Net promoter score (NPS) is a metric that measures customer loyalty by asking one question: “On a scale of 0–10, how likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?” Subtract the percentage of detractors (0–6) from the percentage of promoters (9–10) and you get your NPS—a number between -100 and 100.
NPS shows you what percentage of customers are loyal to your brand versus unhappy with it. That insight helps you make better decisions about how to (CX).
It remains one of the most widely tracked CX metrics. Many businesses prioritize NPS ahead of other measures like (CSAT), , , and .
What is a net promoter score?
Businesses use the net promoter score to put a number on how likely respondents are to recommend their brand to someone else—a strong signal of future growth. Results come from a question answered on a 0–10 scale.
Use this formula to calculate your NPS:
Percentage of promoters - percentage of detractors = NPS
Try out our NPS calculator
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Interpreting your results
Your respondents fall into one of three categories based on their individual scores:
- Detractors (0–6): your unhappiest customers. Their experiences with your brand need to improve because they’re at risk of turning to competitors. They highlight where you need to make changes.
- Passives (7–8): not your happiest customers, but not your unhappiest either. They can be persuaded in either direction depending on what you do next.
- Promoters (9–10): your most enthusiastic and satisfied customers. They’re willing to recommend your company and purchase from you again. This is your ultimate response goal.
Your NPS itself will range from -100 to 100.
Any score above 0 is considered good—it means you have more loyal enthusiasts than detractors. Anything below 0 indicates a strong need for change.
Industry leaders often score around 70. No business has achieved a score of 100.
How to collect results
The most common channels for running and collecting NPS feedback are email and company websites.
Website surveys let you capture feedback during your . An example would be an exit survey that asks, “On a scale of 0–10, how likely are you to recommend [your brand] to a friend or colleague?”
Email surveys are great for capturing feedback after the fact. Many brands use them to target recipients who recently purchased a product.
There can be a delay between creating and delivering email surveys, which extends the time between a customer’s initial experience and their response. But during that period, your customer has had time to get familiar with your product or service—a chance to learn more about their experiences and views.
Who uses a net promoter score?
Businesses across locations and industries use NPS to measure how likely customers are to recommend their products or services to friends and family.
It’s also become popular to use NPS internally—gauging how likely employees are to recommend the business to other potential hires. With employee referrals accounting for a large share of hires, insight into how to improve the employee experience pays off in recruiting as well as retention.
Why is NPS important?
NPS is a key metric for evaluating your customers’ experience and satisfaction with your business.
It’s worth tracking and measuring for the following reasons:
Determines customer loyalty
Happy customers are loyal customers. A high NPS is a strong indicator of and means you’re doing something right.
You’ll need to pay extra attention to customers who score lower (particularly in the 0–6 range) if you want them to become brand promoters.
NPS identifies where you stand so you can make important changes before it’s too late.
Highlights areas that need improving
Henry Ford once said, “Businesses that grow by development and improvement do not die. But when a business ceases to be creative, when it believes it has reached perfection and needs to do nothing but produce no improvement, no development, it is done.”
NPS highlights what percentage of customers like your brand enough to recommend it and what percentage are in danger of leaving. More importantly, paired with follow-up questions, it surfaces the “why” behind your customers’ answers so you can improve their future experiences and strengthen relationships.
Optimizes your referral marketing
Your NPS can inform changes that encourage more customers to recommend your product or service.
Referred customers tend to convert at significantly higher rates than other channels, so even small improvements in your promoter base compound. Word of mouth cuts both ways, though—unhappy customers typically tell more people about a bad experience than happy customers do about a good one.
Helps you locate and prioritize detractors
A typical like NPS reveals valuable insights and shows employees which areas to focus on to create a better customer experience.
Identifying detractors also gives your team a chance to improve those individuals’ perceptions of your brand by addressing the issues they raise.
What’s the difference between a net promoter score and a customer satisfaction score?
The biggest difference between NPS and CSAT is the length of evaluation. NPS measures long-term customer loyalty and satisfaction, while CSAT focuses on short-term impressions.
Transactional vs. relational NPS programs
A transactional net promoter score program (tNPS) measures a customer’s loyalty and satisfaction after a specific experience—during a purchase, while visiting your website, or right after an interaction with your brand.
A relational net promoter score program (rNPS) gives you a more holistic understanding of respondents. It tells you how they feel about your brand as a whole, rather than how they felt after one incident.
Creating an NPS survey: questions to ask
You can include several types of questions in your NPS survey.
Your main NPS question will look something like this: “On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend [your brand] to a friend or colleague?” But you can also ask open-ended questions. These help you spot risks (promoters becoming detractors) and opportunities (detractors becoming promoters).
In addition to your , you may decide to add the following types of questions:
Demographic questions appear at the very beginning of your survey. These cover your respondent’s age, profession, race, sex, marital status, and more.
Add them if you need more demographic data about your audience or you practice .
The fewer questions, the better. Academic studies report that shorter surveys produce higher response and completion rates than longer ones.
Ways to improve
Questions like “How can we make the experience better?” are among the most helpful for informing improvements to products, services, and customer experience. A question like this would typically be open-ended.
Uncovering the “why?”
Uncover the reason behind your customers’ scores by asking additional questions like, “Why did you give this score?” Again, this would be an .
Permission to follow up
Asking permission to follow up with respondents is good practice. It gets you their email address (if you don’t already have it) and paves the way to close the loop with customers and learn more about their responses.
One way to do this is by thanking them for participating and asking, “Would you be happy for us to reach out and follow up on your responses?”
Follow-up may take the form of a one-to-one interview or a discussion with other customers.
What comes next?
When it’s time to read your NPS results and evaluate your brand’s position in the market, consider these three tips:
1. Use segmentation systems when you’re comfortable
It’s completely normal to hold off on segmenting your customer base while you’re first getting comfortable with NPS. Any insight into your customers and their likelihood of recommending your brand helps you understand what you’re doing right versus wrong.
That said, results can vary dramatically between segments (such as , location, and psychographics). Analyzing by segment gives you a more holistic view of your customer base.
Segmentation can also inform your actions going forward as you adapt your approach to meet the needs of different groups.
2. Context is key: go beyond your follow-up questions
Answers on the go a long way toward understanding your target audience, but open-ended feedback and follow-up questions tell you why your customers feel the way they do.
Asking permission to follow up with respondents gives you a more holistic view of your customers and their responses.
You can follow up with more specific questions, schedule a follow-up session, or run a one-to-one interview. Any of these—or a combination—builds context and maximizes your .
3. Always track and monitor your performance
A benefit of a real-time metric like NPS is that you can check your survey and as often as you like—even daily. You’ll derive insights over time as the score reveals patterns and fluctuations.
Tracking performance over an extended period is crucial for informing future surveys and identifying key opportunities and areas to improve.
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