What kind of experience does your first-time guest have at your church? Does he or she leave being a promoter or a detractor? Would he or she recommend your church to someone else looking for a church home? Would she or he return to your church? Do you know the answers to these questions?
Two-thirds of Fortune 1000 organizations rely on knowing these answers so they can continuously improve the experiences of their guest (customer). Unfortunately, church leaders by and large have not been exposed to these important questions nor been provided the tools to measure and respond to these questions. These Fortune 1000 organizations have come to know and value their Net Promoter Score (NPS). The NPS metric was developed in 2003 by (and is a registered trademark of) Fred Reichheld, Bain & Company and Satmetrix.
Wikipedia explains NPS in this way: The Net Promoter Score is calculated based on responses to a single question: How likely is it that you would recommend our company/product/service to a friend or colleague? The same question is asked about likeliness to return. The scoring for this answer is most often based on a 0 to 10 scale. Those who respond with a score of 9 to 10 are called Promoters, and are considered likely to exhibit value-creating behaviors such as referrals to other potential guests/customers. Those who respond with a score of 0 to 6 are labeled Detractors and they are believed to be less likely to exhibit the value-creating behaviors. Responses of 7 and 8 are labeled Passives and their behavior falls between Promoters and Detractors. The NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of guests/customers who are Detractors from the percentage of guests/customers who are Promoters.
Why is knowing your church’s NPS score important? Whether your first-time guest returns or not to your church (online or onsite), the experience your guest had will result in her/him becoming a Detractor or a Promoter of your church in the community. Churches with a NPS score above zero have a positive buzz about their church in their community by attenders and non-attenders alike. With positive NPS scores from first-time guests, churches can have a network of Promoters who are not attenders! What church wouldn’t want Promoters rather than Distractors?
If you are curious what your NPS score would be from your first-time guests and how you might improve those scores, Impressions Unlimited can help you gather those scores and create strategies for improvement. Check it out: ImpressionsUnlimited.org