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NPS
Trustmary team
Last edited: 27.09.2022
What if I told you you could unlock outstanding customer service, increase customer loyalty and even boost revenue with one simple question – would you believe me?
Welcome to the world of Net Promoter Scores (NPS).
You have seen those one-question surveys pop up when you’re browsing a website, or in your emails.
It asks how likely you are to recommend a company, product or service, and provide a scale of 0-10 for your response.
You may even already use these to get a gauge of how much your customers like what you’re offering.
But NPS is so much more than just a simple question.
It measures customer experience, and can also put you on the path to business growth by identifying pain points in your customer experience, what your customers love about you, and referral and upsell opportunities.
We’ll be taking you through the 11 key things you need to know about Net Promoter Scores
Let’s get started.
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a closed-loop feedback system used to provide insights into key areas of customer loyalty such as:
Developed by Fred Reichheld of Bain & Company, in collaboration with Satmetrix Systems, NPS was quickly touted as ‘The One Number You Need to Grow’, after its introduction in 2003.
This new metric said goodbye to lengthy customer satisfaction surveys and focusing on one key loyalty-based question:
“How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?”
Rated on a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being most likely), the responses provided can be sorted into three main categories: Promoters, Passives, Detractors.
NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters, and reported with a number between -100 and +100.
NPS tells you what your customers feel about your business.
Adding a qualitative question alongside the Net Promoter Score question allows you to dig into why people feel a certain way.
Traditionally, the open-ended questions would have asked why a particular score was given.
See how customers are asked to explain their scores in the example below.
Increasingly, companies are using personalized follow-up questions in response to a particular score given.
The table below shows the different types of questions asked of different respondents.
The responses from open-ended questions are critical in helping identify pain points, but can also be a great source of social proof.
Positive feedback from Promoters can be turned into testimonials for your website or social channels, for example.
Two decades on from its introduction and Net Promoter Score (NPS) is still one of the most important ways to measure loyalty.
We’ve outlined 4 reasons why NPS is still a core measurement of customer experience:
The higher the score, the happier your customers are.
Promoters, those enthusiastic customers who will recommend your business to their friend or colleague, indicate how loyal customers are at that moment in time.
“We will focus our organization on what we call Net Promoter score, which goes much beyond the pure customer satisfaction index,” said René Obermann, former CEO of T-Mobile International.
What’s more, the simplicity of the survey allows you to run the research on a regular basis so that you can benchmark loyalty and start tracking the trends.
As a single question survey, it’s more likely to get a higher response rate than the longer surveys. It can also be analyzed and reported on faster, delivering insights to those who need them.
Trustmary’s NPS surveys’ completion rate normally is the same as the open rate. In other words, NPS survey is so easy to answer that practically no-one leaves it unfinished once they open it.
“Too many of today’s satisfaction survey processes yield complex information that’s months out of date by the time it reaches frontline managers.” Fred Reichheld, Bain & Company.
NPS survey responses can pinpoint when and where in the customer journey loyalty is at its highest, identify those buyers who are prime for upselling or repeat purchases, and even help predict customer churn.
In fact, research from Temkin showed that Promoters are 4.2 times more likely to buy again, 5.6 times more likely to forgive a company after a mistake and 7.2 times more likely to try a new offering compared with the Detractors.
Former CEO of Intuit, Steve Bennett, once said, “So what’s driving growth?… [W]e measure the customer experience using a system called Net Promoter. The higher the score, the more customers are delighted with the product and service experience and would recommend it to a friend.”
It’s simplicity also means it can be used in different parts of your customer journey. In fact, Jason Lemkin, SaaStr, explains how NPS can help to encourage cross-functional working by giving every team the same goal to work towards:
“It’s the voice of the customer. If you have a high NPS score, you’re doing something right here, no matter the feature gaps or other issues. If it’s low – take action, my friends.”
The simplicity is one reason that NPS attracts criticism.
The Net Promoter Score system can help you identify your happy customers but alone, it provides very little information about what to do next.
Step Hyken, CX expert and author of “The Convenience Revolution”, said: “Knowing the number is one thing. Knowing the “why” behind the number and how to use it to gain a competitive advantage is another”.
Once seen as the only business growth metric needed and the surest way to measure loyalty, most companies these days use other metrics alongside NPS to get the best overview of customer experience and company performance.
A Net Promoter Score (NPS) is calculated by subtracting the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters. This will give you a score between -100 (no Promoters) and +100 (no Detractors)
The more customers that rank your company as 9 or 10, the better your customer experience is.
Add up the number of responses provided for each score.
Add up the total number of responses provided for each group.
of all responses
Subtract the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters.
This is your NPS
For example, Alpha Inc has 42% Promoters, 39% Passives, 19% Detractors, creating a score of +23.
This a great score for Alpha Inc showing that those buyers who are loyal outnumber those who are not.
But fast forward a few months and a few key business changes and Alpha’s Promoters drop to 32%, Passives increase to 42% and Detractors increase to 26%.
While on the surface these may not seem like huge percentage leaps, the resulting NPS score drops to +6 – a sure sign that change is needed.
Interestingly though, we can see that Alpha Inc has two courses of action
As we’ve already mentioned, the simplicity of Net Promoter Score (NPS) means that it can be used as a key measure of customer experience in different ways.
Many businesses send out NPS surveys to their whole customer base at regular intervals, on a monthly or quarterly basis for example, to measure their sentiment and overall customer loyalty.
This example shows how Trustmary measures customer loyalty over time to build a progressing picture of the company’s reputation.
“By regularly canvassing customer’s feedback, businesses create a benchmark against which they can measure their progress,” according to Arttu Haho, CMO of Trustmary. “The value from the data comes from the trend, rather than each score.”
NPS also measures customer feedback after specific interactions with your brand.
For example, a company may canvas new customers after they’ve made their first purchase, or look for real-time feedback after launching a new service.
Here’s an example of how it can be used to capture the customer’s experience after a support call:
The event-based nature of these activities means that the NPS system can often be automated, and the survey triggered by a specific action.
Many companies will use both relationship and transactional NPS surveys when measuring customer loyalty generally as well as specific experiences along the customer journey.
Discover our Net Promoter Score Templates below.
The simplicity of the Net Promoter system makes it easy to distribute to customers via your existing communication channels.
Most companies will use a combination of the following methods to capture customer feedback.
Email is a simple way to collect customer feedback for both relationship and transactional NPS. Usually a link to the net promoter score question is provided in the email, sometimes with follow up questions.
Survey emails can be easily automated to be triggered after key interactions with your company.
Here’s an example of how Trustmary uses email to ask transactional NPS questions:
While email is a great channel for NPS systems, one of its major drawbacks is that responses rely on open rates. A low email open rate results in poor responses to the survey.
Mobile has transformed customer behavior. According to Gartner, SMS has a 98% open rate, compared to average email open rates of 20%.
The simplicity of NPS lends itself to the on-the-go nature of SMS making it a popular way to collect feedback.
Here’s how Hem & Stitch use SMS to capture customer feedback:
Your website or app will often feature prominently in your customer journey which is why it’s a great place for an NPS survey.
There are two ways to collect NPS responses via websites and apps: pop-ups and feedback tabs.
A pop up does exactly that – it pops up as an overlay on screen when triggered at a specific point in the customer journey. This may be after they’ve visited a page 5 times, or after they’ve checked out.
Here’s how pop ups can be used to gauge satisfaction:
A feedback tab sits to the side of the screen and can be expanded by the user to provide feedback. It’s more subtle than a pop up feature, but could also be more easily ignored.
Here’s an example of a feedback tab:
Read more about how to collect website NPS effectively
The rise of digital applications means that nowadays most NPS data is collected online or via mobile, however customer sentiment can also be measured in person.
For example, companies may request that customer service representatives ask the NPS question at the end of a support call.
Alternatively, a chain of shoe shops may have five-point NPS displays at tills that allow shoppers to register their level of satisfaction for that particular branch.
In-person collection, however, has been criticised for creating interviewer bias in the responses.
Your Net Promoter Score can guide business decision making and growth, but how do you analyze this crucial customer experience metric?
Here are 4 tips to help you analyze your NPS:
Segmenting your data can help you understand which segment has more Promoters or Detractors.
The insights from segmenting your data can help you make better decisions based on your target group, amplify best practice and build more personalized experiences.
For example, by segmenting its NPS calculation, Beta Enterprises can see that clients from the financial services are the strongest brand evangelists and can then explore the key drivers for positive word of mouth in financial services. By effectively segmenting your data you get more than just an NPS score: You get actual insights into your customer loaylty.
A ‘good’ NPS varies from industry to industry, and even from company to company. It can even be affected by the geographical location.
Generally speaking, keeping your score over 0 is a healthy place to be. A negative NPS is a sign of trouble.
A good NPS score is all relative. The following comparisons can help you understand how well you are performing.
Which brings us on to…
Tracking results from NPS and searching for trends over time builds a good picture of how your company is progressing from one quarter to the next.
Systematic customer feedback also identifies if customers respond well to new products or features.
Continuous improvement to your NPS score indicates progress in customer experience and satisfaction, as well as the potential for business growth.
Find out more about what a good NPS really looks like.
You have your NPS calculation, you’ve analyzed the results. Let’s explore the ways in which you can maximise the impact of your NPS through good decision-making.
NPS is a proven metric for customer experience but too often moving the needle on the NPS score becomes the goal.
As per Goodhart’s law, when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. You start missing the correlation between what’s going on in your business and your score, and taint the whole program with bias.
“If your business is only focused on increasing Promoters, you’re missing valuable feedback from your Detractors,” said Arttu Haho, CEO of Trustmary US.
In other words, don’t forget to put some effort into making your unenthusiastic customers turn into the most enthusiastic customers ever. It’ll significantly help reduce negative word of mouth, too.
Bain & Company conducted a study of competitors, comparing NPS scores to organic growth: “On average, an industry’s Net Promoter leader outgrew its competitors by a factor greater than two times.”
Customer Promoters are more likely to have:
A good NPS is an indicator of the potential for organic growth. Understand the factors that contribute to your score and work on them.
If you’re using NPS in conjunction with other metrics, such as average purchase value or upsell ratio, you’ll soon be able to see the impact of your actions.
Your Detractors are your biggest asset. No, really.
Let’s think of NPS systems like focus groups. It’s always nice to hear how well you are doing, but the feedback you really need is what isn’t going so well, and where there is room for improvement.
Understanding what your Detractors are thinking and feeling allows you to act. And time is really of the essence here.
“If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell 6 friends,” according to Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, “If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends.”
Similarly, your customer success team can really benefit from knowing who give your service a score less than 9 or 10. It’ll help you fix their issues and turn them from unhappy customers to happy advocates!
Don’t forget to share the changes you’ve made based on their feedback. This is known as closing the loop.
93% of purchasers read online reviews before buying a product.
Don’t forget to approach your Promoters after you’ve conducted your NPS to share reviews about your product or service. Sharing social proof is a great way to build trust in your products and services.
Some NPS tools like Trustmary’s platform make this process easier, by allowing you to convert qualitative NPS feedback directly into testimonials.
Read more about how to use social proof.
We’ve exclusively covered the traditional customer Net Promoter system in this article, but not to be forgotten is employee NPS.
Much like customer NPS, employee NPS (or eNPS) is used to measure the loyalty of employees working for an organization.
Rather than asking about likeliness of recommending products and services to a friend or colleague, an eNPS survey will ask employees:
“How likely are you to recommend our organization as a place of work?”
Responses are ranked on the same scale of 1-10, and responses are measured and analyzed in the same way as customer NPS.
As NPS surveys are so easy to create and their distribution can be automated, it only makes sense to measure employee NPS.
In addition to being hassle-free for the employer to set up, eNPS surveys:
In the past two decades since its introduction, NPS has secured its place as a core measurement of businesses across the world.
While business leaders advocate the use of NPS to guide the company’s growth, academics are somewhat on the fence about the value that the metric provides.
Here’s why.
The traditional NPS method isn’t the only customer experience metric. We explore some alternatives to NPS that you can try.
Adjusting the scale to 0-5, or changing the wording to better suit your business purposes.
CSAT asks: “How satisfied were you with our service/product?” Customers then rank their level of satisfaction, usually on a scale from 1-5. The Net Promoter score focuses on measuring overall customer loyalty.
Customer effort score ranks ease of use, a key factor to customer satisfaction. CES asks “How much effort did it take to deal with us?” and has respondents rank that level of effort on a 1-5 scale.
CES is great for measuring, for example, the level of service of your support team. NPS will reflect how existing customers feel about your whole brand, not just one interaction.
Churn rate measures the percentage of customers that do not renew their business with a particular company. Retention (aka keeping your customers) is typically cheaper than getting new customers. That’s why all companies need to track them.
However, the Net Promoter system is a great metric to consider as a tool to predict and prevent churn.
You can read more about the pros and cons of NPS and 4 criticisms of NPS on one of our recent blog posts, Alternatives to NPS.
Question 1 – rating question
How likely are you to recommend our [business/product/service] to a friend or colleague?
Question 2 – open-ended question
Tell us why you gave this score?
Or to customize your response you could ask the following questions:
Thank you message
Thanks for your feedback. We want to create the best possible experience and your thoughts, ideas and suggestions help us make improvements to our [business/product/service].
At this point, you could tailor your thank you message depending on the response received. For example:
NPS is a useful metric for businesses of all shapes and sizes, allowing you to measure your customer experience, gauge loyalty, return insights faster and fuel growth.
Did you know that you can start measuring B2B Net Promoter Score with only 7 steps?
However, the Net Promoter Score scale by itself is just a vanity number that companies should be careful doesn’t turn into a goal itself.
NPS is best used as a diagnostic tool in conjunction with an open-ended question to find out why customers feel the way they do, and other metrics to get a complete picture of customer experience and opportunities for growth.
Other ways to measure the happiness of your clientele include CSAT, CES and churn rates, but whichever method you use, ensure that you are making the most out of the feedback.
Give your marketing a boost with social proof from your Promoters, or create an action plan to address pain points from your Detractors.
Or as Michael LeBouef, business author, puts it: “A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.”
Guide to email NPS
Guide to website NPS
13 best NPS tools 2021
Benchmarking your NPS
Improving your NPS
Other useful measures of satisfaction.
Is Net Promoter Score a worthwhile metric to use?
NPS is a great metric for measuring customer loyalty because:
How is NPS calculated?
The formula for NPS is simple to calculate:
% Promoters minus % Detractors
The result is a number between -100 and +100.
What is a good Net Promoter Score?
A good NPS is relative.
It depends on your industry, competitors, and region, and most importantly, how your business has previously performed.
Generally speaking, an NPS higher than 0 is a good starting point. You should measure yourself against NPS industry averages
What is a bad Net Promoter Score?
A bad NPS is considered to be anything lower than 0. This indicates that you have more unhappy customers than happy ones.
What is a NPS question?
NPS is based on a single question.
This question can be reworded slightly depending on the audience, e.g. employees, or whether you’re measuring relationship NPS (sentiment towards the brand as a whole) or transactional NPS data (sentiment towards a particular product or service).
The NPS question should be followed up with additional questions to provide qualitative insights into why your buyers feel a certain way.
What questions should I ask alongside NPS?
NPS rating questions tell you what your clientele thinks, whereas an open-ended question helps you find out why:
An example of a general follow up question is: tell us in your own words why you gave this score?
Some specific follow up questions are:
How should an NPS survey be structured?
An effective NPS survey will be structured in two-parts: a rating question and an open-ended question.
Thanking your respondents for their time is a good way to finish your NPS survey, letting them know that you appreciate their feedback.
What should I do about my Detractors?
NPS is effective at revealing what your clients don’t like about your company. Once you have your results, you should:
What should I do with my Promoters?
Your Promoters are already enthusiastic about your business, as they give you a 9 or 10. Here’s how you can make the most of them:
What kind of conclusions can I make from my NPS?
The NPS score alone can give you a general picture of sentiment towards your business, product or service.
Qualitative follow-up questions allow you to start exploring what specifically is working, and what isn’t.
Combined alongside other metrics can help you pinpoint exactly where pain points lie and how these can be improved.
Repeating the survey gives you the opportunity to follow your progress and monitor how changes are received.
How often should you ask for NPS?
NPS should be measured regularly so that you are able to track trends.
Generally speaking, measuring once a quarter to once a year will help you build a good picture of your progress. Whichever time frame you go with, remember to be consistent.
Can I modify the NPS question?
NPS tends to have a standard format, however, the wording can be customized slightly according to the audience and the goals of your program.
How accurate is NPS?
The accuracy of your NPS can vary according to your collection methodology. For example, in person collection may result in a positive bias, or incentivising NPS could cause false positive results.
While it may not be possible to eliminate bias altogether, taking a consistent approach to how you collect data each time you survey your customers will help create a reliable picture of loyalty and how it changes over time.
What is eNPS?
eNPS refers to employee Net Promoter Score. It measures how loyal your employees are. As the regular NPS score, you should measure eNPS regularly, not just once a year.
Should I use NPS software?
We recommend automating as much of your survey processes as possible and a great way to do that is to use NPS software. That way, you can focus on improving your NPS results within different segments rather than sending surveys manually. NPS software can be used to automate the whole process to key touch points in your customer journey.
