NPs

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a customer loyalty metric developed in 2003 by Fred Reichheld, Rob Markey, and Bain & Company. It aims to gauge how likely customers are to recommend a company, product, or service to others, using a single question.

The standard question asks respondents: How likely are you to recommend [organization] to a friend or colleague? Responses are on a 0 to 10 scale. Promoters are those who answer 9 or 10, passives 7 or 8, and detractors 0 to 6. NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters, yielding a score between -100 and +100. A higher NPS suggests greater customer loyalty and potential for growth, though it is not a direct measure of revenue.

NPS is widely used to benchmark performance over time, by product line, market segment, or geographic region. It is often complemented by qualitative follow-up questions to identify drivers of satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Some organizations also use an employee-focused variant called eNPS to measure loyalty among staff. Variants and related metrics include CSAT (customer satisfaction) and various custom survey scales.

Limitations and criticisms include its reliance on a single question, potential cultural or linguistic biases, sampling and timing effects, and limited diagnostic value. Critics note that NPS correlates with growth in some contexts but not universally, and that action and context are required to translate scores into improvements. Despite criticisms, NPS remains a widely adopted, simple metric used alongside other feedback tools to monitor customer sentiment and guide improvements.