We have talked previously about Net Promoter Score as a simple measure in helping a brand to discern changes in the perceived customer experience. Not surprisingly therefore, NPS can be an extremely useful measure in online communities - providing a simple tracking device - helping us to interpret results and suggesting future directions.

NPS can be measured at several different levels: brand, sub-brand, category, product line, program etc over time and against a multitude of demographic and behavioural data. Identifying the large variances is where it gets really interesting...

In a recent example, we found that differences between Brand NPS and that of a newly introduced program were insignificant at a national level but that differences of program NPS accross national outlets varied dramatically. This pointed to possible poor execution of the program in some outlets or perhaps other more deep seated problems at these outlets. 

An online community also informs NPS as a segmentation device. What sorts of ideas are initiated or supported by Promoters? What is important to Neutrals? How could we "neutralise" Detractors? When combined with transactional data this becomes extremely powerful. The question then becomes: which ideas are supported by which NPS segment and what is the likely impact on purchasing behaviour...

As a conversational technique, the NPS question also suggests great follow-up questions, for example - why did you respond the way you did? And what would improve your NPS rating?

Our experience is that NPS helps to keep a strong quantitative framework around some very rich qualitative data. And It certainly lends weight to that old management credo: "if you can't measure it, you can't manage it".