Measuring customer satisfaction is a strategic priority for any company that wants to improve the experience it delivers and strengthen customer loyalty. Among the most widely used indicators, the NPS (Net Promoter Score) plays a central role.
Simple to measure, easy to interpret, and widely recognized, it is a valuable tool for understanding how customers perceive your brand and identifying key areas for improvement.
In this article, we review what NPS is, how it is calculated, how it is segmented, and most importantly the best practices to get the most value from it.
What is NPS? 🤔
The Net Promoter Score is an indicator that measures customer satisfaction and loyalty through a single question:
“On a scale from 0 (not at all) to 10 (extremely), how likely are you to recommend this product / service / brand to someone you know?”
This approach provides a direct measure of a customer’s likelihood to recommend the company, a behavior that is strongly correlated with overall satisfaction and loyalty.
The Three NPS Segments 📊
Based on the score given, respondents are divided into three categories:
Promoters (9–10) ⭐
Customers who are highly satisfied, loyal to the brand, and likely to actively recommend it.
Passives (7–8) 🙂
Customers who are satisfied but not strongly engaged, and more likely to switch to a competitor.
Detractors (0–6) ⚠️
Customers who are dissatisfied or disappointed, and who may damage the brand’s reputation.
The NPS calculation is simple:
NPS = % of Promoters – % of Detractors
The resulting score ranges from -100 to +100.
A positive NPS (> 0) is generally considered a good signal 👍.
Enhancing Your NPS: The Importance of the Open-Ended Question 💬
To fully benefit from an NPS survey, it is essential to include an open-ended question that allows customers to explain their score.
These customer verbatims provide valuable qualitative insights, including:
- drivers of satisfaction
- pain points
- misunderstandings
- unmet expectations
It can also be helpful to adapt the question depending on the score:
Detractors (0–6)
➡️ “How can we improve?”
Passives (7–8)
➡️ “Thank you! Do you have any suggestions to improve your experience?”
Promoters (9–10)
➡️ “Thank you! What did you particularly appreciate?”
These responses are a goldmine for understanding customer sentiment and guiding corrective or value-enhancing actions 💡.
Implementing Effective Action Plans with NPS 🚀
An NPS survey only creates value if it is followed by concrete actions.
The results help identify drivers of satisfaction and dissatisfaction, but also personalize follow-up actions depending on the customer category:
For detractors ⚠️
➡️ targeted follow-ups, anti-churn campaigns, phone callbacks, and reopening sensitive cases.
For passives 🙂
➡️ actions aimed at strengthening the value proposition and clarifying the customer experience.
For promoters ⭐
➡️ loyalty programs, recognition initiatives, and referral incentives.
Through this approach, NPS becomes a true continuous improvement tool, rather than just another metric.
A Simple, Powerful, and Sustainable Indicator 📈
Today, NPS remains one of the most widely used indicators because it combines simplicity, comparability, and effectiveness.
By combining quantitative scores with qualitative verbatims, it enables companies to clearly identify what delights their customers… and what frustrates them.
👉 Want to go further and fully leverage your NPS surveys?
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