Net Promoter Score (NPS)¶
Definition¶
Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures customer loyalty by gauging how likely customers are to recommend your product, service, or brand to others. It’s based on a single-question survey: “How likely are you to recommend our [product/service] to a friend or colleague?”
Description¶
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a key indicator of customer sentiment, loyalty, and word-of-mouth potential, reflecting how likely users are to recommend your product or service to others.
Customers respond on a scale of 0 to 10, and their responses categorize them into:
- Promoters (9–10): Loyal enthusiasts likely to recommend your brand and drive growth.
- Passives (7–8): Satisfied but unenthusiastic customers who are less likely to actively promote your brand.
- Detractors (0–6): Unhappy customers who may discourage others from using your product or service.
Its interpretation varies based on where you deploy it:
- In B2B SaaS, NPS helps spot renewal risks and customer champions
- In consumer apps, it reflects brand love and social sharing propensity
- In services and support, it gauges experience quality and resolution satisfaction
A rising NPS indicates positive experiences and product fit, while a low score highlights frustrations or loyalty erosion. By segmenting by user role, plan, or lifecycle stage, you can uncover persona-specific pain points or evangelist signals.
Net Promoter Score informs:
- Strategic decisions, like retention roadmap, loyalty campaigns, or advocacy programs
- Tactical actions, such as launching save plays for Detractors or amplifying Promoter feedback
- Operational improvements, including support training and customer comms updates
- Cross-functional alignment, rallying product, CS, marketing, and UX around voice-of-customer insights
Key Drivers¶
These are the main factors that directly impact the metric. Understanding these lets you know what levers you can pull to improve the outcome
- Product Performance and Reliability: Bugs and crashes tank NPS. Smooth, fast experiences raise it.
- Onboarding and Early Wins: Customers who succeed early are more likely to become promoters.
- Support and Relationship Quality: Customers who feel heard — especially after something went wrong — tend to rate higher.
Improvement Tactics & Quick Wins¶
Actionable ideas to optimize this KPI, from fast, low-effort wins to strategic initiatives that drive measurable impact.
- If NPS is low, dig into detractor feedback themes and prioritize the top 2 fixable issues.
- Add “You said, we did” messages to close the loop with customers who gave feedback.
- Run a test timing NPS prompts after major wins or milestones — not randomly.
- Refine survey microcopy to clarify the ask (“How likely are you to recommend [Product] to a peer like you?”).
- Partner with CX and product to segment NPS by role, account size, and lifecycle stage for targeted follow-up.
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Required Datapoints to calculate the metric
- Survey Responses: Scores collected from customers (0 to 10).
- Total Respondents: The total number of customers surveyed.
- Promoters: (Number of Promoters / Total Respondents) × 100
- Detractors: (Number of Detractors / Total Respondents) × 100
-
Example to show how the metric is derived
A subscription service collects NPS responses from 1,000 customers:
- Promoters: 600 (60%)
- Passives: 250 (25%)
- Detractors: 150 (15%)
- NPS = 60% – 15% = 45
Formula¶
Formula
Data Model Definition¶
How this KPI is structured in Cube.js, including its key measures, dimensions, and calculation logic for consistent reporting.
cube('SurveyResponses', {
sql: `SELECT * FROM survey_responses`,
measures: {
totalRespondents: {
sql: `id`,
type: 'count',
title: 'Total Respondents',
description: 'The total number of customers surveyed.'
},
numberOfPromoters: {
sql: `CASE WHEN score >= 9 THEN 1 ELSE 0 END`,
type: 'sum',
title: 'Number of Promoters',
description: 'The number of customers who are promoters (score 9 or 10).'
},
numberOfDetractors: {
sql: `CASE WHEN score <= 6 THEN 1 ELSE 0 END`,
type: 'sum',
title: 'Number of Detractors',
description: 'The number of customers who are detractors (score 0 to 6).'
},
promotersPercentage: {
sql: `100.0 * ${numberOfPromoters} / NULLIF(${totalRespondents}, 0)`,
type: 'number',
title: 'Promoters Percentage',
description: 'Percentage of promoters among total respondents.'
},
detractorsPercentage: {
sql: `100.0 * ${numberOfDetractors} / NULLIF(${totalRespondents}, 0)`,
type: 'number',
title: 'Detractors Percentage',
description: 'Percentage of detractors among total respondents.'
},
netPromoterScore: {
sql: `${promotersPercentage} - ${detractorsPercentage}`,
type: 'number',
title: 'Net Promoter Score',
description: 'Net Promoter Score calculated as the difference between promoters and detractors percentages.'
}
},
dimensions: {
id: {
sql: `id`,
type: 'number',
primaryKey: true,
title: 'ID',
description: 'Unique identifier for each survey response.'
},
score: {
sql: `score`,
type: 'number',
title: 'Score',
description: 'Score given by the customer in the survey (0 to 10).'
},
createdAt: {
sql: `created_at`,
type: 'time',
title: 'Created At',
description: 'The time when the survey response was created.'
}
}
});
Note: This is a reference implementation and should be used as a starting point. You’ll need to adapt it to match your own data model and schema
Positive & Negative Influences¶
-
Negative influences
Factors that drive the metric in an undesirable direction, often signaling risk or decline.
- Product Performance and Reliability: Frequent bugs and crashes lead to customer frustration, reducing their likelihood to recommend the product, thus lowering NPS.
- Support and Relationship Quality: Poor customer support experiences, where customers feel unheard or unresolved, negatively impact their perception and decrease NPS.
- Onboarding and Early Wins: A lack of clear guidance or early success can lead to customer dissatisfaction, reducing their likelihood to recommend the product, thus lowering NPS.
- Pricing Perception: If customers perceive the product as overpriced relative to its value, they are less likely to recommend it, negatively impacting NPS.
- Competitor Comparison: If customers find competitors offering better value or features, they may rate the product lower, decreasing NPS.
-
Positive influences
Factors that push the metric in a favorable direction, supporting growth or improvement.
- Product Performance and Reliability: A smooth, fast, and reliable product experience enhances customer satisfaction, increasing their likelihood to recommend the product, thus raising NPS.
- Onboarding and Early Wins: Effective onboarding that leads to early customer success increases satisfaction and the likelihood of recommendation, boosting NPS.
- Support and Relationship Quality: High-quality customer support, where customers feel valued and heard, positively influences their perception and increases NPS.
- Brand Reputation: A strong, positive brand reputation can enhance customer pride in association, increasing their likelihood to recommend the product, thus raising NPS.
- Customer Engagement: Active engagement with customers through personalized communication and community building can enhance loyalty and increase NPS.
Involved Roles & Activities¶
-
Involved Roles
These roles are typically responsible for implementing or monitoring this KPI:
-
Activities
Common initiatives or actions associated with this KPI:
Customer Advocacy
Retention Strategies
NPS Survey Design
Feedback Loop Implementation
Funnel Stage & Type¶
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AAARRR Funnel Stage
This KPI is associated with the following stages in the AAARRR (Pirate Metrics) funnel:
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Type
This KPI is classified as a Lagging Indicator. It reflects the results of past actions or behaviors and is used to validate performance or assess the impact of previous strategies.
Supporting Leading & Lagging Metrics¶
-
Leading
These leading indicators influence this KPI and act as early signals that forecast future changes in this KPI.
- Customer Satisfaction Score: High CSAT scores typically forecast strong NPS performance as they reflect immediate post-interaction satisfaction, indicating customers are likely to become promoters in subsequent NPS surveys.
- Customer Loyalty: Customer Loyalty measures repeat engagement and preference, acting as a precursor to recommendation intent; higher loyalty usually signals future increases in NPS.
- Brand Awareness: Growing brand awareness broadens the pool of potential promoters and sets the stage for higher NPS by increasing top-of-mind presence and positive sentiment.
- Engagement Rate: High engagement rate reflects strong user involvement and product resonance, often preceding or correlating with higher NPS as engaged customers are more likely to recommend.
- Product Qualified Leads: An increase in PQLs indicates that users are experiencing core product value, which generally leads to higher satisfaction and positive NPS responses.
-
Lagging
These lagging indicators confirm, quantify, or amplify this KPI and help explain the broader business impact on this KPI after the fact.
- Customer Churn Rate: A rising churn rate can reveal dissatisfaction not fully captured by NPS; analyzing churn reasons helps recalibrate NPS thresholds and early warning signals.
- Customer Downgrade Rate: Downgrades indicate declining perceived value; examining downgrade trends provides feedback to refine NPS-related action plans or identify at-risk segments.
- Customer Feedback Retention Score: Understanding which feedback givers are retained versus lost helps validate whether NPS is predictive of actual loyalty, informing weighting or segmentation strategies.
- Referral Prompt Acceptance Rate: High or low acceptance rates on referral prompts validate the accuracy of NPS as an advocacy indicator and can highlight gaps between stated intent and actual behavior.
- Sentiment Analysis: Aggregated sentiment from customer communications and reviews can confirm or challenge NPS trends, offering a granular view that informs adjustments to NPS survey timing, targeting, or interpretation.