This quote from Jeff Immelt about NPS and Loyalty tells us why NPS is so important.

“NPS creates a view of customer loyalty. The absolute score is less important than the trend. We learn from both promoters and detractors.”

NPS (Net Promoter Score) divides the business world. And no wonder. If you consistently do one piece of customer research, it should be NPS. But if you rely on NPS alone, you’re pretty sunk.

The second and third sentences in this quotation tell us the most. Firstly, it’s the trend that matters. Many businesses are scared to do an NPS in case they get a bad score. So what? You don’t have to publish it. And if you can then show an improving score over time, you know you’re working in the right direction.

Secondly, you learn from the good and the bad. This is where you realise a score alone is not enough. You need the follow-on questions to understand why and what people think is so good or so bad. This applies to all customer feedback: it’s all helpful.

• If it’s good, publicise it.
• If it’s bad, fix it.

For more information on NPS, see our pages about the tool, running NPS and its problems.