Do Net Promoter Scores matter?

The answer really depends upon what you’re doing with the score itself.

The actual overall score, independent of anything else, doesn’t really provide a ton of value. It’s a nice measuring stick for internal improvement and, as Jason M. Lemkin has stated previously, it can be a great external indicator of word of mouth potential/growth.

Where the overall score can be much more meaningful is when you’re able to break it down based on trending data and and use it as a human “gut check” against pure data analysis of customer behavior (more on this in another post).

For example, let’s say that your overall score is 45, however, when you narrow it down to customers who mention “customer support” within their feedback, your overall score is 83.

In the image above, you can see that when you match trends within your feedback, the overall score becomes more actionable.

Not only will it better communicate where improvement is needed, but it will also give you the opportunity to leverage your strengths with your marketing and sales efforts.

Another great example of a company leveraging an NPS score is TaxJar (a Promoter.io client).

While rolling out a newer version of their application to a select group of customers, TaxJar segmented their NPS scores to measure whether the sentiment and satisfaction of customers who had access to their newest version was greater than those on their legacy product.

They were ultimately able to validate their assumptions before rolling out the new product globally. You can read more about what they did here.

With all of that said, as mentioned by others here, the overall score is far less important than the individual scores and feedback of each customer.

NPS, when used following a best-practice approach, will be one of the most valuable tools you’ll use to grow your business. And, from that standpoint, it matters immensely.