Unlocking the Value of NPS & CSAT:
How to Write Open-Ended Follow up Questions & Analyze with Text Analytics
When it comes to customer feedback, NPS (Net Promoter Score) and CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) surveys are foundational tools. But, their open-ended follow-ups are where the real value lies—offering insights into why customers feel the way they do and what you can do about it.
Leveraging advanced text analytics for open-ended question analysis, you can transform responses into actionable insights, driving impactful business decisions.
In this FAQ, we’ll show you how to design, write, and analyze open-ended questions for your NPS and CSAT follow ups, to maximize the value of your feedback using thematic coding and text analysis.
1. Asking the Right Open-Ended Questions for Richer Insights
Generic follow-ups like “Why did you give that score?” often yield vague, surface-level feedback. If you’re reading this - you probably know what we mean!
To unlock actionable insights, you need more focused, specific questions tailored to the respondent's experience.
Tailored Follow-Up Questions by Segment
While the specific prompts you use should align with your sector and tone - the following examples are good launching off points for your design::
Promoters (Evangelists): Uncover the key drivers of enthusiasm with questions like:
“What do you value most about [product/service]?”
“How does [product/service] help you achieve your goals?”
Detractors and Neutrals: Focus on identifying improvement areas and the changes needed to improve satisfaction:
“What would need to change for you to rate [product/service] a 9 or 10?”
“What specific improvements would enhance your experience?”
These targeted questions not only encourage more detailed responses but also provide data that aligns directly with actionable strategies— making your open-ended survey data (and your NPS overall) more actionable.
Why This Matters
Generic questions often produce vague responses that are harder to act on. In contrast, specific questions give you rich, focused data that will yield thematic insights that can directly inform decisions.
2. Enhancing Open-Ended Feedback with Logical Branching
Pairing specific questions with a logical survey flow ensures a more effective approach to open-ended customer feedback. Logical branching personalizes follow-ups, creating a seamless experience for respondents while delivering rich, segmented data for analysis.
How to Implement Logical Branching for Survey Open-Ends
Start with a Clear Closed Ended Question: Begin with a question like “How likely are you to recommend [product/service] to a friend or colleague?”
Branch Responses by Segment: Tailor open-ended follow-ups based on the respondent's score:
Detractors (0–6): “What specifically went wrong that we could improve in the future?”
Neutrals (7–8): “What’s the most important thing we could change to improve your experience?”
Promoters (9–10): “What do you value most about [product/service]?”
Why Logical Branching Works
This approach aligns open-ended survey questions with the respondent’s experience, improving response rates and generating relevant feedback for you to analyze. When paired with text analytics, it provides nuanced insights into what drives satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
The Relationship Between Logic and Specificity
Logical branching and specific questions go hand in hand. While logic helps segment respondents into groups, focused questions ensure you collect actionable data within each group. Together, they produce insights that are both nuanced and strategically valuable.
3. Best Practices for Open-Ended Question Design
Even with the right logic and segmentation in place, poorly written open-ended questions questions can undermine your efforts. Crafting clear, engaging questions is essential to getting high-quality responses.
Characteristics of Strong Open-Ended Questions
Specific and Clear: Avoid vague prompts like “Do you have any comments?” Instead, ask targeted questions like “What’s one improvement that would enhance your experience?”
Neutral Language: Stay objective to avoid influencing responses. For example, use “What challenges did you face?” instead of “Was this feature difficult to use?”
Single Focus: Avoid asking about multiple topics in one question. For instance, split “What do you like and dislike about [product]?” into separate prompts.
No Double barrelled questions: It’s tempting to ask about few things, What did you like best and why?” for example. But it makes for messy data!
Brevity: Keep questions short and easy to understand to minimize respondent fatigue.
Example: Transforming Weak Open-Ended Questions
Original: “Do you have any additional comments or feedback about your experience?”
Improved: “What’s the most important thing we could change to improve your experience?”
Why It Matters
Well-crafted open-ended questions maximize response quality while minimizing respondent effort, laying the foundation for accurate and actionable analysis.
4. Thematic Coding of Open-Ended NPS Survey Data
Collecting the data is just the first step. The true value lies in analyzing responses to uncover patterns, drivers, and opportunities for growth.
Steps for Open-Ended Question Analysis:
Thematic Coding: Organize responses into themes that support your analysis and understanding. Human-in-the-loop tools like Fathom combine AI + human insight make this process fast and strategically actionable
Focus on Nuance: Avoid over-simplifying insights. For example, a high level theme might be “difficult to use" but the driver for dissatisfaction isn’t the complexity—it’s insufficient training. Make sure the code frame has the nuance and detail needed for actionability.
Segment for Depth: Break down responses by NPS categories (promoters, neutrals, detractors) to tailor strategies for each group.
Avoid These Pitfalls:
Static Code Frames: Fixed structures may miss evolving themes. Use a dynamic approach to capture new insights.
Misaligned Questions: Ensure your follow-ups directly address the strategic goals of your analysis. Don’t expect answers to questions you didn’t ask!
Why Use Advanced Text Analytics
AI text analysis tools like Fathom accelerate this process, delivering precise insights from large datasets with the nuance that manual methods often lack. Human in the loop ensure that the coding is fully supervised and strategically sound.
5. Turning Insights into Action
When designed, written, and analyzed effectively, follow-up responses can fuel impactful strategies. From product development to customer success initiatives, these insights connect directly to business outcomes. High quality thematic coding and text analytics provide a clear path to actionable results, and can be combined with other behavioural data for more advanced analytics.
Tips for Driving Results:
Connect themes to business metrics like retention or upsell opportunities.
Process regularly on a sensible cadence that enables you to track changes over time. Too often and there won’t be change. Too sporadic and it will be difficult to connect change to specific initiatives.
Share findings across teams for collaborative decision-making. Fathom makes it easy to export for reporting or to invite others to your dashboard.
Why Fathom for Open-Ended Feedback Analysis?
Fathom makes analyzing open-ended survey data simple and effective. By combining advanced text analytics with human expertise, our platform delivers nuanced, actionable insights that drive business outcomes.
Ready to see how Fathom can transform your approach to NPS or CSAT open-ended question analysis?
Book a demo today and unlock the full potential of your feedback data.