What is NPS? A practical guide to Net Promoter Score

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a measure of customer loyalty. It comes from one question: “How likely are you to recommend [company] to a friend or colleague?” Customers answer on a scale from 0 to 10, and the score is the percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors. It ranges from −100 to +100.

NPS was introduced by Fred Reichheld in the Harvard Business Review article “The One Number You Need to Grow” in December 2003, and developed with Bain & Company. It has since become one of the most widely used customer metrics, largely because it is simple to ask and easy to track over time.

The NPS question

The standard question is:

How likely are you to recommend [company or product] to a friend or colleague?

The answer scale runs from 0 (“not at all likely”) to 10 (“extremely likely”). Keep the wording and the scale the same every time, so this quarter’s score can be compared with last quarter’s.

The question on its own tells you how customers feel, but not why. That’s why almost every good NPS survey adds one open follow-up question, such as:

• “What’s the main reason for your score?”
• “What’s one thing we could do to make it a 10?”
• “What do you value most about [product]?”

The follow-up is where the useful information lives. A score of 4 tells you there is a problem; the comment next to it tells you what the problem is. The survey question bank has more follow-up questions you can copy.

Promoters, passives and detractors

Every answer falls into one of three groups:

Score	Group	What it usually means
9–10	Promoters	Loyal, enthusiastic customers who are likely to stay, buy more and recommend you
7–8	Passives	Satisfied but not enthusiastic. They are open to a competitor’s offer
0–6	Detractors	Unhappy customers who may leave, and may talk others out of buying

Passives count towards the total number of responses, but not towards either side of the score. That is why moving someone from a 6 to a 7 improves your NPS, while moving them from a 7 to an 8 doesn’t change it at all.

How to calculate NPS

The formula is:

NPS = % promoters − % detractors

Here is a worked example. Say 200 customers answer your survey:

Group	Responses	Share
Promoters (9–10)	110	55%
Passives (7–8)	50	25%
Detractors (0–6)	40	20%

NPS = 55 − 20 = 35.

NPS is written as a whole number, not a percentage: an NPS of 35, not 35%. You can check your own numbers with the free NPS calculator, which takes counts or raw 0–10 scores.

What is a good NPS score?

Anything above 0 means you have more promoters than detractors, which is a reasonable first bar. Beyond that, there is no single “good” number, because scores depend heavily on:

• Your industry. Customers rate different kinds of companies very differently.
• Who you ask. Surveying only active, engaged users gives a higher score than surveying every account.
• How and when you ask. In-app surveys, emails and surveys after a support ticket each produce different scores.
• Where your customers are. Cultural norms affect how people use a 0–10 scale.

Published benchmarks can be a rough guide, but they mix companies that survey in very different ways. The comparisons that matter most are your own score over time, and scores for different segments of your own customers: plans, regions, account sizes or how long they have been with you.

Relationship NPS vs transactional NPS

There are two common ways to run NPS, and they answer different questions.

Relationship NPS asks about the company or product overall, on a regular schedule, regardless of what the customer did recently. It tells you how loyal your customer base is and whether that is getting better or worse. Most teams survey each customer once or twice a year, spread across the year so results arrive continuously rather than in one burst.

Transactional NPS is sent after a specific moment, such as finishing onboarding, a support ticket or a renewal. It tells you how that part of the experience affects loyalty. For a narrow question about one interaction, a CSAT survey is often a better fit.

How to run an NPS survey

1. Decide who you are surveying. Pick customers who have used your product long enough to have an opinion. A user who signed up yesterday can’t tell you much about loyalty.
2. Choose the channel. In-app surveys reach active users at the moment they are using your product; email reaches people who rarely log in. Many teams use both.
3. Keep it short. The NPS question, one follow-up and nothing else. Every extra question costs you responses.
4. Don’t over-survey. Set a rule, such as no more than one NPS survey per person every 90 days, so customers don’t learn to ignore you.
5. Read every comment. Scores are for trends; comments are for action.
6. Close the loop. Reply to the people who answered, especially detractors, and tell customers what you changed because of their feedback.

Closing the loop with detractors and promoters

Collecting NPS without acting on it can make things worse: customers who take the time to explain a problem and hear nothing back are less likely to answer next time.

Detractors deserve a reply, ideally from a person and within a few days. Thank them, acknowledge the specific problem they raised, and tell them what happens next. Even when you can’t fix it, a real reply often changes how they feel about you.

Passives are often one fix away from being promoters. Look for what they have in common: a missing feature, a slow process or a confusing part of the product.

Promoters are your best source of testimonials, case studies and referrals. They have just told you they would recommend you, so ask them to say so publicly while the feeling is fresh. See how to ask for a testimonial.

NPS for B2B companies

In B2B, a single company might have dozens of users, and they don’t all feel the same. The person who buys your product, the admin who sets it up and the team who use it every day can give you very different scores.

That’s why B2B teams usually look at NPS by account as well as by person. An account with one enthusiastic champion and five detractors among the daily users is at risk, even if its average looks fine. Tie every answer to the company it came from, and watch the accounts that are about to renew.

Common NPS mistakes

• Chasing the number. If teams are rewarded for a higher score, they start asking only happy customers, or asking for 10s. The score goes up and becomes useless.
• Changing the question. Rewording the question or changing the scale breaks comparisons with past results.
• Reporting the score without the comments. A number on a dashboard rarely changes anything. The reasons behind it do.
• Ignoring who didn’t answer. Customers who never respond are often the least engaged. Track your response rate alongside your score.
• Treating NPS as the whole picture. NPS measures loyalty. Pair it with satisfaction after key moments, and with what customers actually do, such as renewals and usage.

NPS vs CSAT vs CES

NPS is one of three common customer metrics. They measure different things and work best together.

Metric	Question	Scale	Best for
NPS	How likely are you to recommend us?	0–10	Overall loyalty, tracked over time
CSAT	How satisfied were you with [interaction]?	Usually 1–5	A specific moment, such as a support ticket or purchase
CES	How easy was it to [do task]?	Usually 1–7	Finding friction in a process

Definitions for each are in the customer feedback glossary, and the CSAT calculator works out a satisfaction score the same way the NPS calculator does.

How Qintr Pulse runs NPS

Qintr Pulse runs NPS surveys inside your product, by email or by link. Every answer is tied to a person and their company, so you can see scores by account. Replies land in one inbox (Needs reply, In progress and Resolved) so no detractor is left without an answer, and AI tags each comment with a summary, sentiment, urgency and topics. Because Pulse shares customers with Qintr Ideas and Qintr Proof, a detractor’s comment can become a feature request, and a promoter can be asked for a testimonial in the same place.

Net Promoter®, NPS® and Net Promoter Score® are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., NICE Systems, Inc. and Fred Reichheld.