Essential survey questions: Willingness to recommend

When a friend asks “do you know a good [plumber / builder / garage / osteopath]?” they are really asking for a recommendation. Your friend trusts your opinion more than a name and number pulled out of the Yellow Pages. The question infers many things – are they trustworthy, reliable, good value, good quality, etc. so when you respond you are subconsciously taking what you know about your friend and what you know about the company/individual(s) in question and considering whether they are a good match.

“Word of mouth” or referrals is how a lot of local trades get most of their work, and following friends’ recommendations (or “likes”) is one of the reasons companies are all over Facebook like a rash… Willingness to Recommend is a very powerful question in surveys, for both employee surveys and customer satisfaction measurement.

The question is best asked towards the end of a survey, almost as a summary question:

How likely would you recommend [Organisation/Service/Product] to friends or family?

The wording of the question can be tweaked – it might be more appropriate to ask about recommendations to peers or colleagues, and the range of answers doesn’t really matter as long as they are meaningful and balanced. My personal preference is

• Definitely Would
• Probably Would
• Might Or Might Not
• Probably Would Not
• Definitely Would Not

but a 7-point or 10-point scale works just as well.

Scores and Key Drivers

Being a ‘key’ question, the result for Willingness to Recommend is often used as a Top-Level or summary score for departments/teams/business units on its own (NetPromoter® is perhaps the best known example of this). For example, departments might be ranked by the Recommend question as a way to identify poor performers/centres of excellence, and track the impact of initiatives over time.

This question is also used to identify the “key drivers” of employee satisfaction and loyalty in an organisation. We examine the Willingness to Recommend against other questions asked – such as satisfaction with the work environment/rewards/development opportunities/etc. to determine which have an impact on the employees (the same can be applied to customer satisfaction surveys).

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