Glossary
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
A metric that measures customer loyalty based on the likelihood of recommending a product on a 0–10 scale.
NPS asks a single question — "How likely are you to recommend us to a colleague?" — on a 0–10 scale, then classifies responses into Promoters (9–10), Passives (7–8), and Detractors (0–6). The score is Promoters minus Detractors as a percentage of respondents, producing a number from −100 to +100. A free-text follow-up captures the reason, which is usually the more valuable half of the data.
NPS has well-known limitations: it is sensitive to when you ask, who you ask, and cultural response bias. On its own it is a vanity number. Useful NPS programs track the score as a trend over time, segment it by persona and lifecycle stage, and actually close the loop with detractors and passives. The qualitative comments are where the real signal lives.
Why it matters
Used well, NPS is a cheap, continuous pulse on customer sentiment. Used poorly, it becomes a meaningless board slide.
Related terms
Voice of Customer
The disciplined capture and synthesis of customer feedback across every channel, used to drive product and GTM decisions.
Customer Churn
The rate at which customers stop using or paying for a product over a given time window.
Review Sentiment Analysis
The practice of extracting structured insight — positive, negative, thematic — from unstructured customer reviews.
Buyer Persona
A fictional but evidence-based profile of a target buyer, used to align product, marketing, and sales.
Product-Market Fit
The point at which a product clearly serves a real market need, demonstrated by strong demand, retention, and organic growth.