What a “would you recommend us?” score can tell a dance studio
Asking families how likely they are to recommend you, on a scale of 0 to 10, produces a single tidy number. It is useful. It is also easy to over-read. Here is how it is built, and how to read it without fooling yourself.
How the number is built
Each answer falls into one of three groups:
- 9 or 10: promoters. Happy, and likely to say so.
- 7 or 8: passives. Satisfied, not enthusiastic.
- 0 to 6: detractors. Something is wrong.
The score is the share of promoters minus the share of detractors. It runs from −100 to 100. Passives count toward the total but neither add nor subtract. If 60 families answer, 30 of them promoters and 10 detractors, the score is 50% minus 17%: 33.
Notice what that means: a 6 and a 0 count exactly the same, and so do a 9 and a 10. The score is a blunt instrument by design. It tells you the balance, not the detail.
Small numbers mislead
With few answers, chance does most of the work. The same studio, with the same families feeling the same way, could produce a very different score depending on which ten parents happened to reply that week. With ten answers, the plausible range around a score is close to fifty points either side. With 60 answers it narrows to about nineteen; with 400, to about seven.
That is why a sensible rule is to hold back the overall score until about 30 families have answered, and to apply the same rule to every group you compare. Read every individual answer from day one; just do not treat the headline number as news before it can carry the weight.
Read the range, not just the number
Any honest score comes with a range: where the true figure for your studio probably sits. A score of 33 from 60 answers is plausibly anywhere from 14 to 52.
So when the score moves from 33 to 38 between two rounds, ask whether that change is bigger than the range. If it is not, nothing has demonstrably changed. Chasing a five-point wobble wastes time you could spend on the families who told you what is wrong.
Do not compare yourself with other studios
Industry averages are tempting and almost never comparable. Different studios ask at different moments, in different words, of different families. A number about other studios says little about yours. Compare your studio with itself over time, and only when both scores rest on enough answers.
The comments matter more than the number
The score tells you the temperature. The written answers tell you why. “Nobody returned our calls about the recital fee” is something you can fix this week; a score of 33 is not.
The most valuable use of the whole exercise is the short list of families who scored 0 to 6, and what each of them wrote. Call them. That is where retention actually happens.
Where SARA fits
SARA applies all of this automatically: no score until 30 answers, a range shown beside every score, no industry averages, and the families to call at the top of the page. It is in development with Synergy Dance Studio in Austin, Texas, and not yet generally available. See how SARA’s score works.