Are your clients happy with you? Are they likely to refer? You need to know.

That’s why we’ve been using the Net Promoter System to survey our clients for many years.

We ask them one question:

On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely is it that you would recommend our firm to a friend or colleague?

We survey every single client at the close of the matter. We’ve done thousands of surveys. We track the results month after month, and we break it down by office and by attorney.

Our surveys are done by phone. We don’t mess with e-mail or automated systems. We call each client one by one and get an answer. If we have trouble reaching any clients, we keep trying until we reach them. In the rare event that we can’t hunt them down, we assume they would have scored us as a 0.

Once we have the scores, we use this system for calculating the results. It’s easy.

Net Promoter Score (NPS) isn’t a perfect predictor of your success. There’s endless debate about whether it’s a reliable indicator. However, it’s simple, easy, and, for us, a good predictor of future revenue.

Avoid getting bogged down in the debate around doing your survey “right.” Do something—anything—that gets you feedback from real live clients. Be certain that’s it’s happening in a regular, systematic way so that every client is providing input.

I consulted for a law firm considering surveying its clients. I suggested the one-question survey. The debate started. The forces of “one question” took on the evil forces of “we need more questions so we know what the clients really think.” The evil forces won, and the result was that no survey was ever agreed on, so the survey idea was killed. That’s a pretty common scenario in law firms: inaction.

NPS isn’t perfect. But it’s simple, and it gets things done. It gets you feedback, and it opens the door to improvement. If you’re not getting client feedback from every single client, it’s time to start.