NPS is the one-question loyalty metric nearly every company tracks. Here is how it is calculated, what counts as good, and where it can mislead you.
Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures customer loyalty from a single question: how likely are you to recommend us, on a 0 to 10 scale. It runs from negative 100 to positive 100.
NPS sorts respondents into Promoters (9 to 10), Passives (7 to 8), and Detractors (0 to 6). The score is the percentage of Promoters minus the percentage of Detractors. Passives count toward the total but not the score. It is popular because it is simple and comparable across companies, and it correlates loosely with growth and retention, though it is a blunt instrument best paired with CSAT and CES.
Of 200 responses, 120 are Promoters (60 percent), 40 are Passives (20 percent), and 40 are Detractors (20 percent). NPS = 60 - 20 = 40. The 20 percent Passives do not add to the score but do dilute the percentages.
NPS gives leadership a single, trackable loyalty number and an open-text follow-up that surfaces why customers feel as they do. The verbatim comments are often more valuable than the score itself, and AI now makes it easy to theme thousands of them quickly. It is a useful directional signal, not a precise instrument.