NPS and Growing the Church

As we do experiments, we are always looking for ways to measure our outcomes. One of the neat ways we have found to measure (and one which might have more significant implications in our Church) is the Net Promoter Score or NPS.

To find out a score, we ask our participants a simple question: On a scale of zero to 10, with 10 being highest, what's the likelihood that you would recommend (the experiment or ministry goes here) to a friend or colleague?

The grade given, on a scale of one to 10, falls into one of three groups. If a person gives a score of nine or a 10, they are promoters. If they score the work as a seven or an eight, they are passives. You don't know if they are leaning toward loving it, leaving it, or they don't care. And, a score of a six or lower means they are a detractor. To determine the NPS score, we take the percentage of promoters (9s and 10s) and subtract the percentage of detractors (6s and lower). That's the NPS.

We recently asked this question to our Alexa skill experiment users. Fifty-eight people responded to our quick survey, with mostly positive feedback. In the end, our score was 81. In and of itself that's impressive. But then we realized that we had a way of proving it.

We launched the Alexa Skill in February. From the launch to the end of June, we had 561 skill activations. During the 30 day survey period, we had 381 new people activate the Alexa skill. Since we were not doing any advertising or marketing for the skill during that time, the only way we could have gained new people was, you guessed it, from current users "promoting" the skill to their friends and family.

All of a sudden, that 81 NPS is much more real.

This got me thinking, since the best method to evangelize is for people to invite their friends and family, what might it look like if churches started to measure their NPS? Could it be as simple as adding the question to the weekly church email? Or even doing a dedicated monthly email just asking that simple, 10-second question:

On a scale of zero to 10, with 10 being highest, what's the likelihood that you would recommend "St. John's" to a friend or colleague?

In the business world, the NPS is about driving improvements. So, why not in churches? You could ask those who give a score of 8 or below: "What would it take to raise our score just by one point?" And it also is building and deepening the relationship with those who respond. 

As a side benefit, asking the question plants the seed that it would be nice if people recommended your church to their friends and family. You are planting the seed for them to become -- gasp -- evangelists!

​Let me know what you think.