Alternatives to Net Promoter Score for Measuring Customer Satisfaction
Net Promoter Score is one way of quantifying customer experience and loyalty – but it is not the only one! Here are three other methods that organizations are using to monitor customer satisfaction.
Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
Some organizations choose to measure customer satisfaction by asking about it directly, usually following an important customer life cycle moment or a customer service interaction. A CSAT survey typically asks customers “How satisfied were you with the product you purchased?” or “How satisfied were you with the service you received today?”. The exact wording of the question depends on the interaction that preceded it.
Organizations can choose which scale to use for CSAT, usually either a 1-to-5 point or a 1-to-10 point scale.
Customer Effort Score (CES)
An article in the Harvard Business Review recently argued that the costs of exceeding customer expectations on a consistent basis were not justified by the payoffs and that businesses should focus on making it easy for customers to get what they want.
This insight could explain why more businesses are using CES to monitor customer sentiments. A CES survey asks “How easy was it to get your issue handled today?” or “How easy was it to make your purchase on our website today?” Respondents are prompted to rate the overall effort level on a 5-, 7- or 10-point scale.
According to Gartner, the effort is the strongest driver to customer loyalty. The firm says that 96% of customers who experience high-effort interactions become more disloyal, compared to just 9% of those who experience a low-effort interaction.
Social Media Monitoring
Organizations of all types are increasingly adopting social media monitoring tools to help them monitor public sentiment and track down dissatisfied customers on social media. Social media has created a broad platform for dissatisfied customers to share their experiences, but it also creates an opportunity for brands to address customer issues directly and demonstrate a commitment to customer service in a public forum.

Why Does Directive Consulting Measure Net Promoter Score?
Net promoter score asks how likely a customer would be to recommend the product and service to their family and friends, but we can actually learn a lot by measuring NPS.
If someone responds to an NPS survey with a 9 or 10, we can infer that their interaction with the business met their expectations and if someone is likely to recommend the business, they are also likely to keep subscribing to the service or purchase the product again in the future. In this way, NPS acts as a proxy measurement for customer satisfaction and the likelihood of repurchase.
Bain & Co., the company that originally introduced the NPS metric, has discovered that NPS can account for between 20% and 60% of a company’s growth rate, and that industry-leading companies frequently have NPS scores that more than double their competitors. These figures reflect the importance and predictive power of NPS as a key performance indicator.