{"id":37217,"date":"2021-05-21T11:04:33","date_gmt":"2021-05-21T11:04:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.proprofs.com\/c\/?p=37217"},"modified":"2025-10-22T11:31:46","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T11:31:46","slug":"convert-detractors-to-promoters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.proprofssurvey.com\/blog\/convert-detractors-to-promoters\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Word for Detractors? Turn Critics into Promoters"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"How<\/p>\n

As an organization, it is natural for you to expect positive feedback from your customers. We all love this bunch of promoter customers who constantly give us high ratings and make repeated purchases with our brands.<\/p>\n

In contrast, why are we skeptical while dealing with the detractors? These groups of customers are the vocal critics of your brand. They give detailed feedback on your product flaws, talk negatively about your brand offerings, and give you a poor rating.<\/p>\n

But, when observed closely, detractors give you more genuine and actionable feedback. Collecting and acting on their critical feedback is the cheapest way to improve your products and services.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Once you address the challenges of your detractor customers, there is every possibility that they would turn out to be your loyal customers in the future.<\/p>\n

In this blog, let\u2019s understand some techniques on \u2018how to turn detractors into promoters.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Who is a Detractor?<\/strong><\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n

A detractor is a customer who is unhappy with your brand offerings. i.e., they are not satisfied with your products or services. This dissatisfaction is visible in the form of negative ratings, poor online reviews, reduced product purchases, canceled subscriptions, and finally going away to your competitors for a better experience.<\/p>\n

There are different ways to identify your detractor customers, as shown below.<\/p>\n

<\/span>How to Identify Your Detractors?<\/strong><\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n

Different customer metrics like customer satisfaction score<\/a><\/strong> and net promoter score (NPS) help you identify your detractor customers, the reasons behind their dissatisfaction with your brand, and much more. You can use a customer satisfaction survey<\/a><\/strong> to measure your customer sentiments at every stage of their journey, like product purchase, customer support call, newsletter subscription, website visit, and so on.<\/p>\n

While designing a customer satisfaction survey, use different question types like a rating scale question or ranking type question to understand their satisfaction levels.<\/p>\n

\"Rate<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s consider a customer satisfaction survey question –<\/p>\n

In the above question, you ask your customer to rate your product or service on a scale of (1-5) with \u20181\u2019 being very poor and \u20185\u2019 is excellent. Customers who rate you \u2018very poor\u2019 and \u2018poor\u2019 are your detractor customers. They are unhappy with your product, and you need to follow up with them immediately. There are high chances of detractors abandoning your brand and switching to your competitors.<\/p>\n

Read More – Best Practices For Designing Customer Satisfaction Surveys<\/a><\/b><\/div>\n

In contrast, an NPS survey<\/a><\/strong> helps you understand the overall satisfaction of your customers. It relies on a single question –\u201cHow likely are you to recommend us {product\/service\/company} to your friends and family?\u201d<\/em><\/strong> to understand your customer loyalty. Your customers rate you on a scale of 0 to 10.  Based on their responses, you can place them in three categories: promoters, passives, and detractors.<\/p>\n

\"Net-Promoter-Score\"<\/p>\n

Here, the NPS detractors give you a low score ranging from 0 to 6. Once you segregate this set of customers from the total respondents, you can quickly build a marketing campaign to target your unhappy customers.<\/p>\n

Modern tools like ProProfs Survey Maker<\/a><\/strong> help you launch NPS surveys to gauge customer satisfaction. It offers powerful reporting and analytics to segment your detractor customers and collects their details for future campaigns. You can easily filter the survey responses based on the customer category, time of survey response, attempt date, customer scores, and more.<\/p>\n

\"ProProfs<\/p>\n

Detractors can block your business growth. Let\u2019s see how –<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/span>How Can Detractors Harm Your Business?<\/strong><\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n

Detractors can cause several problems for your business, like bringing down your profits, spreading negative word of mouth about your brand, and ruining your brand image.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take a deeper look at how detractors can harm your business.<\/p>\n

1. Detractors Bring Down Your Sales and Profits<\/strong><\/b><\/h3>\n

Detractors are unsatisfied with your brand offerings and stop using your products or services after a point in time. Though there may not be a sudden reduction in your sales over time, they stop purchasing your products, bringing down your sales by a large number. A single bad experience is enough for them to leave your brand.<\/p>\n

PwC research shows that 1 in 3 customers leave a brand due to a bad experience. This brings in a huge loss for your business as it is 5-25 times<\/a> more expensive to acquire a new customer.<\/p>\n

2. Creates a Negative Brand Image<\/strong><\/b><\/h3>\n

Research<\/a> shows that 13% of unhappy customers share their experiences with 15 or even more people. On the other hand, 72% of happy customers share their experiences with just six or more people.<\/p>\n

Hence, there is a higher risk of a handful of people harming your brand image than a large number of happy customers boosting it. This handful of frustrated customers spread negative word of mouth, thereby reducing free referral marketing revenue.<\/p>\n

3. Detractors Switch to Your Competitors<\/strong><\/b><\/h3>\n

According to Microsoft research<\/a>, 58% of American consumers choose to switch a company because of poor customer service. Hence, a customer lost is a gain for your competitors. If you do not follow up with your detractors, you won\u2019t even know why they left your company.<\/p>\n

With no valid reasons, creating a strategy to stop detractors from churning becomes a challenging task. Detractors can hit your business hard. So, before they churn, it\u2019s better to respond to detractors and prevent them from leaving.<\/p>\n

But before that, you need to know the amount of time you have before you lose detractors to your competitors.<\/p>\n

How Much Time Do You Have Before You Lose Your Detractor Customers?<\/strong><\/b><\/h3>\n

Detractors walk away from your business due to various reasons such as poor service, inadequate product quality, lack of follow-ups, and many more. They fall into different categories and based on this, you can understand their churn time:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Detractors who specify poor customer service in an NPS follow-up survey need to be immediately taken on a call. These customers may not immediately leave your brand if you sort out their problems quickly and proactively.<\/li>\n
  • Customers who have decided to cancel a product\/service subscription are almost certain to abandon your organization. You cannot convince them by reasoning to continue purchasing your products or services.<\/li>\n
  • There is a category of detractors who are not happy with your present product offerings. They might be evaluating new products and might not have made up their mind to leave your brand. In such a scenario, you can try reasoning out with them and assure them that their features will be implemented in a phased manner.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Can you turn your detractors into promoters? Let\u2019s understand how.<\/strong><\/p>\n

    <\/span>How to Turn Detractors into Promoters<\/strong><\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n