Net Promotor and Customer Satisfaction

“How likely is it that you would recommend this product or service to a friend or colleague?”

Bain’s Frederick Reichheld suggests only one question matters in measuring customer satis-faction: “How likely is it that you would recommend this product or service to a friend or colleague?” Reichheld was inspired in part by the experiences of Enterprise Rent-A-Car. When the company cut its customer satisfaction survey to two questions—one about the quality of the rental experience and the other about the likelihood customers would rent from the company again—it found those who gave the highest ratings to their rental experience were three times as likely to rent again than those who gave the second-highest rating.

In a typical Net Promoter survey, customers are given a 1-to-10 scale on which to rate their likelihood of recommending the company. Marketers then subtract Detractors (those who gave a 0 to 6) from Promoters (those who gave a 9 or 10) to arrive at the Net Promoter Score (NPS). Customers who rate the brand with a 7 or 8 are deemed Passively Satisfied and are not included.

Many client firms praise the simplicity of Net Promoter and the strong relationship to financial performance. However, a common criticism is that many different patterns of responses may lead to the same NPS. Another criticism is that it is not a useful predictor of future sales or growth because it ignores important cost and revenue considerations. Finally, some critics question its actual research support.

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