meetings helps reaffirm everyone's commitment to a pleasant parent experience. Plus, it provides a forum for individuals to discuss improvements and brainstorm solutions.

NPS measurement should be a long-term investment. Changes do not happen overnight. But suppose you keep surveying parents regularly and analyzing their feedback. Then, you bring it to your school and actively work as a team to make things better. In that case, your school will realize the advantages of long-term student retention and commitment.

Parents' loyalty is earned by creating authentic relationships post-survey. If you don't engage with parents based on their sentiment and feedback, your bottom-line metrics will never be impacted. Check with your parents' community after a few months. You can repeat the survey after you resolve some of the main complaints to evaluate results.

Conclusion

NPS is a leading sign of future growth. It offers a more in-depth insight into what your school needs to improve to get higher NPS ratings. While it should not be the only benchmark you can use as a base for your school's enrollment and marketing tactics, it definitely should be a part of it.