Difference Between Transactional and Relationship NPS

When a brand starts to grow, it also starts moving towards some problems that it has to go through. One such concern is to make your customers loyal as it is vital for their retention and getting new prospects through them. However, if you don't know what's going on inside your customer base, then you can't do anything to solve these issues.

Here comes the role of Net Promoter Score, a great solution to get the customer experience feedback easily.

These surveys help you learn a lot about your brands and their customers. With a simple question like “How likely will you recommend us to your known ones?”, you can get the insights that are enough to take many crucial actions.

Not only this but you can also benchmark yourself with these surveys. But, to run successful customer experience programs that include it, you should know about the types of NPS as well as their placement.

In today's blog, we have compiled all the information you need to know about the two types of NPS surveys and when to use them.

Transactional NPS: Illuminating Customer Interactions

“How likely are you to recommend us to your friends and colleagues based on your recent customer support interaction?” This is what a typical tNPS question looks like. If you have ever seen a question before, then you may think what's the difference? The difference is in the last few words of the question. In the above example, you can see that it has specified the respondent to think about their recent interaction while answering the survey.

Hence, a transactional survey is when the survey is sent after a customer is done interacting with your brand through a transaction like purchasing or through other means like contacting customer support.

It helps you as a brand to know about the different operations and parts of your business. Moreover, it also specifies the pain points of the customer related to a particular business operation like delivery or customer service and even the product/service.

Relationship NPS: Gauging the Overall Customer Journey

This, on the other hand, gives you insights into the overall customer's journey with the brand and their satisfaction. It can also be referred to as the traditional NPS. For example, “How likely are you to recommend us to your friends and colleagues?”. The example here is talking about the customer’s experience without pointing to any recent purchase or other interaction.

But, if sent right after a transaction, will it not work the same as the other one? Yes, it will and that's why the rNPS also differs from tNPS in terms of when to send the survey.

Companies mostly send this survey on a fixed interval of 3 months to a year. Hence, the placing of this survey makes the user think about their overall experience with the brand before answering the survey instead of thinking about any single encounter that can affect you as a brand.

It includes the number of promoters and detractors, customer loyalty, and comparison with the competitors. Hence, you can do a lot with its results for the company's well-being and growth. 

When to Deploy NPS Surveys: Timing is Everything

Transactional Net Promoter Score

For this, there can be multiple instances in a company like when a customer makes a purchase or interacts with your customer support etc. With each of the different touch points with your customer, the time to send the survey differs. Here are some of the common customer touchpoints that every business has and the right time to send the survey. 

For this, there can be multiple instances in a company like when a customer makes a purchase or interacts with your customer support etc. With each of the different touch points with your customer, the time to send the survey differs. Here are some of the common customer touchpoints that every business has and the right time to send the survey. 

1. When a Customer Makes a Purchase

Purchasing a product or service from a business creates an experience for the customer. The reason is that it contains several different steps to purchase a product like scrolling through the store, adding it to the cart, and then checking out. So, it's important to know the experience of the customer at this point by sending the survey immediately. You can also send a feedback survey after the customer receives the product to gauge the delivery experience of the customer. 

2. When a Customer Interacts with Customer Support

Customer support is an integral part of any growth-centric organization. Hence, it's crucial to keep an eye on your customer support like if the queries are being solved or not. With net promoter score, you can get an overview of your customer service operation in terms of customer satisfaction. To do this you will have to send the survey right after the interaction. Moreover, you can also redirect the customer to the survey directly after the call. 

3. When a New Customer Comes Onboard

For many businesses, the interaction with customers is more frequent than in others like the banking sector. So, it's crucial to pay attention to customer satisfaction from the very beginning. Thus, onboarding surveys come into play. An onboarding survey can be sent to the customer right after completing the onboarding process. 

4. After You Introduce a New Product/Service or a Feature

For a new product/service or an update to the existing ones, you should know about the customers’ side. Even when you launch it after many iterations, there can still be problems when launched in the real world. However, sending the survey right after the customer receives the update may not serve the purpose. It would be great if you give your customers sometime like a week or so.