Analyzing your Net Promoter Score℠ (NPS) survey results

Zendesk is removing Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey functionality on April 30, 2023. For more information, see Announcing the removal of Net Promoter Score (NPS).

Tip: NPS surveys are part of an add-on that also includes customer lists.

Net Promoter Score℠ (NPS®) is an industry standard for measuring customer loyalty. You can send an NPS survey to target customers from your instance of Zendesk Support. For more information, see Sending an NPS survey to measure customer loyalty.

An overall score is derived from the NPS survey results. Based on your NPS survey results, you can determine next steps to improve the health of your business and to strengthen your relationship with your customers.

You must be an administrator to send NPS surveys. Agents in a custom role with permission to view reports cannot view NPS results. Enterprise light agents also cannot view NPS results.

For best practices for analyzing your NPS results, see Analyzing your Net Promoter Score and taking action.

This article contains the following sections:

• Understanding the NPS score
• Viewing your latest NPS score and responses
• Viewing a list of email addresses that bounced or were unsubscribed
• Viewing NPS responses in user profiles
• Viewing previous NPS surveys
• Exporting NPS survey responses to a CSV file
• Creating a customer list of promoters, passives, or detractors
• Taking actions based on your results

**Net Promoter, NPS, and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks, and Net Promoter Score and Net Promoter System are service marks, of Bain & Company, Inc., Satmetrix Systems, Inc. and Fred Reichheld.

Understanding the NPS score

Your NPS survey responses are calculated to derive your overall NPS score.

Note: If you have an open survey that has not closed, the score will be updated as responses come in. The score is not final until the survey closes.

The score is calculated by subtracting the percentage of responses that are detractors from the percentage that are promoters.

Viewing your latest NPS score and results

You can view the score and results for your latest NPS survey.

Remember, you must be an administrator to view NPS surveys. Enterprise agents in a custom role with permission to view reports cannot view NPS results. Enterprise light agents also cannot view NPS results.

If the survey is still active, your score and results will be updated as more responses are received.

To view your NPS score and results

1. Click the Reporting icon () in the sidebar, then click the Net Promoter Score tab.
2. In the Net Promoter Score section, you can see the score for your latest NPS survey.

   

3. Under Your score, you can see a breakdown of detractors, passives, and promoters, as well as the response rate.
4. In the Results section, you can see all the responses for your latest survey, listed newest to oldest.

   Each response includes the user's email address, the type (detractors, passives, or promoters), the rating, and the comment, if any.

   

5. Do any of the following to further analyze your results:
   • To read a truncated comment, click Read more beside comment.
   • To view a list of email addresses that bounced or were unsubscribed, click Responses, then select Bounces or Unsubscribes.

     For surveys sent on or before December 10, 2014 you will see a count of bounced and unsubscribed email addresses, but you will not be able to see a list of the email addresses.

   • To filter by rating, click Ratings: All, then select Promoter, Passive, or Detractor.
   • To filter by comment, click Comments: All, then select With or Without.
   Note: You can also export your survey responses for further analysis. For more information, see Exporting NPS survey responses to a CSV file.

You can use your survey results to take actions toward improving your score. For more information, see Taking actions based on your results.

Viewing a list of email addresses that bounced or were unsubscribed

You can view a list of user email addresses that were in the NPS survey, but bounced and were not received by the user. You can also view a list of user email addresses that received the NPS survey and chose to unsubscribe from future surveys.

To view email addresses that bounced or were unsubscribed

1. Click the Reporting icon () in the sidebar, then click the Net Promoter Score tab.
2. In the Results section, click Responses, then select Bounces or Unsubscribes.

   A list of email addresses that bounced or were unsubscribed appears. Click any email address to open the associated user profile.

   

   Note: For surveys sent on or before December 10, 2014 you will see a count of bounced and unsubscribed email addresses, but you will not be able to see a list of the email addresses.

   You can use this information to clean up your list of customer email addresses.

Viewing NPS responses in user profiles

You can view the NPS rating from individual users in context on their profile page.

When a user responds to your NPS survey, the response is added to the user's profile in custom user fields:

• Last NPS survey date
• NPS rating
• NPS comment

To view a user's NPS response

• Open the user profile for a user who has responded to an NPS survey, then look for the custom user fields for NPS.

Viewing previous NPS surveys

You can view results from any of your previous NPS surveys. A built-in report compares previous scores over time so you can see how your score is trending.

Note: NPS surveys, including past surveys and surveys sent as tests, cannot be removed from your reporting data set. Remember to always use the built-in test email functionality when testing NPS surveys.

To view a previous NPS survey

1. Click the Reporting icon () in the sidebar, then click the Net Promoter Score tab.
2. Select a Reporting period to see the score from a previous NPS survey.

   

   The score and the responses for the selected reporting period appear.

3. In the Scores section, you can compare NPS scores from several time periods and see how your score has trended over time.

   

4. In the Results section, you can see all the survey responses for the selected reporting period.

   Responses are shown from newest to oldest. If a comment is truncated, click Read more to view the entire comment.

   Each response includes the user's email address, the type (detractors, passives, or promoters), the rating, and the comment, if any.

   Note: You can also export your survey responses for further analysis. For more information, see Exporting NPS survey responses to a CSV file.

Exporting NPS survey responses to a CSV file

You can export your survey responses to a CSV file for further analysis.

To download a CSV file of NPS survey responses

1. Click the Reporting icon () in the sidebar, then click the Net Promoter Score tab.
2. Select the report you want to export to CSV from Reporting period, if it is not the most recent one.
3. Click the menu icon in the upper-right, then select Export results.

   

   The request is sent, and you will be notified via email when it's complete.

4. Click the link in your email notification to download a zip file containing the report.

   The download link is valid for at least 3 days.

Creating a customer list of promoters, passives, or detractors

You can segment your promoters, passives, and detractors by creating a customer list for each. Customer lists define a segment of your users based on a set of criteria. Customer lists are similar to views for tickets, but a customer list is a group of users instead of a group of tickets.

After you create a customer list for your promoters, passives, or detractors, you can engage with those customers through an email campaign using MailChimp or SurveyMonkey. See Using customer lists for email campaigns and surveys.

To create a customer list of promoters, passives, or detractors

1. Click the Customer Lists icon () in the sidebar.
2. Click Customer Lists in the top toolbar, then select Create a list.

   

3. Enter a Title for your list.

   For example, NPS Promoters July 2014.

4. (Admins and Enterprise agents with permission to create shared customer lists) Select a Visibility option to determine who can see this list.

   Agents do not set a visibility option because they can create only personal lists for themselves. They cannot create shared lists.

5. Click in the box beside Filters, then select a condition, an operator, and a value to define this collection of users.
   • For a list of promoters, select NPS rating greater than 8.
   • For a list of passives, select NPS rating greater than 6. Then, click Add new filter and select NPS rating less than 9.
   • For a list of detractors, select NPS rating less than 7.

   

6. Click Save to create the list.

   Your customer list appears.

   

Taking actions based on your results

Perhaps the most important part of the NPS survey process is taking actions based on your NPS results. Focus on your customer’s feedback and ways that you can improve your NPS score over time.

For tips for creating an action plan, see How can you improve your NPS.