Have you heard about the Net Promoter Score (NPS)?

If you haven’t, that’s probably because you’re already familiar with it, but you didn't know that's what it's called.

The Net Promoter Score is an online market research tool that comes in the form of a single survey question; usually, something like, 'How likely on a scale of 1 – 10 would you be to recommend our product and services.'

When your customer gives their answer, the NPS groups it under one of the following criteria.

A score of 9-10 indicates your customer is a Promoter. They're enthusiastic about your product, they'll keep buying it and recommending you to others, and as a result, your company will build growth.

A score of 7-8 indicates your customer is Passive. They're satisfied with the product or service you've given them, but they wouldn't write home about it. Next time, they're just as likely to try out one of your competitors.

A score of 0-6 indicates your customer is a Detractor. They're unhappy with your offering, and they'll likely spread negative word-of-mouth about your business. As a result, your product, service and reputation are extremely vulnerable to damage.

When the percentage of Detractors is subtracted from the percentage of Promoters, the result is your Net Promoter Score. It can range from a high of 100 (if every customer is a Promoter) to a low of -100 (if every customer is a Detractor).

In other words, the NPS is a calculator. But it’s also more. It’s an effective way of gauging your customer’s experience, predicting business growth, and highlighting any failings your business needs to work on.

When done correctly, I think it's a fabulous system and a very robust representation of how good a company is.

On the other hand, there are other scoring platforms out there that aren’t so reliable. In my experience, that's because the companies that use them employ some shocking guilt-driven methods to get the positive feedback they don’t deserve.

Here are just a couple of examples I had recently, although I'm not going to name any names.

Example 1: I was having satellite installed in a flat in Glasgow. It's a top-floor duplex, and the install wasn't easy. After delivering impeccable customer service, the engineer tells me that in the next couple of days, the company will send me a survey from 0-5. He made it painfully clear that whatever score I gave would have a direct effect on his livelihood.

Even though he'd been brilliant, I didn't appreciate him trying to guilt me into giving a better score. So, instead of giving him a 5 (which I would have done if he hadn't said anything), I gave him a 3.

What does that mean?

Well, not just that the engineer missed out on top marks. It also means that anyone who sees my score will have a false representation of the service the engineer actually delivered. I marked him down, but he deserved quite a bit higher.

Example 2: I bought a car for my youngest son. It was his dream car, and it wasn't massively expensive, but it wasn't cheap either. We went to a very well-respected franchised dealer in Edinburgh and had to buy the car remotely because we were in the middle of a pandemic.

It was a cracking looking car, and the salesman didn’t have to do very much (if any) actual “selling” to convince us to buy it.

When we picked up the car, he said that we'd get a survey over the next few days asking us to rate our experience of dealing with him. Believe it or not, he actually said, "If you don't give me a 5, I won't get paid."

Hold on. It gets better.

While we were driving home, I noticed the car didn’t have any fuel, even though we’d paid for £40 worth. When I phoned the salesman he told us to bring the car back in the next time we’re passing and he’d fill it up, but you and I both know that isn’t the point. Anyway, that was strike one.

Strike two was when we dropped the car in to a good friend of mine to have it washed and checked over, and the minute he saw the car, he asked us what sort of discount we got for the dent in the sill.

I won't bore you with the rest of the story; I'll simply sum up by saying I've bought quite a few cars over the years, and this was far and away the worst car buying experience I've ever had in my life.

As far as my son's concerned, it was his first-ever car buying experience, and I'm sure it hasn't given him a good view of car buying in the future.

The outcome? The survey arrived, the salesman wanted a 5, I gave him a 1 (and that’s only because 0 wasn’t an option.)

Regardless of the fact that our overall experience was lousy, asking for a rating and manipulating the customer into giving them top marks only screws up the ratings for the next salesman. Either that or the rating the survey provides that company with is an entirely bogus one because it was only bought by asking and guilting.

As far as I’m concerned, the Net Promoter Score is the only customer satisfaction tool that’s worth a damn. The others aren’t even worth looking at, and you definitely shouldn’t take what they’re telling you seriously.