What is Net Promoter Score (NPS)?
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a loyalty measure based on how likely customers say they are to recommend you, on a scale from 0 to 10. Customers who answer 9 or 10 are promoters, 7 or 8 are passives, and 0 to 6 are detractors. Fred Reichheld of Bain & Company introduced it in a December 2003 Harvard Business Review article, "The One Number You Need to Grow."
Why it matters to a revenue leader
NPS gives a revenue leader a simple, comparable read on loyalty across branches and acquired companies, and sponsors often ask for it in diligence and board updates. Its limits matter. Critics question whether it predicts growth better than other loyalty questions, and a single score says little about what to fix. In services, the person who answers the survey may be a site contact who never sees the invoice, so read NPS next to renewal and expansion data before drawing conclusions.
How to calculate it
NPS equals the percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors, giving a number between minus 100 and plus 100.
Common mistake: comparing scores gathered with different survey methods or from different respondent roles as if they were the same measure.
Example
Fictitious numbersA building services platform surveys 400 customer contacts across its acquired companies. 200 answer 9 or 10, 120 answer 7 or 8, and 80 answer 0 to 6. NPS is 50% minus 20%, or 30. One acquired branch scores far lower than the rest, which points the CRO to where service is slipping.
"Who in our customers' organizations answers the survey, and are they the people who decide on renewal?"
Sources
- The One Number You Need to Grow (Harvard Business Review, December 2003) checked 9 Oct 2026
- Measuring Your Net Promoter Score (Bain & Company) checked 9 Oct 2026
- Net promoter score (Wikipedia) checked 9 Oct 2026