NPS
NPS (Net Promoter Score) measures how willing patients are to recommend the clinic. Patients answer one question about how likely they are to recommend it to friends or family, and the answers give a balance of promoters against detractors.
≈ net promoter score · promoter score · patient loyalty score · nps score
How to measure NPS in a clinic
Patients are asked: ‘How likely are you to recommend our clinic to a friend or family member?’ on a scale from 0 to 10. Those who answer 9 or 10 are promoters, those who answer 0 to 6 are detractors, and 7 or 8 are passives. NPS is the percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors.
Ask by short message or phone call soon after the visit, and add a second question straight away: ‘What should we improve?’ The score tells you whether there is a problem; the comments tell you where. Ask every patient, not just the ones reception chooses.
Mistakes, and what to do with the results
- Measuring only the treatment. Patients judge the whole journey: how quickly their first message was answered, how long they waited in reception, whether the treatment plan and cost were explained clearly. Much of that sits with the front desk.
- Collecting scores and doing nothing. Every detractor should get a call back: listen, apologise where it is due, and fix what can be fixed.
- Ignoring promoters. Satisfied patients can be asked for a review or a referral, one of the cheapest ways to bring in new patients.
- Comparing yourself with other clinics' figures. It is more useful to track your own trend by month and by each member of the front-desk team.
Regular NPS, read together with the comments, is a simple way to see where the front-desk experience falls short of what patients expect.