Linknote — — 85 words

Business — User experience

Someone using a screwdriver as a hammer

How harmful is the net promoter score? — Jeff Sauro, MeasuringU

A very useful contribution to the debate surrounding the usefulness/harmfulness of net promoter score. Jeff Sauro transcends the often polemical nature of the debate, by analysing actual research on the effectiveness of net promoter score.

The news still isn’t all that great for proponents of net promoter score. But at the same time, it’s not quite as bad as its detractors make out.

Kudos to Jeff Sauro for doing some actual research on this.

Linknote — — 166 words

User experience

Net promoter score considered harmful (and what UX professionals can do about it)

You have probably been asked in a customer satisfaction survey how likely you would be to recommend a company to a friend or colleague. This is used to measure the net promoter score, and it has become very popular.

Here, Jared Spool has comprehensively outlined why net promoter score is not as valuable as businesses hope.

As usual, the problem is that net promoter score is a tool that has been sold as a silver bullet — “This number is the one number you need to grow. It’s that simple and that profound.” And businesses looking for a silver bullet have lapped it up.

But of course, reality is much more complex than that. Net promoter score, when applied consistently by a business, probably does have some value. But it should be used as just one tool of many that you should be using to ensure you are meeting your customers’ needs.