This article provides an overview of Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys in Pendo. For instructions on how to create and publish an NPS survey in Pendo, see Set up an NPS survey.
NPS surveys are supported for both a direct web implementation of Pendo using the install script and a browser extension implementation of Pendo using the Pendo Launcher. For more information about implementation options for Pendo, see Implementation options.
NPS surveys can also be delivered on mobile. For instructions, see Set up an NPS for mobile.
About NPS
NPS is a single, quantitative metric that asks customers to rate a company or its offerings on a scale. It's widely adopted across industries as a standard measure of customer loyalty and user satisfaction.
NPS can be used as a benchmark over time and to compare products, services, or vendors. For an accurate understanding of NPS performance, a company’s score is typically compared against:
- The industry average. Different industries have different average scores.
- Their own organization scores over time.
- Competitor scores.
The quantitative part of an NPS survey is typically supplemented with a follow-up qualitative question to determine why a respondent gave the score that they did.
Calculating NPS
The quantitative part of an NPS survey involves asking the following question: How likely are you to recommend [product, service, or vendor] to a friend or coworker?
NPS survey recipients answer the question on an eleven-point scale (0 to 10), where zero (0) is not at all likely to recommend and ten (10) is the most likely to recommend.
Respondents to the quantitative part of an NPS survey fall into one of three categories based on their numerical answers:
- Detractors (scores 0 to 6) are typically unsatisfied with the product, service, or vendor.
- Passives (scores 7 to 8) are typically satisfied with the product, service, or vendor, but lack enthusiasm for it. These respondents might be open to competitive offerings.
- Promoters (scores 9 to 10) are typically highly satisfied and thus loyal and enthusiastic about the product, service, or vendor.
The total NPS score is calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. The final NPS score can range from -100 to 100. A negative score indicates more detractors than promoters. A positive score indicates more promoters than detractors. The higher the score, the stronger your customer loyalty and user satisfaction.
Pendo NPS functionality
Pendo’s NPS functionality allows you to:
- Deliver NPS surveys to your visitors as in-app guides.
- For web-delivered surveys, optionally send backup NPS surveys through email to visitors who didn’t see the in-app survey within 14 days.
- Evenly distribute your NPS survey so that you receive a steady stream of responses that you can deal with in real time. This is required if you send backup NPS surveys through email. For more information, see Even distribution for NPS in Pendo.
- See NPS survey views and responses from the Responses and Metrics tabs of your NPS survey in Pendo. For more information, see NPS themes and insights and Understand NPS metrics.
- Use NPS segmentation to view themes and send guides based on the score that respondents gave. For more information, see NPS themes and insights and Deliver guides based on NPS responses.
Additionally, you can use our Slack integration to send real-time NPS survey responses to a Slack channel, allowing you to react to responses in a timely manner. For more information, see Send NPS responses to a Slack channel.
If you’re a Listen customer, you can also forward NPS survey responses to Listen, to be centralized and analyzed alongside other customer feedback that you’ve collected. For more information, see Send NPS survey data to Listen.
Visitor view of an NPS survey
By default, an NPS survey appears in a banner at the bottom of your application, which your visitors can close using the X in the top-right corner of the banner.
Visitors are first shown the numerical question, and given the followup question when they select a number.
The default numerical question is How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or coworker? The default follow-up question is Please tell us why you gave this rating. You can create conditional logic as part of the NPS survey setup process to ensure visitors see a different follow-up question depending on their score-based answer.
You can optionally create a success message. If you include a success message, the visitor is shown this message after they select Submit.
While the overall format of an NPS survey must stay the same, you can edit some aspects of the NPS survey’s appearance after you’ve created it. For instructions, see Set up an NPS survey.
Even distribution
We provide an option to evenly distribute your NPS survey across a given time frame. Even distribution allows you to receive a constant flow of data throughout your chosen survey timeframe, allowing you to respond in real time.
When even distribution is turned on, Pendo automatically assigns each visitor a 14-day window during which they can see the survey. The assignment is uniform, random, and distributed.
When using even distribution, the NPS activation method must be set to Automatic. All other activation methods override the even distribution behavior.
A visitor doesn’t receive an NPS poll more than once during the NPS time frame (30, 60, 90, 180, or 365 days), even if other settings are changed while the survey is active. For example, changing the segment doesn’t reset eligibility for any visitors who have already seen the NPS survey.
For more information, see Even distribution for NPS in Pendo.