Why NPOs Benefit From Software that Utilizes Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Net Promoter Score or NPS serves to measure customer satisfaction and predict business growth through a one-question survey.
It does this by asking users to rate how likely they would be to recommend a product or service to a friend or colleague on a scale of 0 to 10.
Survey respondents are segmented into three categories:
1. Promoters (9-10)
People who select 9 or 10 are considered “loyal enthusiasts” who will continue using a product and be happy to promote their brand
2. Passives (7-8)
Those that select a 7 or 8 are considered “unenthusiastic customers” that could be more easily swayed by a competing product or service
3. Detractors (0-6)
Selecting a 6 or lower places respondents in the “unhappy customer” category, making them more likely to speak poorly of a company instead of promoting them

Scores can range anywhere from -100 to +100. Any score above zero means that more people are happy with you than not. To calculate NPS, you subtract the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters.
Scores will naturally vary across industries (i.e., the average NPS for grocery stores will be different from that of internet service providers). Online fundraising and supporter management platforms, like GiveGab, fall under the category of “Apps and Software” with the average score being +28 according to industry benchmarks.
Why is it important for nonprofits to use software that utilizes NPS?
- NPS is a way to have your voice heard
- You can influence product decisions with your feedback
- The health of a business depends on effectively adapting to consumer needs, so a platform actively seeking your feedback is more likely to do well
- Your happiness with a product should be a priority to the people behind it
An Inside Look at GiveGab’s NPS
GiveGab started distributing the NPS survey through our live chat feature to our established platform users (those who have signed onto the GiveGab platform over ten times) starting in June of 2017.
We did this to gain a realistic picture of how our users really feel about our product, what we should work on improving, and what’s already working well.
Below is a screenshot of our recent NPS of +79
Although an NPS of +75 is considered excellent, we’re factoring all the positive and negative feedback into our future product decisions to ensure we’re meeting as many needs as we possibly can. For each response, we ask the follow-up question, “What was your reason for providing this score?” so we can see what we’re doing right and what we could improve from the perspective of our customers.
In our never ending quest to drive donor engagement for our partners and nonprofits, the GiveGab team seeks to gain a deeper understanding of the satisfaction of our current customers with our product and with us as a company. NPS data provides a reliable and immediate measure of customer engagement that helps us track the effectiveness of our product development, customer support, and marketing to inform future business decisions and make further improvements.