1. How it works

2. Criticism of NPS

3. See also

4. References

5. External links

The metric was developed by (and is a registered trademark of) Fred Reichheld, Bain & Company and Satmetrix. It was introduced by Reichheld in his 2003 Harvard Business Review article "One Number You Need to Grow".^[4]

How it works

The Net Promoter Score is calculated based on responses to a single question: How likely is it that you would recommend our company/product/service to a friend or colleague? The scoring for this answer is most often based on a 0 to 10 scale.^[5]

Those who respond with a score of 9 to 10 are called Promoters, and are considered likely to exhibit value-creating behaviors, such as buying more, remaining customers for longer, and making more positive referrals to other potential customers. Those who respond with a score of 0 to 6 are labeled Detractors, and they are believed to be less likely to exhibit the value-creating behaviors. Responses of 7 and 8 are labeled Passives, and their behavior falls between Promoters and Detractors.^[5]{{rp|51}} The Net Promoter Score is calculated by subtracting the percentage of customers who are Detractors from the percentage of customers who are Promoters. For purposes of calculating a Net Promoter Score, Passives count toward the total number of respondents, thus decreasing the percentage of detractors and promoters and pushing the net score toward 0.^[6]

Companies are encouraged to follow the likely-to-recommend question with an open-ended request for elaboration, soliciting the reasons for a customer's rating of that company or product. These reasons can then be provided to front-line employees and management teams for follow-up action.^[4] Local office branch managers at Charles Schwab Corporation, for example, call back customers to engage them in a discussion about the feedback they provided through the NPS survey process, solve problems, and learn more so they can coach account representatives.^[7]

Reichheld and Markey say the rating and answers to the "Why?" question provide all that is needed to identify reference customers and improvement opportunities. While this may be the case, the lack of any easy way to automatically analyze the verbatim answers without human bias is problematic. The response of many companies to the problem has been to add additional questions with rating scales.{{Citation needed|date = January 2019|reason = Unsubstantiated claim about how companies respond}}

Additional questions can be included to assist with understanding the perception of various products, services, and lines of business. These additional questions help a company rate the relative importance of these other parts of the business in the overall score. This is especially helpful in targeting resources to address issues that most impact the NPS.{{Citation needed|date = January 2019|reason = Unsubstantiated claim}} Companies using the Net Promoter System often rely on software as a service vendors that offer a full suite of metrics, reporting, and analytics.^[5]{{rp|48–49}}

The primary objective of the Net Promoter Score methodology is to predict customer loyalty (as evidenced by repurchase and referral) to a product, service, brand, or company.^[5]{{rp|49–51}} Reichheld and Markey developed the methodology by comparing the ability of several different questions to predict future purchases and referrals of individual respondents. They chose the likelihood to recommend question based on the observation that it best predicted these customer behaviors in 11 of 14 industries studied.^[5]{{rp|49–51}} They also found that differences in Net Promoter Scores among direct competitors in a market could explain substantial differences in revenue growth rates among competitors in a particular market.^[5]{{rp|61–65}}^[5]{{rp|77–81}}^[8] Importantly, Markey points out that "competitive benchmark" Net Promoter Scores collected through a carefully constructed double-blind Quantitative marketing research methodology provide the only valid basis for comparing scores.^[9]

Net Promoter System also requires a process to close the loop. In closing the loop, the provider actively intervenes to learn more from customers who have provided feedback, and also to change a negative perception, often converting a Detractor into a Promoter.^[5]{{rp|175–198}} The Net Promoter survey will identify customers who need some follow-up, including Detractors, and should automatically alert the provider to contact the consumer and manage the followup and actions from that point.^[10]

Proponents of the Net Promoter approach claim the score can be used to motivate an organization to become more focused on improving products and services for consumers.^[5]{{rp|199–200}} The Net Promoter approach has been adopted by several companies, including Australia Post,^[11] Siemens,^[12] E.ON,^[13] Philips,^[5]{{rp|61–65}} GE,^[14] Apple Retail,^[15] American Express,^[16] and Intuit.^[17] It has also emerged as a way to measure loyalty for online applications, as well as social game products.^[18]

Some proponents of the Net Promoter Score also suggest that the same methodology can be used to measure, evaluate and manage employee loyalty. They claim that collecting the feedback from employees in a manner similar to Net Promoter customer feedback can provide companies a way to maintain focus on their culture. What is sometimes called the "employee Net Promoter Score" or eNPS has been compared to other employee satisfaction metrics and some companies have claimed that it correlates well with those other metrics.^[5]{{rp|165}}

For some kinds of industries, notably software and services, it has been shown that Detractors tend to remain with a company and Passives leave.^[19] This appears to be the case where switching barriers are relatively high.

In the face of criticisms of the Net Promoter Score, the proponents of the Net Promoter approach claim that the statistical analyses presented prove only that the "recommend" question is similar in predictive power to other metrics, but fail to address the practical benefits of the approach, which are at the heart of the argument Reichheld put forth. Proponents of the approach also counter that analyses based on third-party data are inferior to analyses conducted by companies on their own customer sets, and that the practical benefits of the approach (short survey, simple concept to communicate, ability to follow up with customers) outweigh any statistical inferiority of the approach.^[17] They also allow that a survey using any other question can be used within the Net Promoter System, as long as it meets the criteria of sorting customers reliably into promoters, passives and detractors.^[5]{{rp|12–13}}

Criticism of NPS

While the Net Promoter Score has gained popularity among business executives, it has also attracted controversy from academic and market research circles.

The lack of a proven causal connection is a feature of all use of statistical correlation and regression techniques. They suggest where to look for causal connections, but do not provide them on their own.^[20]

NPS does not add anything to other loyalty-related questions.

Research by Keiningham, Cooil, Andreassen and Aksoy disputes that the Net Promoter metric is the best predictor of company growth.^[21] Furthermore, Hayes (2008) claimed there was no scientific evidence that the "likelihood to recommend" question is a better predictor of business growth than other customer-loyalty questions (e.g., overall satisfaction, likelihood to purchase again). Specifically, Hayes stated that the "likelihood to recommend" question does not measure anything different from other conventional loyalty-related questions.^[22]

The customer metrics included in this study perform equally well in predicting current company performance."^[23]

NPS uses a scale that may not increase predictive validity.

While several studies, such as one by Preston and Colman,^[24] have shown that there is little statistical difference in reliability, validity, or discriminating power, an unpublished paper by Schneider et al (2008) found a more nuanced pattern. Out of four scales tested in two studies (the original LTR with neutral label, a 7-point version with neutral label, a 7 point fully labeled, and 5 point fully labeled), the 7 -point was a slightly better predictor of stated historical recommendations than the 11-point scale advocated by Reichheld.^[25]

Less accurate than composite index of questions.

"A single item question is much less reliable and more volatile than a composite index."^[26]

"Furthermore, combining CFMs (customer feedback metrics), along with simultaneously investigating multiple dimensions of the customer relationship, improves

predictions even further."^[23]

Fails to predict loyalty behaviors.

"Recommend intention alone will not suffice as a single predictor of customers' future loyalty behaviors. Use of multiple indicators instead of a single predictor model performs significantly better in predicting customer recommendations and retention."^[27]

"…given the present state of evidence, it cannot be recommended to use the NPI as a predictor of growth nor financial performance."^[28]

See also

• Advocacy Index
• The Loyalty Effect
• Relationship marketing

References

• {{cite book|last=Reichheld|first=Fred|title=The Ultimate Question 2.0: How Net Promoter Companies Thrive in a Customer-Driven World|year=2011|publisher=Harvard Business Review Press|location=Boston, Mass.|isbn=978-1-4221-7335-0|url=http://netpromotersystem.com|edition=Rev. and expanded|author2=Markey, Rob}}
• {{cite book|last=Reichheld|first=Fred|title=The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth|year=2006|publisher=Harvard Business School Press|location=Boston, Mass.|isbn=978-1-59139-783-0|url=http://www.theultimatequestion.com|edition=[Nachdr.].}}
• {{cite journal|last=Reichheld|first=Fred|title=One Number You Need to Grow|journal=Harvard Business Review|date=1 December 2003|url=http://hbr.org/2003/12/the-one-number-you-need-to-grow/ar/1|accessdate=4 October 2012}}

External links

• Performance Measurement: GE Asks The Ultimate Question Industry Week article covering GE's efforts to implement NPS (Link accessed on 19 September 2017)
• Official site of The Ultimate Question 2.0 — including significant additional resources regarding the Net Promoter System (Link accessed 9 August 2015)

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