How Apple uses NPS to test Apple Watch in-store try-on process

Apple is not known for soliciting feedback from its customers. Instead the company has always had a strong belief in its own innovation capabilities. For the Apple Watch shopping experience it seems to be a different ball game: Apple is sending out an NPS survey to people who attended an Apple Watch try-on session.

The in-store try-before-buy part of the Apple Watch customer journey will be an essential part of the buying process. With many different models to choose from, and the additional emotionally driven fashion aspect, the typical consumer will find it difficult to just go online and order one without having tried it on.

How did Apple implement the Net Promoter Score survey format, and how will it help them to improve both the Apple Watch customer journey and the conversion to sales?

1. The ultimate question

This is excellent. The question is specific and focusses on the core of what Apple wants to measure. The target is to track whether the try-on sessions motivate consumers to encourage friends and family to do the same.

2. Clarify with open-ended feedback

A few observations and improvement suggestions:

• This question is neutral and aimed at soliciting spontaneous feedback without “leading the witness” by suggesting topics or sentiment. In my opinion, Apple could have done a bit better here, by asking “what” instead of “is there anything”. Now there is a high risk that people will just answer “no”.
• The progress indicator on top of the page keeps the respondent well aware of the progress in a discreet manner.
• The text under the text box clearly shows that this survey will not be too long.

3. Measuring the online experience and the intent to buy

Here Apple combines two things that might not necessarily be related. I think that it would have been better to split this question into two parts.

First, Apple asks for a CSAT score for the online experience of booking the appointment. However, they do this without asking for the reason for the score. Apple will have no clue why consumers gave the score. A missed opportunity for deeper insights!

The second part, asking for what the consumer comes away with after the try-on session, is of course a critical piece of insight. This will tell Apple how effective the session was in terms of sales conversion. It will also tell Apple whether these sessions add value to the entire Apple Watch customer journey.

4. Some basic metadata questions

Asking this last is a good idea, since the respondent has been allowed to focus fully on giving the most valuable feedback first. Once you get this far, you might as well fill this out too.

Perhaps Apple could have asked as well which Apple Watch model the respondent is most interested in after having gone through the try-on session. This would give some insight into how well the session has helped to sell the product.

5. Thank you and call to action

Finishing off with an upbeat “thank you” and a call to action to explore in more detail the services available at the Apple Store (I am not sure how effective this will be considering the person just came from the store).

The “why” is not in the score

This example demonstrates how well NPS methodology met Apple’s requirements. It is important to know the score but it even more important to know why a score was given. The “why” is hidden in the open-ended feedback.