Our NPS calculator makes it easier for you to determine your NPS, but depending on how you got to this page, you might be thinking—"Wait, what? What's NPS?" NPS stands for Net Promoter Score, which still might be confusing if you haven't heard the term before. In short, it's a customer experience metric that measures how likely your customers are to recommend you to a friend. It's different from a customer satisfaction score (CSAT) and a customer effort score (CES) because it measures a customer's overall loyalty to a brand rather than how they feel about a specific experience or purchase.

NPS is an important metric for companies to track because it has a strong correlation with high customer loyalty and low customer churn rates. In other words, the higher your NPS, the less likely your customers are to choose a competitor over you. Now, no matter how high your NPS, you can't guarantee that customers won't choose a competitor for one reason or another—but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. According to the Harvard Business Review, it costs 5% to 25% more to acquire a new customer than it does to retain an existing one. Furthermore, when your customers' loyalty levels are high, they are more likely to leave positive reviews and become brand advocates which means that they can significantly reduce the costs of acquiring new customers as well.

Tracking changes in your company's net promoter score can help you determine how customer sentiment is trending. A rising NPS is indicative of higher customer satisfaction and ultimately means you can set cash goals based on higher estimated LTVs. A falling NPS, on the other hand, could be indicative of your product or service falling out of favor with your customers.

Once you've calculated your baseline NPS with our nifty little NPS calculator, you can track it over time to gauge how you're meeting your customers' needs and expectations. While customers are able to provide a rating from 1-10, they are ultimately segmented into three categories—promoters, passives, and detractors.

• Promoters (9-10 ratings): Promoters are loyal customers who love your product and are very likely to leave positive reviews and recommend your business to their friends and colleagues. They are likely receiving everything they expected and more from your product.
• Passives (7-8): Passive customers could become promoters, but could also become detractors or switch over to one of your competitors. They're likely finding that your product satisfies some or most of their needs, but they're not necessarily over the moon about your product.
• Detractors (0-6): Detractors are in the danger zone as far as customers go. These customers are unhappy with your product and are likely to both switch over to one of your competitors and leave negative reviews that could hurt your short and long-term success.

Uncover Opportunities for Improving Products and Services

Follow up with customers whose ratings show that they're either passives or detractors to determine how you can do better. More often than not, multiple customers have similar complaints or issues, and speaking with your customers can help you determine what products and services you need to develop or enhance.

Develop Your Target Personas

Determine your target personas by digging into the information provided by passives and promoters. Every company has a value proposition, and there are some people will appreciate your core value proposition more than others. By digging into the information provided by passive customers and promoters, you can determine who your main target personas are. There's even a chance that your detractors are people who you don't want as customers at all because your product just isn't meant for them.

Enhance Your Content Marketing Program

Work with promoters to gather user-generated content and to develop case studies that will elevate your content marketing. Offer some incentive for your power users to get them to provide you with these kinds of materials that can work as both social proof and demonstrative marketing materials.

Work on Your Reviews on External Sites

Ask your promoters to share their opinions on external review sites to improve perceptions of your brand and increase conversion rates. Through collecting net promoter scores, you'll have a list of emails tied to ratings. Simply send out an email to those who provided high ratings encouraging them to review your company on an external site like Google. The better your ratings, the more likely potential customers are to convert when they Google your brand name —you couldn't ask for better marketing.

Attract Investors, Employees, and Partners

Customer reviews can be a major asset when finding people to work with, and NPS can be just as valuable. Share your positive NPS with potential investors, employees, and partners and you'll be able to attract and work with the best of the best.