Carly Buxton, PhD

Yikes. I just got an NPS survey, and I’m cringing. And no, it’s not because I’m an NPS-hater in general, though I definitely think that there are better ways to gauge user satisfaction.

Here’s the email I got:

Let me start with the best practices they DID get right in my book 

1. They sent the email at 10:19a on a Tuesday–the Tuesday following the conclusion of my daughter’s soccer season. Very smart timing. It was sitting in my inbox during a boring Tuesday lunch break, when I’m pretty likely to read it and answer it. It’s also after several weeks of cumulative experience, and follows pretty closely on the heels of our final interaction.
2. I love it that the body of the email is a single question. It doesn’t say Hey we want your opinion, please take our survey here and link you out to oblivion. It leads with a single (likely familiar), close-ended question right there in your inbox. Only if you answer it does it then redirect you to a follow-up question.
3. The follow-up to the NPS question is just one question, an open-ended, large text box, asking for improvements.

Here’s what they got wrong:

1. Visually, this is appalling. It looks a bit like a phone dialpad, but it’s in reverse order. It’s terrible UX practice to code into a twisted or opposite version of something we all subliminally know. 
2. What’s with the labeling location? NPS 0-10 is a linear scale, but for those unfamiliar with how NPS questions work, how will they know which number to select? If using NPS, ensure it is displayed linearly. 
3. The email title: Tuckahoe Family YMCA – Youth Sports Feedback Request. It’s not awful, but it could be better. I love something that alludes to the value you ascribe to your user taking a moment out of their day to participate in a feedback request, such as these suggested by Claude:
   • Help Us Level Up: Share Your Tuckahoe YMCA Youth Sports Experience. 
   • Your Honest Feedback = Better Youth Sports Programs at Tuckahoe YMCA
   • Calling All Sports Parents: Tuckahoe YMCA Wants to Hear From You!
   • Your Chance to Improve Tuckahoe YMCA Youth Sports Programs
   • Your Input Shapes the Future of Youth Sports at Tuckahoe YMCA

All of these are better. You know it’s going to be a survey (so there’s no trickery, which is annoying in an email title despite higher open rates), but it gestures to the value you’re bringing as a user, and one of them even codes into an identity (“Calling All Sports Parents…”) I bet that would have the highest response rate.

4. Asking an NPS question at all. You knew it was coming. I prefer satisfaction questions to NPS for a lot of reasons, but I suppose that’s fodder for another post. Suffice it to say here that I always get more useful insights when I ask: How satisfied were you with XYZ and offer a linear scale of 1-5 stars labeled from Very dissatisfied (1) to Very satisfied (5).

I feel bad for the Tuckahoe Family YMCA and the opportunity they missed here. They’re going to get skewed results and low engagement! Survey design matters, people.