Customer feedback | Frequently Asked Questions

Find answers and general information quickly about the customer feedback tool in HubSpot.

Customer loyalty surveys (NPS)

What is NPS?

NPS surveys, also called customer loyalty surveys, are focused on better understanding your customer’s relationship with your brand and product overall, not just their experience with one particular transaction. The 11-point scale allows for tracking more granular changes in responses over time. 

An NPS score is calculated by subtracting the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters.

How often should I send an NPS survey?

You should send NPS to your customers at regular intervals, typically every quarter, every 6 months, or every 12 months. You should typically trigger this after your customers have used your product for some time so they can provide meaningful feedback.

Can I create multiple NPS surveys?

Yes, you can create multiple NPS surveys in your account.

Can I customize the NPS question?

No, NPS is an industry standard. You can only customize the company name.

What response rate can I expect?

Depending on your industry and how often you communicate with your customers, you could see anywhere from a 5 - 15% response rate. 

Can I send reminders to people who don’t respond?

Yes, you can send an automatic reminder email a defined amount of time after the original survey was sent.

Can I create workflows based on responses?

Yes, you can use the NPS activity properties in workflows to trigger your workflow based on contacts' NPS responses. The properties include:

• Last NPS survey comment
• Last NPS survey date
• Last NPS survey rating

Alternatively, to set up actions based on a specific survey you can use the Automation tab in the survey editor.

Can I store responses as contact properties?

Yes, this is automatically done for you. All submissions are stored in the Last NPS survey rating property in HubSpot. There are also default feedback submission properties you can use to segment contacts and create reports.

Customer support surveys (CES)

What is CES (Customer Effort Score)?

CES is calculated by dividing the sum of all individual customer effort scores by the total number of respondents. CES surveys are often sent shortly after ticket resolution. 

Data shows that CES outperforms both the NPS and the Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) at predicting future spending behavior. It predicts which customers are likely to defect, with 81% of customers reporting high effort saying they would speak negatively about the company to others. It’s also highly specific and actionable, allowing you to pinpoint weaknesses in different interactions throughout your business.

Can I add more questions?

No. Customer feedback aligns the way businesses craft the customer experience with the way modern consumers prefer to engage with those businesses. On average, for every additional question you add to a survey, you decrease your overall response rate by 30 – 50%. Keep it short and simple for both businesses and end-customers.

General feedback survey FAQs

Can I unpublish an active survey?

Yes. To unpublish a survey:

• In your HubSpot account, navigate to Automations > Surveys.
• Hover over the survey, then click the Actions dropdown menu and select Unpublish.

Will this tool support non-English languages?

To send surveys in non-English languages you will need to create a new survey for each language and insert the translated text in the fields. 

Can I send survey emails from my own domain?

Yes, if you have connected your email sending domain, your survey emails will be sent on your domain.

When will contacts see my web delivery surveys?

When someone visits your website, HubSpot determines if they are one of your known contacts based on their browser cookies. If the visitor is a known contact who meets the segmentation criteria you've set for your web delivery survey, the survey will appear. If a contact visits your website, but does not have a cookie to link them to their contact record, they will not be shown your survey.

Do contacts need to be set as marketing contacts to receive a survey via email? 

No, contacts do not need to be set as marketing to receive an email survey. 

Can I change the subscription type for feedback survey emails?

No, you can not change the subscription type for survey emails. By default, contacts who receive email surveys will have the subscription type Customer Service Communication.

Can I use a feedback survey on a single-page app?

No, single-page apps are not currently supported by HubSpot feedback surveys. In most single-page apps, the HTML is not loaded when navigating to another page. As a result, a survey form would not be submitted unless the visitor reloads the entire site.

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