Much of the fundamental components of Hively are based on NPS. However, Hively improves upon the NPS rating system in several ways. Below we’ve listed all the ways we see Hively being the same and different from the Net Promoter Score.

1) NPS is not specific enough. The NPS method asks one question “Would you recommend our company?” While the question is great, from our perspective, it’s more important to get feedback on the specific individuals working with your customers, as opposed to getting general feedback on your company as a whole. People don’t interact with ‘companies,’ they interact with people. Getting specific feedback on these individual people and gives you a more accurate measure of your overall customer happiness.

For example, how does the NPS score really help Apple? Apple makes amazing products that people love. So, when asked as a whole “Would you recommend our company?” most people would respond yes. However, if you asked an individual what they thought about the laptop they just bought that had the harddrive crash after 30 days they might give you a very different and specific answer that is much more useful, predictive and actionable.

In this case – Hively differs greatly from NPS. Hively gives you specific feedback on each individual your customers interact with. Through this feedback you are able to more accurately assess the overall customer happiness for your entire team.

2) The common NPS scale has many flaws. The most common NPS measurement is the 11 point scale (0 – 10) where 0 through 6 are detractors, 7 through 8 are passive, and 9 through 10 are promoters. There are several issues with this kind of scale.

The scale needs labels. Labeling scales is imperative. Respondents must have a labeled scale and undertand it in the same way. Otherwise, the scale will produce results from a subjective response bias.

The NPS rating scale tends to be biased and subjective. Statistically speaking, the 0 – 10 NPS scale is extremely biased toward detractors. Among the 3 categories, detractors have the widest range and highest probability (0 – 6), while passives and promoters each have only a range of 2 (7-8 and 9-10 respectively). While providing answer choices to a question or survey it’s best to have equal ranges for each response. This ensures the answers have equal weight and the respondents have an equal chance of picking each point of view.

Many NPS proponents might argue that the bias is by design, but this presents even more issues. Different societies and cultures have different ways of evaluating quantitative metrics and giving feedback. Some are much more “stingy” with their scoring, being much less likely to give higher ratings. Because of this difference and subjectivity, someone who gives a score of 8 might feel they’ve given you an amazing score. However, the NPS will categorize them as passives.

To this point, Hively also differs from NPS. Hively provides a simple rating scale that is labeled and universally understood – Happy face, Satisfied face, Unhappy face. That said, the resulting Hively score is actually somewhat similar to NPS. With Hively users get +1 point for a Happy rating (Promoter), 0 for a Satisfied (Passive) and -1 for an Unhappy rating (Detractor).

3) NPS alone is difficult to act upon not actionable. What if you have a good NPS score? What does that mean? Say, for example, in one industry, ACME, Inc. has the best NPS. What does that really mean? Is it the best because of the technology, the service, the products? AMCE, Inc. is the company; but what product, service or user is actually worth recommending, if any at all? There’s no real way of knowing.

The opposite is also true. What if you had a bad NPS? What do you do? Is it a particular underperforming or unprofitable product or service that should be discontinued? Is it because you need to clean house on your customer support team? Without specifics, you have no way of knowing.

Hively differs from NPS here as well. Because users, team leaders and account administrators are alerted whenever feedback is given, Hively lets you take immediate action on any feedback received. If positive ratings come in use them to encourage and reward your users. If negative feedback is received, discuss the issue and identify a solution with your user. Then, immediately follow up with your customer and resolve their issue. Watch your Unhappy customer become Happy!

4) NPS does not provide real time feedback. Most companies implement the NPS method in the form of surveys that get sent annually, twice per year or quarterly at best. During the times in between you’re potentially loosing customers! Checking in this infrequently with your customers is not enough and is a good way to let small issues turn into larger ones that leads to a high level of customer attrition.

This is one of the most prominent areas where Hively differs from NPS. One of the key values of Hively is that it provides you with real time feedback. You and your users a notified within seconds of getting feedback from a customer.

5) Properly implementing NPS as a method of measuring customer feedback is costly and time consuming. NPS can be such a large task that most companies work with outside consultants to implement and run everything for them. Although working with such consultants will ensure your NPS program is implemented successfully it will also be quite time consuming an very expensive.

Hively again differs from the NPS method here. Hively is the simplest way to gather customer feedback. We’ve seen teams of almost 100 people get set up with Hively in less than 10 minutes. Best of all – compared to what you would pay a consulting firm to implement NPS for you, the price of Hively is a rounding error.

Hopefully this helps highlight the differences and similarities with Hively and the Net Promoter Score. To be clear, we think the NPS method of measuring customer feedback has many great qualities. Further, unlike their first book, “The Ultimate Question,” the authors of “The Ultimate Question 2.0” have taken the focus off the NPS score and the 11 point rating scale and placed more emphasis on the core concept and closed loop feedback process. They’ve even renamed NPS from Net PromoterScore to Net Promoter System. We personally think these changes are great and make Hively even more similar to the NPS method than before.

There are several problems with trying to collect client feedback with surveys:

1. They take a lot of time to set up, send out and measure the results.
2. There is a lot of subjective interpretation that goes into the understanding of the questions you’re asking your clients.
3. You’re asking your clients to fill something out when you want them to – not when it’s convenient to them.
4. Surveys are often generalized to capture feedback about your company, product(s) and/or service(s) as a whole – not individual user performance that can be easily aggregated to an overall team satisfaction rating.
5. Surveys often go out only periodically. A lot can happen in between these periods – good an bad. With periodic surveys, you don’t have the ability to capture these up and down trends. You’re also missing out on good testimonial opportunities and the need to address serious issues quickly.
6. They’re time consuming. Even if you think you’re going to limit the questions, most companies don’t. Regardless, the word ‘survey’ alone typically makes people think they have to give up a decent amount fo their time.
7. Most surveys aren’t anonymous. Anonymity makes some people feel more comfortable in leaving feedback.
8. There is rarely a consistent mechanism with which you are measuring the feedback provided.
9. Often times, the person sending out a survey is largely disconnected from the daily interactions between your staff and your customers.
10. Most people will only go to the trouble to leave you feedback through a survey if they’re unhappy with your service or if you’re offering them some kind of incentive for doing so.
11. Aggregated survey feedback data rarely makes it’s way out to the people the need the data the most – the people actually providing your customer interactions.

So how is Hively better?

1. It’s easy to set up and it’s sent out with every email exchange.
2. The results are immediate and easy to measure.
3. There is nothing subjective about rating someone on the question ‘How did I do?’ with either a happy, satisfied or unhappy face.
4. Your customers can leave feedback when and however often it’s convenient for them.
5. You get specific satisfaction ratings on individuals that are ongoing and in real time. This makes the actionable and gives you the ability to see trends. Each individual user score makes up your entire team score.
6. Users are notified in real time of their feedback ratings.
7. Because customers can rate your users as often as they like, you’re able to capture more feedback, quickly. With Hively, you can quickly spot up and down trends. You also won’t miss out on good testimonial opportunities and the need to address serious issues quickly.
8. Customers can provide ratings with one click. Time consuming? No.
9. Clients have a choice of leaving anonymous or detailed feedback.
10. Hively provides you with a consistent mechanism with which you can measure feedback provided.
11. Hively creates an environment where everyone is being rated by the same standard and creates a culture of providing exceptional customer service.
12. Because it’s easy, convenient and fun, customers will be motivated to leave both good and bad feedback often.

One of the best things about Hively is that it’s for all of your teams – not just the support or just the sales team. Any team from customer service, to account management, to sales, to training can use Hively.

Currently, companies in the following industries are using Hively:

• Advertising and PR
• Business Services – Consulting
• Business Services – Others
• Call/Customer Support Centers
• Construction and Engineering
• Education and Training
• Energy – Utility
• Financial Services – Banking
• Financial Services – Insurance
• Financial Services – Other
• Government / Political
• Healthcare
• Hospitality
• Legal
• Manufacturing – Computers and Electronics
• Manufacturing – Consumer goods
• Manufacturing – Industrial goods
• Market Research
• Media and PR
• Non-profit
• Pharmaceuticals
• Real Estate/Property Management
• Restaurants
• Retail
• Staffing – Clerical
• Staffing – Creative
• Staffing – Executive
• Staffing – Healthcare
• Staffing – Hi Tech
• Staffing – Light Industrial
• Staffing – Legal
• Staffing – Other
• Tech – Software and Web Design
• Tech – IT and Hardware
• Telecommunications
• Transportation services
• Travel and Leisure

Are there any others you would list?

Hively provides ongoing, real time feedback that helps your users and overall team constantly improve the service provided to your customers. Therefore, one of the best things about Hively is that it’s for all of your teams – not just the support or just the sales team.

Currently, business have the following kinds of teams using Hively:

• Staffing specialists
• Recruiters
• Account managers
• Sales representatives
• Customer support
• Billing
• Consulting
• Education and Training
• Reception
• Legal
• Order processing
• Market Research
• Media and PR
• Real Estate/Property Management
• Service/Wait staff
• Hospitality staff
• Healthcare professionals
• Retail
• Executives

Are there any others you would list?

In addition, you’ll experience higher customer engagement. Customer responses will come to you frequently and in real time. You can instantly gather and measure feedback to respond quickly to important issues and improve your customer service.

By measuring customer happiness at every interaction you enable your customers to give you feedback easily, quickly and often. Without a way to measure this, you’re simply guessing at your customer happiness.  Many companies only use periodic and time consuming methods (such as surveys) to assess customer happiness. This method requires customers to leave feedback at the time of your choosing – not theirs. Further, you’re asking them to give up a decent amount of time by filling out a complete survey.

Hively also allows your customers to leave feedback anonymously. This gives your customers the ability to be more honest without risking any perceived damage to their relationship with your company.

Perhaps most importantly, customer feedback goes straight to the people who need it most (your users) in real time. Empowering your team to get real time feedback on their performance only serves to help them constantly improve.

How does Hively improve your customer happiness? That’s a question we’re asking back to you. Leave your comments below.

With Hively you can:

• Stop guessing about your customer happiness
• Improve your customer engagement and retention rate with a simple way to gather ongoing, real time feedback
• Easily measure and compare your team’s customer happiness trends
• Motivate and reward your team with a fun way to improve their individual and overall performance

Hively is perfect for:

• Staffing and recruiting agencies
• Customer support companies
• Educators
• Government employees, political organizations and non-profits
• Tech and software companies
• Insurance companies
• Law firms
• Real estate and property management companies
• Your company! (You knew that was coming)

It’s easy, effective and fun!

• Simple set up
• Nothing to install
• No training required
• Get your whole team up and running in minutes
• Affordable pricing plans including a free plan and free trial