Why It’s Time to Rethink NPS — And What to Ask Instead
For years, Net Promoter Score (NPS) has been the dominant metric in customer experience (CX). It’s simple, standardized, and beloved by leadership for its neatness: “On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend us?”
But here’s the problem: NPS doesn’t always tell you what you think it does.
In today’s world of complex products and nuanced customer journeys, relying on a single loyalty-based question often hides the true performance of your support, service, or onboarding teams.
If you want actionable insight — especially from support interactions — it’s time to move toward a two-question CSAT survey strategy that separates the customer’s experience with your team from their feelings about the product.
The Problem with NPS
NPS was introduced in 2003 by Fred Reichheld of Bain & Company as a way to measure customer loyalty. While it’s useful for tracking long-term brand sentiment, it often fails in transactional contexts like customer support tickets or product troubleshooting.
Here’s why:
It conflates the product and the support experience. A customer may receive excellent help from your team but still be dissatisfied with the product itself — and their NPS score will reflect that frustration.
It lacks context. A standalone score without explanation doesn’t help you improve specific aspects of your service.
It’s not designed for post-interaction surveys. NPS was meant to be asked periodically, not after every ticket or live chat.
In fact, the Harvard Business Review reported that while NPS is widely used, “many executives misunderstand what it measures and how to act on it” [HBR, 2020].
The Smarter Alternative: A Two-Question CSAT Survey
To get clearer feedback and drive meaningful improvement, consider this more focused approach:
🔹 Question 1: “How satisfied were you with your experience with the support representative?”
This isolates the agent experience — professionalism, helpfulness, clarity. It’s what customers actually want to comment on after a support interaction.
🔹 Question 2: “How are you currently doing with our product/service overall?”
This gives customers a chance to reflect on the broader experience, signaling potential product issues, training gaps, or misaligned expectations.
Together, these questions give you a layered view of the customer’s mindset — without forcing them to compress everything into a vague “recommendation” score.
Why This Approach Works
Higher Response Rates: Two simple, direct questions are more approachable than a vague loyalty question followed by optional comment boxes.
Better Data Quality: You can segment feedback by service experience vs. product satisfaction — helping you assign the right action to the right team.
Fairer Evaluation: Support teams aren’t penalized for product shortcomings beyond their control.
Deeper Customer Empathy: You’re asking what matters to the customer — not just what’s easy for executives to dashboard.
Industry Shift: Moving Beyond NPS
The trend toward more nuanced measurement is already underway. Gartner suggests moving toward multi-dimensional Voice of Customer (VoC) programs, including post-interaction surveys tailored to specific experiences [Gartner, 2023].
Forrester also recommends shifting from NPS to Customer Emotion and Effort as more predictive indicators of loyalty and growth [Forrester, 2022].
And companies like Zendesk and HubSpot have published resources encouraging the use of CSAT and CES (Customer Effort Score) for support-specific contexts, recognizing the limits of NPS in day-to-day operations.
Final Thoughts
The goal of customer feedback isn’t just to track sentiment — it’s to learn and improve. If your feedback loop relies solely on NPS, you’re likely missing out on the real voice of your customers.
By shifting to a two-question CSAT survey, you get a clearer, fairer, and more actionable view of the experience you’re delivering. It’s a small change with a big return.
Ready to modernize your CSAT strategy?
Try piloting the two-question survey on your next support ticket follow-up — and see how much more your customers are willing to share when you ask the right questions.
References
Harvard Business Review: Rethinking NPS
Forrester: NPS Was Never Enough
Gartner: Modernize Your Customer Experience Metrics Strategy
Zendesk: CSAT vs. NPS: What’s the Difference?
HubSpot: Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT): What It Is & How to Measure It
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