Why 9 Out of 10 Parents Choose Chess at Three

For over a decade, Chess at Three has been the trusted authority in early childhood chess. We’ve brought tens of thousands of students into the chess community since then, starting at the surprising age of three, and we’ve done it all through the power of storytelling.

Simply put, parents love what we do and how we do it. Our tutors are creative, passionate educators who love children and take pride in making every lesson stimulating and fun. They are doggedly committed to their students’ development, not just as chess players but as people.

If you can’t tell, we’re pretty self-assured! After all, we receive incredible anecdotal feedback from our students and their families every day. But we wanted to get a more accurate sense of our clients’ satisfaction. So recently, we sent out a survey with just one question on it:

On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend Chess at Three to a friend?

You might be wondering — what’s with the single question? Well, we were after a specific data point, namely our net promoter score or “NPS.” NPS is a market research metric used by almost every company to measure customer loyalty and a client base’s overall perception of a brand.

NPS is a fairly simple calculation: Subtract the percentage of 0–6 responses (known as “detractors”), from the percentage of 9–10 responses (known as “promoters”). The responses ranging from 7–8 are known as “passives” and are disregarded in the calculation. The difference between the “promoter” and “detractor” percentages is the NPS, meaning that a high rate of low-scoring responses can potentially put a company’s NPS into negative numbers.

But what qualifies as a “good” NPS? Retently, an online consultancy that helps companies boost their NPS, ranks net promoter scores like this:

70 to 100 = Excellent

30 to 70 = Great

0 to 30 = Good

0 and below = Needs Improvement

The experts at Retently also reported that the 2020 NPS benchmark for the Education and Training industry was 71. That’s high, higher than the industry benchmarks for insurance (70), ecommerce (62), and consulting (51). In fact, the most recent Temkin study compiled the NPS of 342 companies across 20 industries, yielding an even lower average NPS of 26.95.

So how did we do? Chess at Three’s NPS survey logged responses from 569 clients, a very healthy sample size given the scope of our business, and we were absolutely floored by the results…

Our NPS is a whopping 94! Of the 569 respondents, 541 were “promoters” who gave us a score of 9 or 10. Only six — count ‘em, six! — people overall gave us a score between 3 and 6. There were no responses in the 0 to 2 range.

Needless to say, we’re so happy that you’re so happy! But where’s all this love coming from? It all goes back to our educational philosophy: fun, engaging lessons centered around stories and storytelling. Our students progress quickly and retain knowledge because they have fun while learning to master the game of chess. In turn, the better they get, the more fun they have. It’s a positive feedback loop that all revolves around our story-based approach.

Another reason parents are so likely to recommend Chess at Three is that we start our students’ chess journeys at age three. Before we came along, the conventional wisdom within the chess community was that the absolute youngest age a child could start to learn was six, maybe seven. That’s because traditional chess instruction relies on rote memorization of rules and concepts which is typically beyond the preschool set’s cognitive capabilities.

But we chose to meet young learners at their level and bring chess to them in a language they’re already fluent in: character and story. By transforming the chess pieces into a quirky cast of memorable characters, we gave three-year-olds a concrete framework, a cipher through which they could actually make sense of and absorb the abstract rules of chess.

Chess’s wide-ranging benefits for the developing mind are well established, and with Chess at Three, kids can take advantage of those benefits younger than ever. By learning through stories, they make discoveries and experience “AH-HA!” moments right alongside our lovable characters, instead of being simply told how to move or what to do.

Our approach to chess instills self-confidence, sharpens problem-solving skills, and stretches students’ capacity for critical thinking. But most importantly, we have tons of fun! That’s what keeps families coming back to Chess at Three and passing the word along to their friends.

Want to get in on the fun? Head to our website and set up a free in-person or online trial lesson today!

‍