A peek at the SatMetrix NPS Benchmark report for several industries reveals a secondary level realization: how easy it is to benchmark using NPS.

The underlying question is: How actionable are those findings?
The answer is: it depends. Companies in differing situations look at NPS results in different ways.

Those who are pursuing a specific strategy at full steam will often look for confirmation of direction in their NPS scores. In that case, the NPS score is highly actionable since it in a very simple way confirms a strategic direction.

But what about companies that are looking for direction — not yet certain of where they need to improve or focus to achieve greater market strength.
That’s where the NPS score (or benchmark) becomes tricker to make actionable. Eg. your customers don’t like your company in a high enough ratio — but what do you do about it? It takes a secondary level of surveying to elicit those responses.

So the point is: consider your underlying business needs before ruling NPS in or out… the “devil’s in the details” on this one. It’s not the panacea (all encompassing solution) that it is sometimes made out to be — but it is also not just a simple measurement tool — at times it cuts to the heart of the matter faster than other business benchmarking tools.

Our approach with clients is to include NPS in all scoring system discussions – it has a place there. Whether it gets chosen as one of the scoring systems is to do with a combination of the company’s internal working and the inherent strengths of the system.