Net Promoter Score

Where NPS came from and how it is used

NPS was introduced by Fred Reichheld of Bain & Company in a 2003 Harvard Business Review article, "The One Number You Need to Grow". The idea was that willingness to recommend tracks loyalty and growth better than long satisfaction surveys.

Companies run it two ways:

• Relationship NPS asks a sample of customers a few times a year how they feel about the brand overall.
• Transactional NPS asks right after an interaction, such as a support call, a delivery or an onboarding step.

Contact centers mostly see transactional NPS. The risk is that customers rate the company, the product and the price, not just the agent. An agent who handles a billing dispute perfectly can still collect a 3 because the customer hates the fee.

What is a good NPS

Any score above zero means more promoters than detractors. Beyond that, benchmarks vary widely by industry. Utilities, cable and telecom often score low or negative, while some retail, software and consumer brands score in the 40s to 60s or higher. Survey method also moves the number: post-call IVR surveys, emails and in-app prompts reach different customers.

The benchmark that matters is your own trend for the same survey, channel and customer group. A move from +18 to +26 over two quarters on the same question is meaningful. Comparing your support-line NPS to another company's relationship NPS is not.

NPS vs CSAT vs customer effort

• NPS measures loyalty and intent to recommend. It is slow to move and influenced by everything about the company.
• [Customer satisfaction score](/glossary/customer-satisfaction-score/) (CSAT) asks how satisfied the customer was with a specific interaction, usually on a 1 to 5 scale. It reacts quickly to agent behavior and is better for coaching.
• [Customer effort score](/glossary/customer-effort-score/) asks how easy it was to get the issue solved. Effort is a strong predictor of whether customers come back to the channel.

Many operations use CSAT on the agent scorecard and NPS at the program or client level, which matches what each can actually tell you.

Using NPS in a contact center

1. Read the verbatims. The follow-up question, "What is the main reason for your score?", is more useful than the number. Tag comments by theme: wait time, agent knowledge, policy, product.
2. Close the loop with detractors. Calling back a sample of detractors within 48 hours recovers some customers and shows where processes are broken.
3. Separate agent-driven from company-driven drivers. If most detractor comments are about price or policy, coaching agents will not fix the score.
4. Watch sample size. An individual agent may get 10 to 20 survey responses a month. At that size, one or two detractors swing the score by 10 points or more, so use NPS for agents with care and only as a trend.
5. Do not let agents ask for a 10. Coaching customers on how to score corrupts the data and is usually against survey policy.

Related scores in HR

The same calculation is used inside HR. Employee net promoter score asks employees how likely they are to recommend the company as a place to work. Candidate net promoter score asks applicants about the hiring process, and many high-volume recruiting teams track it by stage to find where the experience breaks down. The formula is identical; only the question and the audience change.