Net Promoter Score (NPS)

NPS is an industry-standard metric for measuring customer loyalty. It asks how likely someone is to recommend your product or service on a 0-10 scale.

What is NPS?

The Question

The standard NPS question:

How likely are you to recommend [Company/Product] to a friend or colleague?

0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10
Not at all likely       Extremely likely

The Score

Respondents are categorized:

  • Promoters (9-10) - Loyal enthusiasts
  • Passives (7-8) - Satisfied but unenthusiastic
  • Detractors (0-6) - Unhappy customers

NPS Formula:

NPS = % Promoters - % Detractors

Score ranges from -100 to +100.

When to Use NPS

NPS is ideal for:

  • Customer loyalty measurement - Track loyalty over time
  • Benchmarking - Compare to industry standards
  • Relationship health - Gauge overall satisfaction
  • Churn prediction - Identify at-risk customers

Adding an NPS Question

  1. Click Add Question in the survey editor
  2. Select Net Promoter Score
  3. Customize the question text (optional)
  4. Configure follow-up questions (recommended)

Configuration Options

Question Text

Customize while keeping intent:

Standard:

How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?

Product-specific:

How likely are you to recommend [Product Name] to others in your industry?

Relationship:

Based on your experience so far, how likely are you to recommend us?

Scale Labels

Default labels:

  • 0: “Not at all likely”
  • 10: “Extremely likely”

Follow-Up Questions

Add context to the score:

For Detractors (0-6):

What could we do better?

For Passives (7-8):

What would make you more likely to recommend us?

For Promoters (9-10):

What do you value most about us?

Conditional Follow-Ups

Automatically show relevant follow-up:

  1. Enable Conditional follow-up
  2. Set questions for each segment
  3. Only matching follow-up appears

Required Response

Toggle to require a score before continuing.

Best Practices

Survey Timing

Relationship NPS:

  • Send periodically (quarterly, annually)
  • Measures overall relationship
  • Track trends over time

Transactional NPS:

  • Send after specific interaction
  • Purchase, support ticket, onboarding
  • Measures specific experience

Avoid Survey Fatigue

  • Don’t survey same person too often
  • Wait 90 days between NPS requests
  • Use sampling for large customer bases

Follow-Up Questions

Always include open-ended follow-up:

  • Provides context for score
  • Identifies specific issues
  • Guides improvement actions

Response Rates

Typical NPS response rates:

  • Email: 10-30%
  • In-app: 20-40%
  • Post-transaction: 30-50%

Analyzing NPS Results

Calculating NPS

Example:

  • 100 responses total
  • 50 gave 9-10 (Promoters) = 50%
  • 30 gave 7-8 (Passives) = 30%
  • 20 gave 0-6 (Detractors) = 20%

NPS = 50% - 20% = +30

Score Interpretation

NPSRating
70+Excellent
50-69Great
30-49Good
0-29Needs Improvement
Below 0Critical

Note: Benchmarks vary significantly by industry.

Industry Benchmarks

Average NPS by industry (approximate):

  • Technology/Software: 30-40
  • Financial Services: 20-30
  • Healthcare: 10-20
  • Telecom: 0-10
  • Airlines: 0-20

More valuable than absolute score:

  • Month-over-month change
  • Quarter-over-quarter trend
  • Year-over-year comparison

Segment Analysis

Break down NPS by:

  • Customer tier/plan
  • Tenure/age of account
  • Geography
  • Product line
  • Support interactions

Advanced Features

Driver Analysis

Identify what drives NPS:

  • Correlate with other questions
  • Analyze follow-up themes
  • Statistical regression

Text Analysis

Analyze open-ended responses:

  • Word clouds
  • Sentiment analysis
  • Theme categorization
  • AI-powered insights

Closed-Loop Feedback

Act on responses:

  1. Detractors - Alert support team
  2. Passives - Send improvement info
  3. Promoters - Request reviews/referrals

Integration

Connect NPS to other systems:

  • CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot)
  • Support (Zendesk, Intercom)
  • Analytics (Amplitude, Mixpanel)

Common Use Cases

Customer Success

Track account health:

Survey: Quarterly NPS
Trigger: Automatic on schedule
Action: Low scores alert CSM

Product Feedback

Post-release surveys:

Survey: After using new feature
Question: NPS + feature-specific follow-up
Action: Product team review

Support Quality

Post-ticket survey:

Survey: After ticket closed
Question: NPS + support experience
Action: Quality assurance

Onboarding

Early warning system:

Survey: 30 days after signup
Question: NPS + onboarding feedback
Action: Reach out to at-risk users

NPS Best Practices

Do

  • Keep it simple (one NPS question + follow-up)
  • Survey consistently over time
  • Act on feedback
  • Close the loop with respondents
  • Segment your analysis
  • Track trends, not just scores

Don’t

  • Over-survey customers
  • Incentivize high scores
  • Ignore detractor feedback
  • Compare to unrelated industries
  • Focus only on the number
  • Survey at bad times (during outages)

Beyond Basic NPS

Employee NPS (eNPS)

Measure employee loyalty:

How likely are you to recommend [Company] as a place to work?

Product NPS

For specific products:

How likely are you to recommend [Product] to a colleague?

Feature NPS

For new features:

How likely are you to recommend this feature to other users?

Troubleshooting

Low Response Rates

  • Simplify the survey
  • Optimize send time
  • Personalize outreach
  • Mobile-optimize

Score Volatility

  • Increase sample size
  • Survey more consistently
  • Check for external factors
  • Look at rolling averages

Low Scores

  • Analyze follow-up comments
  • Identify common themes
  • Create action plan
  • Follow up with detractors

Passives Majority

  • Follow up for specifics
  • Identify barriers to promotion
  • Look for “almost there” themes

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