Creating and sending a Net Promoter Score℠ (NPS) survey to measure customer loyalty

Tip: Zendesk is removing Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey functionality on April 30, 2023. For more information, see Announcing the removal of Net Promoter Score (NPS).

Tip: NPS surveys are part of an add-on that also includes customer lists.

Net Promoter Score℠ (NPS®) is an industry standard for measuring customer loyalty. That is, how likely your customers are to recommend your business.

You can send an NPS survey, which includes one simple question, to target customers. An overall score is derived from the survey results. For information about viewing your survey results, see Analyzing your NPS survey results.

You must be an administrator to send and view NPS surveys. Agents in a custom role with permission to view reports cannot view NPS results. For an overview of NPS surveys, see About Net Promoter Scores.

If you find you're having trouble with your NPS survey, see Troubleshooting your Net Promoter Score℠ survey for help.

This article contains the following sections:

• Creating an NPS survey
• Customizing your survey
• Testing your survey
• Inviting more recipients to a live NPS survey
• Waiting for results
• Closing an NPS survey

**Net Promoter, NPS, and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks, and Net Promoter Score and Net Promoter System are service marks, of Bain & Company, Inc., Satmetrix Systems, Inc. and Fred Reichheld.

Creating an NPS survey

You can send one NPS survey at a time. A live survey remains open to collect feedback until you manually close it. You can have only one live survey at a time. You must close a live survey, if there is one, before you can send a new survey.

Note: For best practices for creating and sending your NPS survey, see The most effective way to send a Net Promoter Score® survey.

Creating an NPS survey has two main sections:

• Define Recipients You can upload a CSV file or select a customer list to survey. The CSV file must be saved in CSV UTF-8 format, otherwise, letters with accents will break the formatting of the file. You can invite a maximum number of 10,000 customers. You can invite more customers to the survey later, after you send it. You should either send the survey to all customers or to a random sample (using a tool such as the one from Random.org). For statistically significant results, send the NPS survey to at least 1,700 customers (see Survey the right number of customers).

  If you choose a customer list, the survey will be sent to a sample of users in the customer list, based on your total number of users. Users who have received a survey in the last 90 days cannot receive an NPS survey, and will be automatically filtered out of your CSV file or customer list.

• Customize Survey You can review the email that users receive containing the survey and you can review the confirmation page users see after clicking a rating in the email. You can also edit the question, add your logo, and select a custom color. Be sure to send yourself a test email with the survey to see how it looks.

You can send an NPS survey in multiple languages (see Sending the NPS survey in the user's language).

To create an NPS survey

1. Click the Reporting icon () in the sidebar, then click the Net Promoter Score tab.
2. Click New survey.

   

   If you have not sent an NPS survey before, look for Send new survey instead.

   

   Note: If you currently have a live survey open, you must close that survey before you can send a new survey (see Closing an NPS survey).
3. At the top of the page, click the survey name and enter the title you want to give to the survey.
4. In the Define Recipients section, use one of the two options to select your survey recipients.
   Note: Alternatively, you can use the API to automatically send surveys after an event occurs in your product or service. You'll need the unique survey ID to do so. See our NPS API documentation.

   You should send the survey to all customers or to a randomized sample of customers. The maximum number of customers you can invite to the survey to at one time is 10,000. You can invite more users later, after you send the survey.

   Ineligible users will be automatically filtered out. Ineligible users include agents, users who received a survey in the last three months, and users who marked a previous survey as spam or unsubscribed.

   

   • Select a customer list. You can select an existing customer list. To create a customer list, see Creating and using customer lists. Surveys will be sent to a sample of users in the customer list, not all users in the list. The survey will be sent in the language on each user's profile in Zendesk Support.
   • Upload a file. You can upload a CSV or an Excel file. Download the template to ensure your file is formatted properly. The file cannot contain spaces and must be delimited correctly. You can include users who are not in Zendesk Support, and they will be added as new users. You can specify the language of your users in the file, and the survey will be sent in their language. If a user already exists in Zendesk, the user's name on their user profile will not be updated if it differs from the user's name in the NPS CSV upload.
5. Customize your survey as needed.
6. Send a test survey if needed.
7. When you're done, click Start survey.

Surveys are sent after the target list is processed and filtered. This might take a few minutes to several hours (up to 24 hours for a large list). You'll receive an email when surveys are sent.

The live survey remains open until you manually close it (see Closing an NPS survey). You can add users to the live survey (see Inviting more recipients to a live NPS survey).

Surveys are sent from your default support address (see Setting a default support address) unless you are using a custom email domain (see Sending your survey from a custom email domain).

Surveys are sent in the default language, unless the survey is sent to an existing user who has another language set on their profile or you specify the user's language in the CSV file (seeSending the NPS survey in the user's language).

Customizing your survey

For a comprehensive list of customizable elements, see Customizing your NPS survey. You can customize both the survey email and confirmation panes.

To customize the survey email

1. In the Customize Survey section of the survey page, click Email.
2. Edit the elements as needed:
   • Click the From email address to select the brand you want to use.
   • Click the Subject line to edit it.
   • Click Add logo file to browse for and upload a logo image; or, drag an image into the logo upload area.
   • Click the Intro text (which defaults to "How did we do?") to edit it.

     You can use dynamic content in this question. If you are sending your NPS survey in multiple languages, insert a dynamic content placeholder here so the question appears in the correct language for your users (see Providing multiple language support with dynamic content).

   • Click the Organization name in the survey box to edit it.
   • Click the Audience type in the survey box to select from available options.
   • Click the Highlight color picker to select a color for the rating numbers, and the Send feedback button on the confirmation page.

To customize the confirmation page

1. At the top of the Customize Survey section, click Confirmation Page to review the confirmation page users see after they select a rating in the survey.
2. Edit the elements as needed:
   • Click Add logo file to browse for and upload a logo image; or, drag an image into the logo upload area.
   • Click the Follow-up question (which defaults to "Will you share why?") to edit it.

     You can use dynamic content in this question. If you are sending your NPS survey in multiple languages, insert a dynamic content placeholder here so the question appears in the correct language for your users (see Providing multiple language support with dynamic content).

Sending your survey from a custom email domain

NPS surveys are delivered by a third-party vendor, Mandrill.

If your default support address is a Zendesk Support email address (see Using variations of your Zendesk Support email address for support requests), your NPS surveys will be sent from that address.

If your default support address is your own custom email domain (see Forwarding incoming email from your existing email address to Zendesk Support and Setting up SPF for Zendesk to send email on behalf of you email domain), your NPS surveys will be sent from a Mandrill email domain. You can take steps to send your NPS surveys from your custom email domain.

To complete the set up, see How do I add DNS records for my sending domains on the Mandrill website.

Sending your survey in the user's language

You can send the NPS survey in any of the Zendesk supported languages. See Language codes for Zendesk supported languages for a complete list.

Default language is set by going to Admin Center > Account > Appearance > Localization.

The language for the survey is determined as follows:

• If you send a survey to a customer who is an existing user, the survey will be sent in the language set on the customer's user profile.
• If you send a survey to a customer who is not an existing user, you can specify the language code in a CSV file, and the survey will be sent in that language. Languages you include in the file must be enabled (see Adding multiple languages to Zendesk Support).
• If you send a survey to a customer who is not an existing user, and you do not specify the language code for the customer, the survey will be sent in your default language.

Like the Intro text, you can use a dynamic content placeholder so the survey appears in the correct language for your users (see Providing multiple language support with dynamic content).

Testing your survey

When you're done creating and customizing the survey email and confirmation page, you can send a test survey to up to 10 recipients. The results captured from this test are not included in your survey score.

To send a test survey

1. At the top of the survey page, click Test survey.
2. Enter up to 10 recipients and an optional message for the test email.
3. Click Send.

Inviting more recipients to participate in a survey

You can invite more users to a live survey campaign at any time. You might want to invite more users to an existing, live survey so you can consolidate all their NPS responses into one data set for analysis. 

When you start a survey campaign, you can invite a maximum number of 10,000 customers. You can invite more customers to the survey later, after you send it. You can send as many invitations as you want, but each invite has a limit of 10,000 recipients.

To invite more users to a live an NPS survey

1. Click the Reporting icon () in the sidebar, then click the Net Promoter Score tab.
2. Click Invite more.

   

3. Select a customer list or upload a CSV or an Excel file.

   Remember, the maximum number of customers you can invite to a live survey at one time is 10,000.

   

4. Click Send survey.

   You can send as many invitations as you want, but each time you invite users, there is a limit of 10,000 recipients.

Waiting for results

You can check for results at any time after you send the survey. Remember, surveys are not sent immediately after you finish creating the survey. It might take several hours to process the target customers list and send the surveys.

After you send an NPS survey, you can expect some email updates, including:

• Email confirmation that surveys have been sent to customers.
• Email reminder one week after surveys are sent so that you can check results.
• Email notification when your NPS survey closes, so that you can see the final score and plan your next survey.

For information about checking for results and next steps, see Analyzing your NPS survey results.

Closing an NPS survey

You can have only one live survey at a time. A survey remains open to collect feedback until you manually close it. You must close a live survey, if there is one, before you can send a new survey.

To close your current, live NPS survey

1. Click the Reporting icon () in the sidebar, then click the Net Promoter Score tab.
2. Click Close survey.

   

3. Click Close survey to confirm that you want to close the survey.

   Your survey is closed and cannot be reopened.