Proof: Surveying multiple contacts, multiple times per year shows strong correlation with higher customer retention rates.
In fact, those that followed the multiple, multiple rule had:
- 26% higher logo retention rates than those that surveyed multiple contacts but only once per year.
- 85% higher logo retention rates than those that surveyed a single contact, once per year.
🤯
That’s pretty cool, right?
So, why are we seeing this effect?
1. Survey multiple contacts in each account
This is a key difference between B2B and B2C NPS programs. In B2C, you’re always talking to one person—it’s a simple buying process.
In B2B, buying a product or service is complex. There are often multiple departments and seniority levels involved with a purchase.
To retain a customer in such a complex environment, you need to make sure needs are being met at each level.
One example could be if you only surveyed the immediate user of the product. You might think, well they use it, if they’re happy then they’ll keep using it.
But when it comes to budget cutting time, you lose the customer. Why?
Because the CFO didn’t understand the product value or other C-Suite members aren’t even aware this is bringing value. It gets cut for something they understand better.
If you’d surveyed multiple levels of each account you’d be aware of this. Perhaps the C-suite left you a 'passive' score or didn't fill out the survey at all—both signal to you that there’s a weakness in the account relationship.
2. Survey each account multiple times per year
We recommend surveying your accounts 2-4 times per year for the best results.
The reasoning here is quite simple. A lot changes in a year and you want to be on top of your customer sentiment before it’s too late.
This doesn’t mean you should jump straight into surveying customers quarterly.
You’ll likely tank your survey response rates if your customers aren’t used to so many surveys.
Let’s face it: most people have some level of survey fear.
I think almost every survey I’ve filled out has had zero indication that they’ve actually listened to my feedback. That has an impact on all of us.
Like we said in our newsletter last week, relationships are built on respect. Most companies don’t offer the respect we encourage in the B2B space. By default, your contacts probably think their feedback will be ignored.
If you follow our closing the loop best practices, overtime your response rates will increase as your customers understand how valuable their feedback really is.
So, don’t forget to ease your contacts into a higher NPS survey frequency. And, over time their engagement will build.
There are other engagement signals you can listen to in the meantime.
NPS surveys are your customer retention program’s bread and butter. They’re extremely valuable.
But there are other signals you can use to identify the ‘health’ of your customer accounts.
Account Experience customers leverage multiple touchpoints to check-in on customer accounts.
For example, product usage, customer support engagement, sales meetings, and more are activities that, if they aren’t happening, should alert your teams to engage that account again. (Reminder to something we sent out a few weeks ago: ‘absence of signal is a hidden churn indicator’).
Here’s what a sudden drop in activity for an account might look like:
