Net Promoter Score
Net Promoter Score℠ (NPS) measures customer loyalty with one question: how likely are you to recommend this product or service? Customers answer on a 0-10 scale, where 0 means “not at all likely” and 10 means “extremely likely”.
The answers fall into three groups:
- Promoters (9-10) - loyal customers who recommend you to others
- Passives (7-8) - satisfied but not strongly attached
- Detractors (0-6) - unhappy customers who warn others away
The scale assigns seven possible scores to Detractors (0-6) and only two to Promoters (9-10). This reflects how negative experiences spread more widely than positive ones.
Use NPS when you need one clear metric to track customer loyalty and spot who might leave or recommend you.
Typical use cases:
- Track satisfaction and loyalty in a single number
- Compare performance across products, regions, or teams
- Find customers who need attention or might provide testimonials
- Spot problems before they spread
Choose the Right NPS Survey
NPS comes in two main flavours. On this page you can clone both: one for the overall relationship and one for single interactions.
Relationship NPS (rNPS)
Relationship NPS measures how people feel about you in general, not about a single interaction. It’s a lagging indicator-by the time rNPS drops, problems have been accumulating for a while.
Use this when you want to:
- Track long‑term loyalty across your customer base
- See if product or pricing changes affect sentiment
- Compare regions, plans, or customer types
Structure:
- Standard 0-10 question: “Considering your overall experience with us, how likely are you to recommend our brand?”
- One open question: “What is the main reason for your score?”
- Optional demographic questions if you need to segment results
When to send it:
- Quarterly or twice a year is enough
- Don’t tie it to specific interactions-that’s what transactional NPS is for
- Regular intervals let you track trends
Pick this if you care about overall relationship health, not individual touchpoints.
Transactional NPS (tNPS)
Transactional NPS focuses on specific moments: a support case, a delivery, a demo, a renewal call. Send it right after the interaction while details are fresh.
tNPS is a leading indicator. Repeated failures in tNPS eventually drag down your rNPS. Fix issues at the touchpoint level before they become brand problems.
Use this when you want to:
- Spot broken steps in a journey (checkout, onboarding, support)
- Measure changes to one process or team
- Give teams feedback they can act on within days
Structure:
- Standard 0-10 question tied to the interaction: “Based on your recent [interaction], how likely are you to recommend us?”
- Follow‑up about that interaction: “What worked well or poorly?”
- Optional questions scoped to that touchpoint
Pick this if you want to improve a concrete process and give teams feedback within days, not quarters.
When to send it:
Send within 1-2 days while details are fresh. Don’t send after every tiny touchpoint-people will stop answering.
If you only care whether something was “good” or “bad”, use a CSAT survey instead. Use tNPS when you want to compare touchpoints or see how interactions affect overall loyalty.
Calculate your Net Promoter Score
Subtract the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters. The score ranges from -100 to +100.
The NPS Scale
Calculation Breakdown
Designing a Useful NPS Survey
A good NPS survey is short and actionable. Surveys with 2-3 questions get better response rates than longer ones. You don’t need many questions; you need the right ones.
Keep the structure simple:
- Core NPS question - one IntervalScale element with the 0-10 score
- One conditional “why” question - a multi‑line String element for open feedback, tailored to the customer’s score
- Optional follow-up permission - “Would it be okay for us to follow up with you regarding your feedback?” (Yes/No)
Use Conditional Logic
Ask different follow-up questions based on the customer’s score. A Detractor needs different questions than a Promoter.
For Detractors (0-6):
- Goal: Service recovery and immediate issue resolution
- Question examples:
- “What was the most disappointing aspect of your experience?”
- “What would it take for us to make things right?”
- “What specific issue made you unhappy with our service?”
For Passives (7-8):
- Goal: Identify barriers to loyalty and opportunities for improvement
- Question examples:
- “What small improvement would make a big difference for you?”
- “What could we do to turn your experience from good to great?”
- “What feature would you like us to add that our competitors have?”
Note: Passive feedback is particularly valuable for product roadmaps. While Detractors highlight broken features and Promoters validate excellence, Passives identify non-critical friction points and competitive gaps-perfect input for strategic differentiation.
For Promoters (9-10):
- Goal: Validate strengths and encourage advocacy
- Question examples:
- “What’s the main reason you rated us so highly?”
- “What specific features do you value the most?”
- “How does our product compare to your ideal solution?”
Match Questions to NPS Type
For rNPS, ask broad questions: “What’s the reason behind your score?” or “What advice would you give us?”
For tNPS, reference the specific interaction: “What about this support call worked or didn’t work?” or “How could we improve checkout?”
If you don’t anchor tNPS questions to the touchpoint, you won’t know which team needs to fix what.
Ask Permission to Follow Up
Add a third question: “Would it be okay for us to follow up with you?”
This lets you:
- Contact Detractors to fix issues before they leave
- Reach out to Passives to understand what’s missing
- Ask Promoters for testimonials or referrals
What to do with results:
- Follow up with Detractors to fix issues before they spread
- Use Passive feedback to find friction points
- Thank Promoters and ask for testimonials
- Watch trends, not single spikes
- Read the comments-they matter more than the number
- For tNPS, fix low-scoring touchpoints to improve your rNPS
Start from a template above, adjust the wording, add conditional questions, and keep it under two minutes.
Net Promoter®, NPS®, NPS Prism®, and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., NICE Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld. Net Promoter Score℠ and Net Promoter System℠ are service marks of Bain & Company, Inc., NICE Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.