The Net Promoter Score®, or NPS®, is a management tool that quantifies how loyal and satisfied a company’s customers are. It’s a simpler alternative to traditional customer satisfaction research.
With assistance from colleagues at Bain & Company and data supplied by NiCE Satmetrix, Fred Reichheld developed the NPS and holds the registered trademark on the idea. Reichheld introduced the idea in his 2003 Harvard Business Review article, “The One Number You Need to Grow.”
Understanding your company’s NPS will help you cut through the clutter and biases often associated with lengthy customer satisfaction surveys, and keep your team focused on strengthening the customer experience. Discover how to calculate and interpret your NPS in this simple calculation guide.
TL;DR — NPS formula and quick steps
Calculating your NPS comes down to a few quick steps:
- Survey your customers about how likely they are to recommend your company to a friend or colleague on a scale of 0 to 10.
- Sort the responses into three groups: Promoters (who answer 9 to 10), passives (who answer 7 to 8), and detractors (who answer 0 to 6).
- Use the NPS formula to calculate your score: NPS = % Promoters – % Detractors.
You’ll get a score somewhere between –100 and +100. Generally, you’re aiming for as high a score as possible.
What is the Net Promoter Score?
The NPS is a metric companies use to measure customer loyalty and satisfaction. NPS calculations are based on customers’ responses to one simple question: “How likely are you to recommend [Company Name] to a friend or colleague?” The responses are on a scale from 0 (not likely at all) to 10 (extremely likely).
Using these ratings, companies then categorize each respondent into one of three categories:
- Promoters (Answered 9–10)
- Passives (Answered 7–8)
- Detractors (Answered 0–6)
The NPS formula focuses only on promoters and detractors. NPS = percentage of promoters – percentage of detractors.
When you run the calculation, you get a result between –100 and +100. A higher score typically means that your business has a strong reputation and inspires deep customer satisfaction and loyalty. A lower score may indicate that you need to put more focus on improving the customer experience.
How NPS data is collected
To calculate your company’s NPS, you need to collect data directly from your customers, such as through an NPS survey built with Jotform’s form builder. Third-party data or inferences about how your customers feel about your business simply won’t cut it for NPS calculations.
The core NPS question and scale
The beauty of the NPS is its simplicity. Its raw data is compiled from the answers to variations of a single question: How likely is it that you would recommend our company/product/service to a friend or colleague?
The response to this survey question is a score from 0 (least likely) to 10 (most likely).
Promoters, passives, and detractors
The respondents are sorted into these three groups:
- Promoters: Respondents with a score of 9–10
- Passives: Respondents with a score of 7–8
- Detractors: Respondents with a score of 0–6
When implementing the NPS, companies are often encouraged to ask an open-ended follow-up question about why the respondent gave their score. While not useful for the NPS calculation itself, it does provide companies with valuable “why” data that can be helpful for improving their Net Promoter Scores in the future. Companies often find that improved scores correlate with increased business growth.
How to calculate NPS (step by step)
Trying to gauge how well your company is fostering customer satisfaction and loyalty can feel overwhelming. Luckily, the NPS is a simple yet effective metric for understanding customer perceptions of your business. Calculate your NPS with these easy steps.
Step 1: Collect and categorize responses
Start by writing and sending out your NPS survey to get the data you need for your calculations. The primary question in your survey should be: “How likely are you to recommend [Your Company Name] to a friend or colleague on a scale of 0 (not likely at all) to 10 (extremely likely)?”
You can also add an optional follow-up question about why the respondents selected the score they did, but you may get fewer overall responses that way. The easier it is to complete your survey, the more customers will actually do so.
Decide how you’ll send out the survey to customers. Contacting customers directly via an NPS survey email is a popular option, but you could also add a survey popup on your website or collect responses in your company app (if you have one).
Once you have your responses, categorize each respondent into one of these three categories based on the score they gave:
- Promoters (Answered 9–10)
- Passives (Answered 7–8)
- Detractors (Answered 0–6)
Count responses by score so you know how many respondents you have in each category.
Step 2: Calculate percentage of promoters and detractors
Next, calculate the percentage of respondents who are promoters and detractors. Divide the number of promoters by the total number of customers who answered your survey to get the percentage of promoters. Similarly, divide the number of detractors by the total number of customers who answered your survey to get the percentage of detractors.
Step 3: Use the NPS formula, with examples
The last step is just to plug those two numbers into the NPS formula:
NPS = % Promoters – % Detractors
Subtract your percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters to get your Net Promoter Score.
Example NPS calculation #1
Say, for example, your survey responses look like this:
- 8 (passive)
- 10 (promoter)
- 3 (detractor)
- 5 (detractor)
- 9 (promoter)
- 8 (passive)
- 6 (detractor)
- 3 (detractor)
- 9 (promoter)
- 2 (detractor)
That’s 10 responses, with three promoters and five detractors. To get the percentage of promoters, divide 3 by 10 responses to get 0.3 or 30 percent. To get the percentage of detractors, divide 5 by 10 responses to get 0.5 or 50 percent.
Subtract the percentage of detractors (50 percent) from the percentage of promoters (30 percent) to get an NPS of –20 (30 –- 50). A negative score like this is somewhat concerning and indicates a need to put more effort into ensuring customer satisfaction.
Example NPS calculation #2
What if your scores looked a bit different, though? Consider these responses to a potential NPS survey:
- 9 (promoter)
- 10 (promoter)
- 4 (detractor)
- 6 (passive)
- 10 (promoter)
That’s five responses, with three promoters and one detractor. Divide three promoters by five responses to get 0.6 or 60 percent promoters. Divide one detractor by five responses to get 0.2 or 20 percent detractors.
Then, just plug those numbers into the NPS formula: 60 percent promoters – 20 percent detractors = 40 NPS. An NPS of 40 is strong and tells you that you have a solid reputation with customers.
How to interpret your NPS
How you interpret your NPS depends on factors such as the industry you’re in and your specific goals for the company. Generally, a positive score is a good sign. It tells you that your promoters outweigh your detractors. A score below zero means your company’s reputation is not as strong as it could be and needs improvement. Aim to increase your NPS over time and hit benchmarks for success in your industry.
How to calculate NPS in Jotform
You can create your own NPS form from scratch and manually sort each response into the appropriate category, but there’s a better way. With Jotform, it’s easy to create an engaging, effective NPS survey to share with your customers. Just follow these steps:
- Start your NPS form in Jotform either with a blank form or using a Jotform NPS template.
- Set up the form to receive responses to the core question on a zero-to-10 rating scale. You can also add an optional follow-up question that lets respondents explain why they selected their rating.
- Share your Jotform NPS form via email, link, an embed on your website, or in-app.
- As you collect responses, you’ll be able to view your results in Jotform Tables. Each survey response is stored as a separate row, including the score and comment (if applicable).
- Now, you’re ready to calculate your NPS. Use a report or calculated field in Jotform Tables to count your promoters and detractors and apply the NPS formula.
- As a fallback, you can always export your survey data to Excel/Sheets if needed to run the calculation there.
Try a Jotform NPS survey template to start creating an NPS survey you can easily embed in emails or share with customers via a link — no coding required.
What to do after you calculate NPS
Once you have your score, then what? There’s still plenty you can do to capitalize on that information and help bolster your company’s success.
Follow up with detractors and passives
Start by following up with everyone who isn’t already a promoter. In Jotform, you can use filters to easily see your detractors and passives among the respondents. Then, trigger email follow-ups or handoffs to support/success teams via integrations or automations. These communications can help you convert passives and detractors into future promoters.
Turn promoters into advocates
Promoters can become powerful advocates for your business, helping to bring in new customers. Encourage them to leave positive reviews and refer your business to people in their lives. Creating referral programs that reward these promoters with discounts or other incentives can help them feel more appreciated.
Benchmark against your industry
Comparing your NPS to other companies’ scores in your industry is much more useful than comparing it to other businesses broadly. Focus on matching or exceeding NPS benchmarks for your industry.
Keep context and caveats in mind
Understanding why your customers feel the way they do is even more important than learning what they feel about your company. Consider using Jotform AI Agents to help process responses and identify themes from open-ended “why” answers to your NPS survey. You may find specific ideas for improving your customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Understand and improve your NPS with Jotform
To improve customer loyalty, you need to understand how your customers feel about your business now. Calculating your NPS is key. But if the thought of sending out NPS surveys and tracking your results manually seems overwhelming, don’t worry. Jotform is here to help.
Start with a convenient NPS survey template that you can send to customers as a link or embedded in an email. As your results roll in, you can use other Jotform features like Tables and AI Agents to calculate your score and act on the responses you receive. It only takes a few simple steps with Jotform to calculate NPS and work toward growing your business, so get started today!
Frequently asked questions about NPS
Yes, NPS can be as low as –100 or as high as 100.
After calculating your score, you’ll probably want to know whether it’s a strong result. But what is a good NPS? Generally, Bain & Company places Net Promoter Scores into the following categories:
- A positive NPS is good.
- An NPS over 20 is favorable.
- An NPS over 50 is excellent.
- An NPS over 80 is world class.
However, it’s important to understand that Net Promoter Scores vary widely across industries. A score of 30 might be strong for a company in one industry but somewhat disappointing for a company in another.
The more responses you get to your NPS survey, the more informative your calculations will be. Aim for at least 100 responses. If you have more total customers, you’ll generally need more responses.
NPS isn’t something you calculate once and then just forget about. To really understand trends in your customer satisfaction and brand loyalty over time, you need to regularly calculate NPS. The trick is finding the right balance between getting valuable, up-to-date data and overwhelming your customers with too many surveys. Calculating NPS at least every six months is a good guideline.
This guide is for CX leaders, support managers, product marketers, founders, and ops teams at SaaS, e-commerce, and service businesses who want a simple, reliable way to quantify loyalty and track it over time.
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 ScoreSM and Net Promoter SystemSM are service marks of Bain & Company, Inc., NICE Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.
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2 Comments:
More than a year ago
How do you implement NPS in Jotform, I am unable to calculate the same in the reports
More than a year ago
thanks