If you run a SaaS product and want real feedback from your users—not just vanity numbers—NPS surveys can help. But they’re easy to screw up or overthink. This guide walks you step-by-step through setting up NPS surveys in Refiner, a simple but flexible tool for in-app and email surveys. Honest advice included: what’s worth your time, what’s window dressing, and where to keep things dead simple.
Whether your team’s just getting started with NPS or you’re tired of clunky survey tools, this is for you.
What Is NPS, Really?
You probably know this already, but a quick refresher: NPS (Net Promoter Score) asks your users one blunt question—“How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?”—on a scale from 0 to 10. The idea is to gauge loyalty, not just satisfaction.
- 9-10: “Promoters” — fans who’ll spread the word for you.
- 7-8: “Passives” — like you, but meh, not enough to recommend.
- 0-6: “Detractors” — unhappy, at risk, or just unimpressed.
You subtract the percentage of Detractors from Promoters, ignore the Passives, and voilà—NPS.
Reality check: NPS isn’t magic. It won’t tell you why users feel the way they do, and it’s easy to game. But it’s a solid pulse check if you keep it simple and don’t put too much stock in a single number.
Step 1: Get Your Refiner Account Set Up
First things first: you’ll need a Refiner account. If you’re not signed up, do that now. They offer a free trial, so you’re not committing cash up-front.
What you’ll need: - Access to your SaaS product’s codebase (for in-app surveys). - Admin rights for your team’s Refiner workspace. - A list of target users (optional, but helps later).
Heads up: Don’t overthink your first survey. You can tweak and segment later.
Step 2: Decide Where Your NPS Survey Should Live
Refiner offers a few ways to deliver surveys: - In-app (web): Shows the survey right inside your product. Best for active users. - Email: Sends the survey to users’ inboxes. Good for catching folks who don’t log in often. - Mobile SDK: For mobile apps (skip this if you’re web-only).
What works best? - If you have decent product usage, always start with in-app. Higher response rates, less friction. - Use email if your users rarely log in, or you have a big dormant user base.
Pro tip: Don’t blast everyone at once. Start with a subset (like new signups, or users active in the last 30 days). You’ll get cleaner data and avoid annoying your whole customer base.
Step 3: Create Your First NPS Survey
Once you’re logged into Refiner: 1. Go to the “Surveys” tab. 2. Click “Create Survey.” 3. Pick the NPS template. Refiner has a built-in template for this—use it. No need to reinvent the wheel.
Customize your survey: - The main question (“How likely are you to recommend...?”) is standard. Don’t mess with it. - Add a follow-up open-text question like “What’s the main reason for your score?” This is where the real value is. - You can tweak colors and branding. Don’t obsess. As long as it looks like it belongs in your app, you’re fine.
What to ignore: - Don’t add more questions or “bonus” fields. More questions = fewer responses. - Fancy design tweaks rarely move the needle.
Step 4: Target the Right Users
This is where Refiner shines. You can target surveys based on user properties, events, or segments.
Here’s how to keep it simple: - Segment by activity: Start with users who’ve logged in at least 3 times in the last month. You want feedback from folks who actually use your product. - Avoid new signups: Don’t ask for NPS on Day 1—they have no clue yet. Wait until they’ve had a chance to form an opinion (two weeks in is a good starting point). - Set a cooldown: You don’t want to survey the same person every month. Refiner lets you throttle survey frequency—set it to 6 months or even a year.
Pro tip: If you have different user types (e.g., admins vs. end users), target them separately. Their feedback may be wildly different.
Step 5: Set Up Survey Triggers
You need to decide when users will see the NPS survey. In Refiner, you can trigger surveys: - On page load - After an event (e.g., after trying a key feature) - After a certain amount of time in-app
Best practices: - For general NPS, show it after a user’s third or fourth session. Not right at login—wait until they’ve experienced your product. - Don’t pop up the survey while they’re in the middle of something important (like a checkout or a settings change). - If you’re using email, consider sending it a couple of weeks after signup, or after a milestone event (like upgrading).
What to avoid: Don’t show the survey every session. That’s a one-way ticket to user frustration and bad data.
Step 6: Install Refiner’s Tracking Code or SDK
For in-app surveys, you’ll need to add Refiner’s JavaScript snippet to your product. It’s straightforward:
- Grab your tracking code from Refiner.
- Paste it into your app’s HTML, ideally right before the closing
</body>tag.
If you want to send user properties (name, email, plan type), use Refiner’s identify function. This lets you segment and personalize the survey later.
What’s worth your time: - Pass user IDs and emails so you can follow up with detractors. - Send plan type or other useful properties if you want to compare NPS across segments.
What’s not: - Don’t stress about passing every user property under the sun. Start basic; you can always add more later.
Step 7: Preview and Test
Before you go live: - Use Refiner’s preview mode to see how the survey looks. - Test with a few internal accounts first. - Make sure the survey appears only for your intended segment.
Sanity checks: - Does the survey pop up at the right time? - Is the follow-up question clear, or is it prompting spammy answers? - Are you collecting the user data you need?
Catch any weirdness now—otherwise, you’ll be debugging while real users are already seeing the survey.
Step 8: Launch (and Don’t Panic)
Once you’re happy, turn the survey live. Refiner will start collecting responses.
Real talk: - Response rates will be lower than you hope. 10-20% for in-app is normal. Don’t sweat it. - Don’t chase the perfect NPS score. Focus on the written feedback—this is where you’ll find real issues and gems.
Step 9: Review and Act on Feedback
Check your Refiner dashboard regularly. You’ll see: - NPS over time (trends matter more than any one number) - Open-text feedback, sortable by score - Segmentation (e.g., NPS by plan, region, or user type)
How to use feedback: - Read every single comment from detractors. They’ll tell you what’s broken. - Promoters’ comments can help you write better marketing copy. - Share key feedback with your team—don’t just let it sit in a dashboard.
What not to do: - Don’t spam users with follow-up emails unless you’re genuinely trying to help. - Don’t use NPS as your only customer metric. It’s a tool, not a religion.
Step 10: Iterate—But Don’t Overcomplicate
Don’t be tempted to run five different NPS surveys or constantly tinker. You’ll get better results by sticking to a simple setup and reviewing feedback every quarter.
If you want to get fancy later: - Try segmenting by lifecycle stage (new vs. long-term users) - Compare NPS before and after a big feature launch - Use Refiner’s integrations to pipe feedback into Slack, Intercom, or your CRM
But honestly, most teams never need more than a well-timed, in-app NPS survey and a simple way to review feedback.
Quick Recap
- Start with the basics: a single NPS survey, targeted to active users.
- Don’t obsess over colors, frequency, or perfect segmentation.
- Focus on the written feedback—this is where the gold is.
- Iterate slowly. Too many changes = messy data.
That’s it. Keep it simple, keep it honest, and you’ll get more value from NPS than most SaaS teams ever do.