Have you ever been asked, on a scale of 0 from 10, how likely you were to recommend a company to someone? If so, you may be entitled to compensation have been asked to participate in a Net Promoter Score survey.
I have come to despise Net Promoter Score surveys, to the point that I refuse to take them.
I could point to how the Wall Street Journal has called them a dubious management fad, an MIT Sloan School article referring to it as “regularly misunderstood and misused,” or an HBR article entitled Where Net Promoter Score Goes Wrong. And that’s just in a couple minutes of looking for stuff suggesting it’s not so great.
But my argument isn’t rooted in academic discourse or science. (I mean, neither is NPS.) It’s much simpler. I actually have two separate qualms about it.
Uncertainty about its usage
One of the most frequent times I am sent an NPS survey is after I have had a customer service interaction.
With rare exception, if I am calling customer service, something has gone badly wrong. I have never once called a customer service line just to compliment their company on doing a great job. Sometimes I’ve gotten great customer service reps who have been outstanding at their jobs and left me very appreciative.
But it doesn’t make me any more likely to recommend their brand. I still had to call customer service to get them to un-fuck something your company did. I have never once told a friend, “Comcast fraudulently billed me $70 and then blatantly lied to me about what the charge was for, but after twice escalating the issue, I eventually got someone who could reverse the charge and issue an apology. I’d really recommend Comcast!”
How should I interpret it when you send me a survey asking how likely I am to promote your company after needing customer service to fix something for me? Are you going to use it to judge the poor employee who just helped clean up the mess? Pretty regularly, “How likely are you to recommend our company?” and “Did the person you talked to do an outstanding job?” have very different answers. I’m not going to risk a great CSR not getting the praise they deserve over a regularly misunderstood and misused management fad.
It’s transparent selfish
Net Promoter Score isn’t “What can we do to serve you better?” It doesn’t ask what I like about your business that you should keep doing. It doesn’t even ask if I’m a happy customer.
NPS makes clear what the business really cares about: whether they can count on me to promote their business.
And if you have to ask, the answer is no.