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NPS doesn’t say anything particularly useful

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Re: NPS doesn’t say anything particularly useful

#61

Post by Talanes »

marcosdumay wrote: post #29
andrewingram wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My own understanding is that it’s supposed to be a prediction input organic growth and nothing more. All it’s really telling you is whether a customer is likely to provide you with another customer, which is why only really high values answers matter, because “hell yeahs” are all that really matter. I’m skeptical as to its usefulness even for this, but most companies I’ve worked for use it as a general KPI which is e…

If you go into the trouble of collecting it, it's reasonable to use as a KPI, as it carries useful information. I imagine you are annoyed that they optimize for it. And yes, it's not reasonable to optimize for it. Why do people optimize every KPI?

>Why do people optimize every KPI?

Because if it's not worth optimizing around, how key can it be?

Re: NPS doesn’t say anything particularly useful

#62

Post by Ozzie_osman »

Silasdev wrote: post #57

Why do everyone seem to think that management does not have actual good intentions with measuring NPS as a KPI? The companies I've worked with have all had genuinely good intentions making the best possible experience for the user, because that is what ultimately wins in the end. If someone scores 1-6, you ask them to provide additional feedback, to learn from it - problem solved and everyone has all the info they ne…

> There seems to be this idea that KPIs are evil and interpreted in vacuum.

Not just KPIs, but the Hackernews crowd seems to apply the same to management and corporations as a whole.

Re: NPS doesn’t say anything particularly useful

#65

Post by meelford »

Background: I have designed and implemented NPS feedback systems in several companies.

I noticed that people are concerned about this when it was not implemented correctly, i.e. as a complimentary question in the long questionnaire or as a follow-up question at the end of the journey.

The NPS collection mechanic has many advantages:

1. The mental entry point for the user is very low - just 1 question.

2. It is very useful to track user feedback over their lifetime (ask every 6 months) and actively resolve issues if NPS shows it.

3. Another great thing is not a numerical feedback, but a written answer that gives a lot of really useful ideas for improvement.

4. And finally, you don't need any specific context to show the question, so it can be embedded in almost any stage of the user experience.

Re: NPS doesn’t say anything particularly useful

#66

Post by timkam »

meelford wrote: post #65

Background: I have designed and implemented NPS feedback systems in several companies. I noticed that people are concerned about this when it was not implemented correctly, i.e. as a complimentary question in the long questionnaire or as a follow-up question at the end of the journey. The NPS collection mechanic has many advantages: 1. The mental entry point for the user is very low - just 1 question. 2. It is very u…

Agree, the NPS aggregation is mostly BS, but getting a signal from median/mean, e.g. by comparing trends across some dimension, and reading complimentary feedback is quite useful.

Re: NPS doesn’t say anything particularly useful

#67

Post by thathndude »

I was unfamiliar with NPS until about 12 hours ago (but not because of this post).

NPS has had a strong prediction of stock price (I learned this morning).

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-surprising-investing-...?

Of course, it’s just opinion. But maybe there’s some use to NPS after all.

Re: NPS doesn’t say anything particularly useful

#68

Post by sokoloff »

dcposch wrote: post #59
aagha wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a software engineer I love reading our NPS reports, because they always have great tidbits of info that are often difficult to deduce just by looking at standard analytics. What you love is the customer feedback--this can be accomplished in multiple ways and you don't need NPS for it.

NPS has the advantage of being concrete and simple, producing evenly sampled feedback. This is hard to get any other way. A proper NPS asks only one question and requires only a single click to answer -- eg "Scale of 1-10 how likely are you to recommend to a friend?" > click [8] > done. There's a free-text "Tell us more" field that is totally optional. This means users actually answer it. NPS feedback is the closest…

In an almost Goodhart’s Law case, now that I know how NPS is used, I answer these questions differently, being far more prone to use 6, 7, or 8 to express my opinion.

Re: NPS doesn’t say anything particularly useful

#69

Post by sokoloff »

Lazare wrote: post #34
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #9

I see proposals against NPS like this from time to time, but they always tend to ignore the underlying science that went into making NPS in the first place, primarily that there was a very strong correlation between the calculated NPS score and business performance. Also, I find that many of these articles have somewhat of a caricaturish view of how NPS is used in the real world. "It's not 'oh no, our NPS score is do…

> they always tend to ignore the underlying science that went into making NPS in the first place, primarily that there was a very strong correlation between the calculated NPS score and business performance. There is no underlying science behind NPS. It was an arbitrary measure with no research or model behind it. Also, it doesn't work very well, in large because because there is no strong correlation between NPS and…

I would think an unexpected and sustained drop in NPS is something to investigate. A single daily measure wiggling low? Of course not.

Re: NPS doesn’t say anything particularly useful

#70

Post by itsdrewmiller »

rkk3 wrote: post #56
itsdrewmiller wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.qualtrics.com/experience-management/customer/wha... is another standardized alternative, that I suspect would suffer less from the problems in the article.

CSAT is not standardized and there are many ways to calculate it, one of which you have linked. I've seen firsthand many of the largest brands calculate it differently.

Yeah, I agree it doesn't have the universal agreement on implementation that NPS does. Here's an alternative that I believe does and is referenced in some of the NPS skeptical research: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Customer_Satisfaction...
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