NPS Surveys: What to Do After Someone Gives You a Score

Image URL

Do not index

AI summary

NPS surveys consist of a single 0‑10 recommendation question; promoters (9‑10) should be asked for testimonials, passives (7‑8) for feedback on how to improve to a 9, and detractors (0‑6) should receive personal follow‑up to resolve issues, with routing rules and simple email templates to manage each group efficiently.

Title

NPS Surveys: What to Do After Someone Gives You a Score

Date

Description

An NPS survey is one 0–10 recommend question. The useful part is what you do next: route promoters to proof, passives to a follow-up, detractors to a human.

Status

Done

Current Column

Published ✨

Person

Writer

You ran an NPS survey.

The dashboard says +47.

You exported a CSV with forty 9s and 10s.

None of those people is on the site.

An NPS survey is one question: how likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague, from 0 to 10. People who pick 9 or 10 are promoters. 7 or 8 are passives. 0 to 6 are detractors. Your score is the percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors. That is the whole instrument.

The number is a temperature. The programme is what you do with the people who answered — especially the ones who just told you they would recommend you, and then you never asked them to.

If you want the short-form quote pipeline, start with the whole testimonial pipeline. This page is the measurement step that should feed it.

What it is (and what it is not)

One rating. One optional "why". Stop there.

It is not a 12-question product survey with an NPS question buried at the end. That is a different survey wearing an NPS costume. People close the tab, and you cannot tell whether they hated the product or the homework.

It is not a testimonial. A 10 is a willingness to recommend. What makes a testimonial good is a specific sentence a stranger can use. You still have to ask for that sentence.

It is not a case study. A case study needs a before, an after, and a number a stranger can check — how to run case studies without the interview call. A 10 is a candidate. It is not the story.

If you only report the score, you ran a poll. You did not run a programme.

The arithmetic in one minute

The buckets are the standard ones. Qualtrics's public NPS guide states them the same way as of August 2026, and I am using their wording rather than inventing a variant:

Promoters: 9 or 10

Passives: 7 or 8

Detractors: 0 to 6

NPS = % promoters − % detractors

The result sits between −100 and +100

Passives count in the denominator, then drop out of the subtraction. That is why a pile of 8s can look calm on a slide and still mean nobody would actually recommend you.

Their worked example, not ours: 70% promoters, 20% passives, 10% detractors → 70 − 10 = 60.

That is all the arithmetic this page needs. The useful question is not "is 60 good". The useful question is: for each row in that export, who owns the next email.

After the score: three routes

As of August 2026, Qualtrics's guide walks through definition, calculation, what a "good" score might mean, and using NPS as a customer-experience signal. I am not knocking that page. I am naming the assumption: the score is the deliverable.

Close the loop, in that world, means read the verbatims and fix the product. Do that. Then look at the 9s.

A 9 is a person who just told you they would recommend you. That is the warmest ask you will get all quarter. Waiting six weeks to "collect testimonials" from a separate list is how the yes goes cold.

Three routes. Same survey. Different next step.

Promoters (9–10) → ask for proof while they are still in the yes.

Not "thanks for your feedback". Not a newsletter. Two sentences, or a case-study question set, while the score is still on the screen or in the same week's inbox.

The social half of asking — how not to make it weird — is how to ask for a testimonial. The vehicle is simpler than a cold ask: you already have the score, the name, the email. Pre-fill those. Do not make them re-introduce themselves.

If they are a named logo a prospect can match, send them toward a case study, not a quote. That path is how to run case studies without the interview call. A quote is the default. The case study is for the ones you would put in a sales deck.

Passives (7–8) → a different question, not the promoter ask.

A 7 is not a soft 9. They are telling you they would not recommend you today. Asking them for a testimonial is how you get a vague "it's been good" you should not publish.

Ask what would make it a 9. One question. Then leave them alone. Do not drop them in the same drip as the 10s.

Detractors (0–6) → a human, not a form.

Route the score to whoever can actually change something — support, the founder, the CSM. Not marketing. Not a "we're sorry you feel that way" template.

This is legitimate. Hiding the score, blocking them from leaving a public review, or paying them to change it is not, and I will not write that. If anything of value changes hands later, disclose it; the legal side of testimonials is the primer. Routing a detractor to a person who can fix the problem is the opposite of suppressing them.

Three failure modes I keep seeing.

The CSV that sits. Forty promoters. No owner. A quarterly slide. The 10s are now 10s from March.

The same email for a 10 and a 2. You automated "thanks for your feedback". You taught both of them that the survey does not go anywhere.

The detractor who writes the review instead. Nobody picked up the 3. They still had something to say. They said it on G2.

The manual version

You do not need a product for this. A spreadsheet is enough. Columns: name, email, score, bucket, owner, next step, sent, replied.

Then three emails. These are templates with blanks, not things anyone said.

Promoter

Subject: you said you'd recommend us — would you put that on the site?

Hi [Name] —

You scored us a [9/10] on [survey / date]. Thank you.

Would you write two sentences I can put on [page]?
Specifically: what you were doing before, and what Tuesday looks like now.

No call. Reply to this, or use this link: [collection page]

— [Your name]

Passive

Subject: you scored us a [7/8] — what would make it a 9?

Hi [Name] —

You weren't a no. You also weren't a yes. That's useful.

What would have to change for you to recommend us without hedging?

One reply. I'll actually read it.

— [Your name]

Detractor

Subject: I saw your [score] — I want to fix this, not file it

Hi [Name] —

You scored us a [N]. I'm [Name] on the team that can change this, not a survey bot.

What's broken, in your words. I'll reply with what we can do this week.

— [Your name]

Do not attach a 12-slide "voice of customer" deck to any of these. You are asking for one reply, not onboarding them into a programme.

Where it breaks. You will not keep this sheet current. The third survey, half the rows have no owner. That is when a routing rule earns its keep — not when you have twelve customers and you still know all of their first names.

If you have twelve customers and you will actually send the three emails, send the emails. You do not need us for that.

When not to send one

They have not used the product. A 10 from onboarding day one is a mood, not loyalty. Ask after they have done the thing you would want them to recommend.

You already asked last month. I do not have a platform number for "how often is too often", so I will not invent one. If you are guessing weekly, you are over-asking. Skip a cycle rather than train people to delete you.

Nobody will pick up a 2. If detractors go to a void, do not send the survey. You are collecting anger with no sink.

You actually wanted a 12-question product survey. That is not an NPS survey. Send the 12 later, to a different list, or not at all.

Skip the "what is a good NPS" question on this page. A single number without a trend and without the bucket mix is a slide, not a diagnosis. I would rather have forty responses and three routes than a benchmark from a post I cannot audit.

The second question

The industry default is some version of "why that score?" Qualtrics documents "What's the reason for your score?" as of August 2026. It is fine. It is also the same sentence for a 10 and a 3, which is lazy.

I would write three, and send one:

Promoter: "What would you tell a friend who asked why you use us?"

Passive: "What would need to change for this to be a 9?"

Detractor: "What broke?"

Keep them optional. A required essay after a tap is how people close the tab. One follow-up is enough; a second "and how could we improve" often returns the same paragraph.

If you are going to publish what they said

A score is not consent to put their name on the homepage.

When a promoter's two sentences go on the site, get permission in writing, and be specific about where. "Can I use this on the site" and "can I put this in a paid ad" are different questions. Ask separately for the name, the job title, the company, and the face. Plenty of people will give you the words and not the photo.

If a discount, a free month, or a gift card was part of the ask, the connection has to be disclosed. That is a legal requirement in several jurisdictions, not a nicety. The legal side of testimonials is the primer. Check your own jurisdiction rather than treating that page as advice.

If they will not let you name them, you do not have a testimonial. You have a private note. I would not publish it as one.

Doing this with Testimonial

The three emails above work in Gmail. You do not need us for the system.

What NPS with auto-routing changes is the gap between the score and the next step. One 0–10 question. You can keep the default wording or write your own. Optional follow-up prompt. Then a rule per bucket:

9–10 → a testimonial request, or a case-study invite, with name and email already filled

7–8 → a templated follow-up email

0–6 → an alert to your support inbox

Set the rule once. Every new response follows it. You can slide the thresholds — textbook is 0–6 / 7–8 / 9–10; the product will let you make promoter mean "10 only" if that is how your buyers talk. Auto-routing follows whatever you set, not the textbook.

If someone scores 9 or 10, they can get the case-study invite automatically. That is the same auto-invite on async case-study interviews: a 9 or 10 on NPS can fire the invite without you remembering to send it.

You can filter the response list by bucket. The score is colour-coded, with bucket mix and trend, so a dip is visible the week it happens.

NPS is on Ultimate +. As of 31 August 2026 that is $95/month/space, or $1,140 a year. Ultimate and Ultimate + are priced per space. The plans and pricing page is the live list. Paid plans include a 7-day free trial.

Where it breaks, including for us. Routing a promoter is not a submitted testimonial. They still have to write. We do not publish a conversion rate from a 9 to a quote, because I will not invent one. The product will not stop you writing a 400-word follow-up, or surveying the same people every week. An alert to support still needs a human to open it. And nothing in the tool is permission to publish — that is still an email.

If you have thirty customers and you will actually send the three emails, send the emails. The tool earns its place when the sheet is already a week behind.