Net Promoter Score (NPS)

No other metric has grabbed the attention of businesses like the Net Promoter Score (NPS). This simple measure is computed from answers to the question:

How likely are you to recommend brand X to a colleague using a scale from 0 to 10 where zero means not at all likely and ten means very likely?

The score is computed by taking the percentage of people who give a score of 9 or 10 out of 10 (the promoters) and subtracting the percentage of people who give a score of 6 or below (the detractors). Crucially, those giving a score of 7 or 8 are ignored (the passives).

Note: it makes no material difference if the scale is from 1 to 10 (as opposed to 0 to 10) because anyone giving a score of 6 or below is, in effect, a detractor.

Be careful about low sample sizes because most people give scores of seven or 8/10 which means that the proportions of people giving scores of nine or ten out of ten and six or less out of ten can be based on quite small numbers of respondents. Sample sizes of 100 or more respondents are required to obtain robust measures of NPS.

For many companies the best way of improving the NPS is to work hard to increase the “likelihood to recommend score” amongst those giving a score of 7 or 8 out of 10. If a company or brand has more than 20% giving a score of 6 or below, there is something seriously wrong with the offer or the offer is being targeted to the wrong segment.

Check out our handy infographic summarizing what NPS is and how it’s calculated, as well as some crucial dos and don’ts for improving your score.

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