Using Net Promoter Score To Understand & Improve The Customer Experience
Showtime Analytics would like to introduce you to the first Exhibition specific Net Promoter Score survey software, Showtime Discovery. Fully integrated with Showtime Engage to target or tailor content based on NPS responses, or for use as a standalone tool.
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a universally recognised metric to gauge how people rate your brand based on how likely they are to recommend you. It is used across B2C and B2B businesses globally, usually as part of a bigger survey, and for a B2C experience business like Cinemas it can be one of the most effective ways to connect with your audience and open up a two way conversation with your customers you would not otherwise have.
So how does it work?
NPS scoring itself is very straightforward. It’s a single survey question that asks respondents to rate the likelihood on a scale of 0-10 that they would recommend a company, product, or a service to a friend/colleague. It’s calculated by taking the percentage of Promoters —those who gave you a 9 or 10 out of 10 — and subtracting the percentage of Detractors, who rated you 6 or below. Your Passives —those who scored a 7 or 8 — don’t count in the equation. So a high score means advocates who will promote your business, and a low score means detractors who can harm your reputation.
What does ‘Good’ NPS look like?
Technically, any score above 0 is considered a positive, because it means you have more Promoters than Detractors. However, NPS in isolation is just a number, so we need to look at relativity in the context of how you compare to others in your industry. This provides a much more accurate reflection of your performance because you’re being compared to other people in your space, rather than a scale with no context, and this is where we can begin to derive real insights. Unlike other consumer industries however, cinema does not have a reliable NPS benchmark we can reference (yet). But from the leading circuits we work with who are embracing NPS surveys not just as an operational tool but as a marketing tool as well, we have identified what the key areas are that they are incorporating into their surveys to get feedback on, and to drill into to understand what’s driving those scores.
Understanding the ‘Why?’
In order to run a good cinema experience we all know it should be easy to buy tickets, it should be clean and comfortable in the lobby and screen, the sound and picture should be clear and there should be a friendly face serving you hot popcorn.
There will of course be different gauges you use based on the type of cinema you are, luxury vs multiplex etc, but at the most basic level these are the areas that influence the customer’s experience. These are the areas where your customers will judge you and if you nail these, your NPS will reflect it.
Sample Cinema NPS Survey Questions
To gather meaningful feedback from our customers, we need to ask the right questions—questions that not only measure satisfaction but also provide insights we can actually act on. This survey is a way to give your customer a voice about what your brand, your sites and your staff are doing well and what they need to improve on, so every question in the survey should be intentional, it should provide data that helps us improve the cinema experience, and it should focus on critical aspects that if handled well, will turn your guests into Promoters. Keep it concise and to the point, and always give the opportunity for customers to provide specific feedback that may not fit into a rating scale.
Remember these ‘Do’s and Don'ts’ when creating your survey questions:
Do focus on questions that provide actionable insights
Do use a Rating Scale for the most part, but DO also include one free form question to gather specific feedback
Do ask what they thought of the movie - just because they went to see it doesn’t mean they enjoyed it or will necessarily be interested in other movies like it *
Don’t ask questions you should already know the answer to e.g. what movie did they see, what site did they visit etc. It annoys people to have to take unnecessary steps when completing a survey.
Don’t ask more than 7 or 8 questions or the completion rate will drop off
* While their rating of the movie does not have a direct impact on the NPS, there is definitely an influence. However, the real point of asking this question is that it’s a VERY valuable marketing tool. Knowing whether they liked the movie is a crucial data point to capture, because it allows you to understand the future movies they might be interested in.
Sample Survey Configuration using Showtime Discovery
Implementing NPS Effectively
Capturing the data in the survey is just the beginning—the real impact comes from how we use it. NPS is only as powerful as the action it drives, and doing NPS but not taking action is worse than not doing it at all.
First, monitor your NPS over time. It’s not enough to look at a snapshot. You want to track trends—what’s improving? What’s staying the same? What’s getting worse? Identify patterns that might reveal underlying issues. For instance, if you notice that complaints about cleanliness spike on certain days or at certain sites, that’s a clear signal that immediate action is needed.
Next, analyse both your Promoters and your Detractors.
Your high-scoring customers can tell you what you’re doing well, so dig into what makes them loyal—they’re your best advocates, and understanding their positive experiences helps you replicate that success.
On the flip side, also make sure you’re looking closely at what your Detractors are saying, because this is where you’ll find the biggest opportunities for improvement.
Make sure you are paying particular attention to what your most frequent and highest value customers are saying - they are the ones who provide the most reliable feedback and the ones you want to make sure you hang on to, so this segment should be prioritised.
The most crucial step of all is making sure you take action. This is where many businesses fail - they collect the data but don’t close the loop with the customer, leading to further dissatisfaction. Your customers want to know their feedback matters, and it’s your responsibility to show them that it does. If you receive negative feedback, don’t just acknowledge it — take tangible steps to fix the issue and communicate those changes back to the customer.
Maybe it’s a customer who leaves feedback saying the bathrooms weren’t clean. Make sure you address it for next time and communicate with them directly on the issue, for example ‘Thanks for your feedback—we’ve made improvements to ensure a cleaner experience next time you visit.’ It really does do wonders for customer loyalty.
And Finally, make NPS feedback a regular part of your team’s routine. The cinema chains we see using NPS most effectively treat it as a dynamic process that evolves over time. They meet weekly to review NPS results, compare sites, and then empower the cinema managers to make changes. By tracking the effects of the actions they take, they’re able to refine their strategy, learn what works, and continuously improve their customer experience.
As an Exhibitor, you might not have control over the movies in the slate, but you can control the different touchpoints of the customer journey. If the Studio Marketing team’s job is to get customers to want to see a film in the cinema, NPS is a tool you can use to help get them into your cinema rather than a competitor’s. Use it to build your loyalty, it’s how you stay connected with your audience and make sure that every time they step into one of your cinemas, it’s an experience worth recommending.
Need help getting started with NPS for your cinema? Want to try out our cinema specific survey software?