Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a customer loyalty and satisfaction metric that measures how likely customers are to recommend a product or service to others. It’s calculated based on responses to a single question: “How likely are you to recommend [product/service] to a friend or colleague?”

The NPS Question

Customers are asked to rate their likelihood to recommend on a scale of 0-10:

• 0-6: Detractors (unhappy customers who may damage your brand)
• 7-8: Passives (satisfied but unenthusiastic customers)
• 9-10: Promoters (loyal enthusiasts who will recommend your product)

Calculation

NPS is calculated as the percentage of Promoters minus the percentage of Detractors:

NPS = % Promoters - % Detractors

The score ranges from -100 (all detractors) to +100 (all promoters). A positive score is generally considered good, with scores above 50 considered excellent.

Why It Matters

NPS provides a simple, standardized way to:

• Measure customer satisfaction and loyalty
• Track changes over time in customer sentiment
• Benchmark against competitors using a widely-adopted metric
• Identify areas for improvement by following up with detractors

Use in HEART Framework

NPS is commonly used to measure the Happiness metric in the [[HEART Framework]], which measures user attitudes, satisfaction, and emotional response to a product.

Limitations

• Single question: May not capture the full complexity of customer sentiment
• Cultural differences: Interpretation of the scale may vary across cultures
• Context matters: A good NPS in one industry may be poor in another
• Actionability: Knowing your NPS doesn’t tell you what to fix

Best Practices

• Follow up: Ask detractors why they gave low scores to identify improvement areas
• Track over time: Monitor NPS trends rather than focusing on single scores
• Segment: Calculate NPS for different customer segments to identify patterns
• Combine with other metrics: Use NPS alongside other satisfaction and engagement metrics

Related Concepts

• [[HEART Framework]] — uses NPS to measure Happiness metric
• [[Goals-Signals-Metrics (GSM) Model]] — framework for selecting metrics like NPS
• [[Analytical Data]] — data for human decision-making

Source

• [[HEART Framework]] — mentions NPS as a metric for measuring Happiness
• Interaction Design Foundation - HEART Framework