Guide · 5 min read
NPS survey guide: how to ask, score, and follow up
Updated 2026-09-17
TL;DR
NPS asks one question on a 0-10 scale (how likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague), then splits answers into detractors (0-6), passives (7-8), and promoters (9-10) to produce a single loyalty score from -100 to 100.
Net Promoter Score is the most widely used loyalty metric because it reduces a fuzzy feeling (do customers like us) into one comparable number. Done right, it takes one question, one follow-up, and a consistent schedule. Done wrong, it becomes a number nobody trusts because the wording changed between sends or the follow-up got skipped. This guide covers the exact question, how the scoring works, and how often to ask it without wearing out your audience.
The one NPS question
NPS lives or dies on a single, unchanged question: "How likely are you to recommend [company] to a friend or colleague?" on a scale from 0 (not at all likely) to 10 (extremely likely). Keep the wording identical every time you send it: changing even a word breaks comparability between survey waves.
Respondents who answer 0-6 are detractors, 7-8 are passives, and 9-10 are promoters. The scale is deliberately 11 points, not 5 or 10, because that granularity is what the standard formula expects.
Always ask the follow-up
A score with no explanation tells you that something changed, not what. Add one open-text follow-up right after the scale question: "What's the main reason for your score?" It's the single highest-value field on the whole survey, because it turns a number into specific, actionable feedback.
Keep it optional but expect most respondents to answer it if the scale question just took five seconds: people who already engaged tend to keep going.
Calculating your score
NPS is the percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors, ignoring passives entirely. A survey with 50% promoters, 30% passives, and 20% detractors scores 30 (50 - 20). The result ranges from -100 to 100, and above 0 is generally considered acceptable, above 50 excellent.
Track the trend more than the absolute number: a single snapshot is less useful than the same question asked the same way every quarter.
How often to send it
Relationship NPS, measuring overall sentiment toward your company, works best sent quarterly or twice a year to the same list. Sending too often causes survey fatigue and depresses response rates without adding insight.
Transactional NPS, measuring a specific interaction like a support ticket or an onboarding call, should go out right after that event while it's still fresh, and can run continuously without needing a fixed cadence.
Closing the loop
The follow-up answer is only useful if someone reads it. Route detractor responses to whoever owns the relationship so low scores get a reply, not just a data point in a spreadsheet.
In YeetForm, the NPS field renders the standard 0-10 scale automatically, and a conditional follow-up question can appear only for scores under a threshold, so detractors get asked why while promoters move straight to submit.