The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a well-known and widely adopted metric for understanding customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Originally developed by Bain and Company, NPS is a powerful tool for evaluating how customers perceive a brand, product, or service.
In this guide, we’ll explore effective strategies to boost NPS scores, understand the importance of NPS, and we also cover how to calculate it. We’ll also dive into the NPS scale, discuss what constitutes a good NPS score, and explore ways to effectively use NPS surveys for actionable insights.
Understanding NPS — Meaning and importance
To boost NPS scores, it’s critical to first understand what NPS is. The Net Promoter Score, often abbreviated as NPS, measures customer loyalty by asking a single, powerful question:
On a scale from 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our product/service to a friend or colleague?
Based on the responses, customers are categorized into three groups:
😊 Promoters (9–10) — Loyal customers who are likely to recommend your business.
😑 Passives (7–8) — Satisfied but unenthusiastic customers who are at risk of switching to competitors.
😡 Detractors (0–6) — Unhappy customers who are likely to discourage others from choosing your brand.
Your NPS score’s meaning comes from determining the balance between promoters and detractors. This offers a snapshot of customer satisfaction and assesses your brand’s reputation in the marketplace.
Recommended reading: What’s a Likert scale?
Why is NPS important?
- Predicts business growth — High NPS scores indicate strong customer loyalty, which often correlates with business growth.
- Identifies areas of improvement — NPS surveys provide direct feedback on customer perception, helping you to pinpoint areas for enhancement.
- Benchmarking tool — NPS allows for comparison across industry standards, helping you and your team understand your brand’s position relative to competitors.
How to calculate NPS
Calculating the NPS score is straightforward and can be done using a simple NPS calculator. Here’s the step-by-step NPS calculation formula:
- Collect responses. Use an NPS survey to gather responses to the “likelihood to recommend” question.
- Categorize respondents. Based on their scores, classify respondents as promoters, passives, or detractors.
- Calculate the percentage. Find the percentage of promoters and detractors (ignore passives for the calculation).
- Apply the NPS formula. Subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters.
NPS score calculation example
Suppose 100 people respond to your NPS survey:
- 50 respondents score 9–10 (Promoters).
- 20 respondents score 7–8 (Passives).
- 30 respondents score 0–6 (Detractors).
The NPS score would be calculated as:
Thus, your NPS score would be 20.
What is a good NPS score?
The NPS score scale ranges from -100 to +100.
A positive score indicates more promoters than detractors, but ideally, companies aim for scores above 50, which signify high loyalty and satisfaction.
Scores between 30 and 50 are considered “good,” while scores below 0 indicate more detractors than promoters, signaling potential customer experience issues.
Recommended reading: What you need to know about NPS benchmarks
Strategies to boost your NPS scores
Let’s discuss how to enhance your NPS scores!
🗣️ Reward & prioritize customer feedback
Collecting, categorizing, and acting on customer feedback is foundational to improving your Net Promoter Score.
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
- Involve customers in decision-making — Beyond just gathering feedback, consider inviting loyal customers to a customer advisory board where they can offer input on new products, services, or policies.
- Respond personally to feedback — A generic thank-you email may not cut it. If you receive an exceptionally good piece of feedback, you might want to reach out and ask for more information. Promoters can provide excellent case studies.
- Reward constructive detractor feedback — Offer a small gift or exclusive offer to detractors who provide detailed, constructive feedback. This can encourage even the most critical customers to stay engaged with your brand and give you valuable insights. After all, negative feedback aids growth.
🔁 Use advanced NPS software for real-time feedback
The right NPS software can streamline surveys and provide insights, but going beyond the basics can amplify your NPS efforts.
- Real-time alerts for negative scores. Set up automatic alerts when a detractor score is received. This enables your team to quickly respond to dissatisfaction and potentially turn detractors into promoters.
- Visual dashboards for team-wide engagement. Real-time reporting of customer sentiment encourages departments to address concerns proactively.
Recommended reading: Why each department needs customer feedback
💞 Enhance customer service and support
High-quality customer service is often the deciding factor for customer loyalty. Strengthening your support team’s capabilities can significantly impact NPS scores.
Train your support team to create memorable moments for customers by going above and beyond in every interaction. Simplesat’s Support team receives a ton of positive feedback, and a detail our customers often highlight as a positive experience is the team’s use of gifs and emojis (where appropriate).
This only works because of the team’s high level of professionalism and their commitment to taking each issue seriously — because it’s so clear they’re taking the issue seriously, it’s also fine to show a human side.
In our experience, empowering the Support team to add personality thoughtfully helps transform routine support into memorable, loyalty-building experiences!
🎨 Customize the customer experience at every touchpoint
Personalization boosts satisfaction by making customers feel understood and valued.
CX personalization tips:
- Analyze customer purchase and browsing history to create tailored suggestions, promotional offers, and messages.
- Celebrate milestones, such as a customer’s first anniversary with your brand or their 10th purchase, with a small gift or discount.
- Offer flexibility in communication frequency and format (e.g., SMS, email, social media). This respects customer preferences and reduces the risk of them feeling overwhelmed.
☔ Proactively address pain points
Product and service quality is paramount to customer satisfaction. Proactively addressing issues not only helps to retain existing customers but also creates a positive reputation that attracts new promoters.
Keep in mind that if you can change the mind of a disappointed customer, you can increase their overall loyalty. By proving you’re willing to make changes, you lay the foundation for a resilient, long-lasting customer relationship.
💪 Foster a customer-centric culture company-wide
An internal culture centered on customer satisfaction is critical for consistently high NPS scores.
Engaged, customer-focused employees deliver the exceptional experiences that foster loyalty.
So recognize and reward employees whose actions contribute directly to NPS improvements, whether through bonuses, public recognition, or other incentives.
And don’t neglect transparency! Keep everyone from the CEO to entry-level employees informed and engaged by sharing the latest NPS insights and celebrating wins from promoters.
📊 Benchmark against competitors and set realistic NPS goals
Understanding how your NPS stacks up against competitors provides valuable insights and a clear target to work toward.
Use competitor benchmarks to set quarterly or annual NPS improvement targets, adjusting based on market shifts and industry trends. Look for publicly available reviews of competitors to identify gaps you can fill in your own customer experience.
👍 Use NPS as one of multiple customer perception metrics
Customer perception is not limited to NPS alone.
To get a holistic view of what your customers need, combine NPS calculation with other metrics, like customer satisfaction scores (CSAT) and customer effort scores (CES).
This combination provides deeper insights into both loyalty and the quality of customer interactions, and it lets you build a comprehensive satisfaction strategy.
How to increase NPS response rates
A high NPS score is nice to have, but high response rates are much more important.
More respondents mean higher accuracy and more actionable insights. If you have a representative view of customer sentiment, you can make more meaningful improvements.
1. Experiment with different NPS question formats and timing
The format, tone, and timing of NPS questions can significantly impact response rates.
Minor changes to the question format or adding one optional follow-up can encourage customers to provide thoughtful responses.
Segment your customer base and testing variations on your NPS email. Try to find the phrasing that resonates the most with a specific customer group. Tailoring NPS questions to different demographics or customer profiles can create a more personalized survey experience, making it feel relevant and inviting.
Test your timing. When you send the NPS survey can be as critical as the survey content itself! Experiment by deploying surveys at different points in the customer journey, like immediately after a purchase or following a positive customer support interaction.
2. Keep the survey short but impactful
While NPS surveys traditionally consist of a single question—”How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?”—adding one or two optional follow-up questions can deepen insights without overwhelming respondents.
Here are a few examples of impactful follow-up questions:
- “What is the main reason for your score?”
This open-ended question allows customers to explain their rating, providing specific insights into what drives satisfaction or dissatisfaction. - “What could we improve to make your experience even better?”
This optional question invites constructive feedback, helping you identify key areas for improvement based on real customer needs. - “What feature or service do you value most from us?”
Asking customers to highlight what they love most helps identify the brand’s strengths and key differentiators. In this case, you can use a multiple-choice question with a predetermined set of options.
You can also include a demographic question for easier segmentation.
Leverage exclusive events to build engagement
Hosting exclusive Q&A sessions or webinars for loyal customers can foster a sense of value and belonging.
When customers feel valued, they’re more likely to provide honest feedback and to complete more NPS surveys in the future.
These events can also serve as an opportunity to introduce and explain the importance of NPS, showing customers how their feedback influences your company’s actions. Many customers assume that their feedback will go unheard; it’s on you to change their mind.
Recommended reading: How to increase customer feedback rates in general
Understanding transactional vs. relational NPS
Transactional NPS and relational NPS are two distinct approaches to measuring customer loyalty and satisfaction, each serving different purposes and offering unique insights:
Transactional NPS
- Focus – Transactional NPS captures feedback on specific interactions or touchpoints, such as a recent purchase, customer support call, or website experience.
- Purpose – This approach helps companies understand customer sentiment regarding individual experiences, providing insights into specific areas that may need improvement.
- Timing – Transactional NPS surveys are sent immediately after an interaction, while the experience is fresh in the customer’s mind.
- Insights – Transactional NPS can reveal operational issues, such as website usability or support quality, that impact customer satisfaction in specific contexts.
Relational NPS
- Focus – Relational NPS captures the overall sentiment a customer has toward your brand, not tied to a specific interaction.
- Purpose – This type of NPS survey assesses the general loyalty of a customer over time, giving a big-picture view of your brand’s reputation and customer relationship health.
- Timing – Relational NPS surveys are typically conducted periodically (e.g., quarterly or annually) to track overall brand perception and loyalty trends.
Insights – Relational NPS helps identify the broader factors that influence loyalty, such as brand image, product quality, and long-term satisfaction.
But which is more important?
In all honesty, CSAT and CES surveys are usually more useful than a transactional NPS survey: they dig into specific customer problems at given points in the customer journey.
Relational NPS provides insights into long-term loyalty and brand reputation, and that’s something you don’t easily get from other metrics.
Still, combining both kinds of NPS survey offers the most comprehensive view of customer satisfaction, helping you address short-term concerns while building a strong, loyal customer base.
Build loyalty that lasts
Boosting your NPS score is more than just numbers—it’s about fostering lasting relationships with customers by listening, acting on their feedback, and continually striving to exceed their expectations.
Ultimately, by embedding NPS in a broader customer-centric culture, you move beyond the metric, creating a brand that people are genuinely excited to recommend. And that, more than any score, is the true measure of success.
About Simplesat: Simplesat is the leading omnichannel survey app designed to enhance customer feedback management across various platforms, including Zendesk. Trusted by businesses worldwide, Simplesat delivers actionable insights that drive business growth and customer satisfaction.
