This Isn’t Another Article About How to Calculate NPS.
Net Promoter Score (NPS) has become one of the most widely adopted customer experience metrics. Its formula is simple — and that’s both its genius and its flaw. In this piece, I explore how relying too heavily on its simplicity can lead companies to miss the deeper insights it’s meant to unlock. If you want to turn NPS from a passive score into an active driver of business outcomes, here’s how to think differently.
The simplicity that took a long road
The mathematics of Net Promoter Score are deliberately simple: Subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters.
That simplicity, though, came at the end of a long road — built on a huge body of empirical research, countless business cases, and real-world experience.
It took a lot of complexity to arrive at something so seemingly effortless.
But today, that very simplicity is unfortunately hurting its value, to the point that most NPS content still explains how to do the subtraction, or how to run a survey. It’s repetitive. And it misses the real point.
Why would any organization need consultancy just to run a survey and subtract two percentages?
Why would any SaaS platform brag about calculating NPS — when all it does is pop up a 0–10 rating box and spit out a score on a 200-point spectrum?
It doesn’t make sense. The logic is off.
think like a doctor
Let’s have different perspective: Try thinking of NPS the way a physician thinks of blood pressure:
It’s one of the first things you measure — a quick, reliable indicator of overall health. But on its own, it doesn’t explain what’s wrong, what’s working, or what to do next.
And yet, no serious diagnosis happens without it.
But blood pressure isn’t the answer. It’s the start of better questions.
Does the doctor stop at measuring it? Of course not — that part is usually delegated to the triage nurse. It’s written down and used as context.
The doctor’s job starts from there.
That’s how NPS should be treated — not as a conclusion, but as a prompt to explore what truly drives customer experience, which in turn drives business outcomes and financial results.
Let’s make that real.
Same score. different story
Consider two companies, both with an NPS of +20:
a) One has 60% promoters and 40% detractors — a polarizing experience. Customers either love it or actively dislike it.
b) The other has 40% promoters and 20% detractors — a bland, forgettable experience, with 40% sitting passively in between.
Same score. Completely different realities.
And totally different implications for, as example, growth, marketing, and CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost).
The first company may face a higher CAC, needing to overcome negative word-of-mouth from detractors with expensive marketing pushes to repair brand trust and generate demand.
To maintain growth, they might need to invest heavily in paid media, brand repositioning, and promotions — just to offset the drag from unhappy customers actively discouraging others.
The second company, despite being quieter, has less brand damage to fix, and more to gain.
With fewer detractors and a solid promoter base, they can leverage positive word-of-mouth, tap into referral programs, and rely more on organic or earned media.
As a result, their marketing budget can be leaner, better targeted, and more ROI-positive.
So unless you understand the composition of that NPS score, you can’t properly align your marketing strategy or your spend.
The equation: NPS, customer experience and bottom line
At one client with whom we started running biannual NPS programs, we observed a sudden dip in scores from mid-market customers — without any obvious trigger like pricing changes or major product shifts.
We cross-referenced the feedback with support ticket data and customer segments. A pattern quickly emerged: almost all detractors had submitted multiple tickets about the same recurring product issue. Internally, it wasn’t flagged as critical, more as product enhancement — but to users, it was a persistent friction point.
Matter of fact, the segment was entirely composed of Retail clients relying heavily on that functionality for their sales reconciliation — making it business-critical for them, even if not for other segments.
This insight prompted quick, coordinated action:
• The product enhancement was escalated and prioritized for accelerated development.
• Support added logic to detect repeat complaints about the reported misbehaviour, provided step-by-step guidelines and offered workarounds across accounts.
• Customer success proactively closed the loop with affected clients, and maintained close communication with them on the progress of the issue.
In the next NPS cycle, that segment’s score rebounded, and churn indicators dropped.
When NPS is connected with operational data, it becomes a powerful tool for diagnosing friction and aligning teams around what matters most to customers.
This Retail segment alone accounted for 24% of the company’s annual recurring revenue. So it begs the question: What safeguards are you willing to put in place to protect a quarter of your revenue base?
The return on a disciplined, well-executed NPS program like this one isn’t just measurable. It’s invaluable.
operationalizing nps: the real work
This is why serious organizations don’t stop at the number.
They operationalize NPS — turning it from a snapshot into a decision-making engine.
Being serious means leveraging serious analytics and models like Bayesian inference, Regression analysis and Markov chains…to map how customers transition between being promoters, passives, and detractors over time.
And with machine learning, they can identify the precise mix of product use, support interaction, and pricing experience that leads to loyalty — or churn.
But there’s one more critical factor: timing.
If feedback isn’t translated into real operational change within 4–16 weeks (depending on company size and lines of businesses), the chance of driving meaningful impact drops by, in my own experience, ~80%.
NPS insights decay fast. You have to act before the trail goes cold.
the trap of the simplicity
So the NPS formula is powerful because it’s simple. But that simplicity is also its trap, if we stop there.
So let’s not just ask, “What’s our score?”
Let’s ask, “What actions should this score trigger across product, pricing, sales, and service?”
Because in the end, the only metric that truly matters isn’t what customers say about you.
It’s what you do about what they say.
PS: I’m deliberately avoiding the NPS vs CSAT vs CES debate here. I’ll share thoughts on each one’s practicality in future posts.
About the Author: Amine Ati is the Managing Director of RIVVALUE, a consultancy firm specializing in SaaS strategy, customer experience, and value optimization. With deep expertise in improving customer experience, reducing Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and maximizing ROI, he helps B2B organizations navigate the complexities of the SaaS decision journey, ensuring sustainable growth and measurable business impact.