NPS, CSAT, CES: Understanding the Classic Customer Experience Metrics

NPS (Net Promoter Score)#

Introduced in 2003, NPS rests on a single question: how likely are you to recommend the company to a friend or colleague, on a scale of 0 to 10? Respondents are grouped into promoters (9–10), passives (7–8) and detractors (0–6). The score is the percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors, on a scale from -100 to +100. NPS became hugely popular because of its simplicity, but several academic studies have since qualified the idea that it is the only metric a company needs to grow, questioning how strongly the score is actually linked to observed growth.

CSAT (Customer Satisfaction)#

CSAT measures overall satisfaction with a product, a service or a specific interaction. It is calculated by dividing the number of satisfied respondents by the total number of respondents and multiplying by 100. Unlike NPS, which captures a long-term relationship intention, CSAT works just as well for assessing a single interaction as for the relationship as a whole, which makes it the most widely used metric.

CES (Customer Effort Score)#

Introduced in 2010, CES starts from a counter-intuitive finding: consistently trying to "delight" customers does not make them more loyal, but reducing the effort they have to make to resolve a problem does. Customers rate, on a scale of 1 to 5, how much effort they had to put in to get their request resolved. The founding studies show that, in service interactions, CES predicts loyalty better than NPS.

Cultural bias: an often-overlooked issue#

Research has shown that NPS results vary significantly across cultural contexts, with some cultures tending to score systematically higher or lower than others for the same level of satisfaction. The resulting recommendation is to track the direction in which the score moves over time rather than its absolute value, and to avoid raw comparisons between culturally different markets without adjustment.

How to Use Them Together#

A robust measurement programme combines all three: CSAT to assess individual interactions, CES for interactions tied to resolving a problem, and NPS as a relationship indicator whose trend is tracked over time rather than examined in isolation.

Summary Table#

Worked Examples#

• NPS: 200 responses, of which 110 promoters (55%), 50 passives and 40 detractors (20%). NPS = 55 − 20 = 35.
• CSAT: 140 satisfied respondents out of 200. CSAT = 140 ÷ 200 × 100 = 70%.

Using These Metrics in Morocco#

• Translate and test the questions in French and Arabic. A 0-to-10 scale can be understood differently depending on the language and the context.
• Track the trend rather than the absolute figure, and compare a company with itself over time rather than with a foreign benchmark.
• Always add an open question ("Why did you give this score?"): that is the answer that tells you what to fix.
• Comply with Law 09-08 on personal data protection: tell respondents the purpose of the survey and the identity of the data controller (Article 5).