Short answer
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a customer loyalty metric based on one question: how likely are you to recommend this company to a friend or colleague, on a 0 to 10 scale. Respondents are grouped into promoters (9 to 10), passives (7 to 8), and detractors (0 to 6), and NPS is the percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors, ranging from -100 to +100.NPS measures the relationship, not a single interaction. It is a slow, strategic signal of whether customers are advocates or liabilities. Detractors deserve particular attention: a 0 to 6 score signals active churn risk and negative word of mouth, not mere indifference. That makes NPS useful for tracking brand and loyalty over time, but a poor instrument for diagnosing what went wrong in a specific support conversation.
NPS vs CSAT at a glance
| Dimension | NPS | CSAT |
|---|---|---|
| Question asked | how likely are you to recommend us | how satisfied were you with this interaction |
| Timescale of sentiment | slow-moving, tracks the whole relationship | immediate, tied to a single touchpoint |
| What moves it | product, brand, and cumulative experience | the quality of the conversation just closed |
Aide, the AI platform for customer service, treats NPS as a downstream outcome rather than a lever to pull directly. Loyalty improves when customers reach resolution at low effort, on the channels they already use. Aide groups real conversations into topics and lets the team automate the ones it has tested, so the experiences that shape NPS get better, not just faster. Every reply and action stays reviewable in the Action Trace, and the team keeps a complete picture of why customers reach out, which is where durable loyalty is actually built.