Net Promoter Score (NPS): definition, calculation, and best practices
Measure customer satisfaction with a Net Promoter Score survey. Learn how to calculate it, and get tips for creating an effective NPS survey.
The Net Promoter Score® (NPS) survey allows businesses to measure customer satisfaction and loyalty. Regularly tracking NPS helps monitor the impact of customer experience (CX) strategies on your business.
Millions of businesses worldwide use the NPS score as a core CX metric, making it a valuable benchmark.
What is the Net Promoter Score (NPS)?
Net Promoter Score® (NPS) is a metric that measures customer satisfaction and loyalty with one central question: "How likely are you to recommend our product/service to a friend or colleague?"
Respondents will use a scale of 0 to 10 to indicate their likelihood of recommending your company. A rating of 0 means they're unlikely to recommend your business, while a rating of 10 means they're highly likely to recommend it to others.
Using the NPS framework, you can then classify customers into three categories based on their responses:
- Detractors (scores 0–6): These unhappy customers can hurt your brand through negative word-of-mouth.
- Passive (scores 7–8): These customers are satisfied but indifferent; they might even shop with your competitors.
- Promoters (scores 9–10): These loyal customers will likely refer you to others.
You can use the NPS formula to generate your NPS score on a scale of -100 to 100, with a higher number indicating high customer loyalty and satisfaction.
Why is Net Promoter Score important?
- NPS helps measure customer loyalty. At its core, the NPS shows your business how loyal your customers are. Loyal customers contribute to everything from improved sales to higher retention.
- NPS benchmarks your progress. You can compare your NPS survey scores against previous figures or other companies to see how you compare over time. Track whether you’re reaching industry averages or surpassing them.
- NPS is simple and quick. One question is all it takes to determine your Net Promoter Score. With our Net Promoter Score template, you can set up and send your survey in minutes.
- NPS identifies promoters, detractors, and passives. Classifying your customer base into these three categories will help you create targeted feedback initiatives in the future.
- NPS is easy to understand. Scored from -100 to 100, the NPS is an easy metric to understand, making it useful when communicating customer sentiment to business leaders.
- NPS is repeatable. By collecting NPS data regularly, you can track how your customer experience strategy impacts customer satisfaction.
Conducting NPS surveys will allow your business to better understand customers' feelings about your customer experience efforts. You can create an actionable plan to enhance your customer experiences by conducting follow-ups with less satisfied segments.
Related: Why use NPS?
How to calculate Net Promoter Score?
To calculate your NPS, subtract the total percentage of detractors from the total percentage of promoters (% of promoters - % of detractors.)
You’ll get a percentage ranging from -100% to 100%. This result is your NPS.
Here’s our step-by-step breakdown:
- Send your NPS survey to your target demographic.
- Count the responses that fall into the promoter category (scores of 9-10) and the number of detractors (scores of 0-6). Ignore the passives; they’re not included in the NPS calculation because they don’t impact customer loyalty directly.
- Find the percentage of promoters and detractors: divide the number of promoters and detractors by the total responses, then multiply by 100.
- Subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters.
Imagine you received 200 responses to your NPS survey:
- 20 responses were in the 0–6 range (detractors.)
- 40 responses were in the 7–8 range (passives.)
- 140 responses were in the 9–10 range (promoters.)
To determine the percentage of your detractors and promoters, divide each number by the total responses, then multiply the result by 100.
- 10% are detractors (20/200 = 0.1 x 100 = 10)
- 70% are promoters (140/200 = 0.7 x 100 = 70)
- Subtract 10% (detractors) from 70% (promoters). Your result is 60%.
Since a Net Promoter Score always appears as an integer and not a percentage, your NPS is 60.