What is an NPS question?
A Net Promoter Score (NPS) question measures how likely respondents are to recommend a company, product, or service. Respondents answer on a fixed scale from 0 to 10.
Based on their answer, respondents are grouped into three categories:
- Detractors: scores from 0 to 6
- Passives: scores of 7 or 8
- Promoters: scores of 9 or 10
The 0 to 10 scale and the score ranges for each group are fixed.
The popularity of this question type is strongly related to a study whose results indicate that a high net promoter score correlates strongly with the success of a company, so basically a high NPS score accounts for high success.
How the NPS score is calculated
The Net Promoter Score is calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters.
For example, if 67% of respondents are promoters, 33% are passives, and 0% are detractors, the NPS is 67:
67% promoters – 0% detractors = 67
Passives are included in the total number of responses but don’t directly affect the NPS calculation.
The values of the scale are fixed; they cannot be changed.
Configure the NPS question appearance
Enable or disable animation
Upon viewing the preview of a NPS question type, you will be presented with an animation which can be deduced from the sliding effect. You can disable the animation by removing the tick mark in the Enable animation field under the Appearance header. Upon creating a new preview, it automatically loads the NPS question without the sliding effect. This latter effect is primarily intended to attract the attention of the respondents.
Choose the item arrangement
In addition, you are able to switch the arrangement of the items on a zero to ten point scale.
- Horizontal design (traditional): the items are arranged in a horizontal line.
- Circular design (modern): the items are arranged in a circular way. Upon pressing any number in the circular design, this number will be displayed in the middle of the circular diagram. This design is additionally equipped with the Use smileys functionality, which can be found under the Appearance header. If you tick the corresponding box, the number displayed in the middle of the circular diagram, will automatically be replaced by the corresponding smiley. In fact, there is a smiley representation for each of the numbers on the zero to ten point scale (see figure below).
NPS Raw Data in Reports and Exports
When you include an NPS question in a report, Survalyzer creates a default chart and table that show the NPS result and the distribution of responses.
Where NPS Appears in Reports
You can analyze NPS questions in the following report types:
- Basic Report
- Excel Segmented Report
- Expert Report
- Table Wizard in Dashboards
Data Export (Survey Raw Data)
Each NPS question creates two variables in the survey raw data:
| Variable | Stored value |
| NPS | The score selected by the respondent, from 0 to 10. |
| NPS_rec | A recoded value that represents the respondent’s NPS category and can be used to calculate the overall NPS. It stores the following values:Promoters (Scores 9–10): Assigned a value of 100.Passives (Scores 7–8): Assigned a value of 0.Detractors (Scores 0–6): Assigned a value of -100. |
The raw data export contains both the original response and the recoded value (q1 and q1_rec):
Calculate NPS with NPS_rec
The average of all NPS_rec values equals the overall Net Promoter Score.
For example, this means that you can calculate NPS in an Excel export by applying the AVERAGE function to the NPS_rec column. You don’t need to calculate the percentages of promoters and detractors separately.
Use:
- NPS when you need the original 0–10 responses or their distribution.
- NPS_rec when you need the calculated NPS as a single value.