Understanding NPS and Likert Scales: When to Use Each
When it comes to collecting customer feedback, two of the most widely used methods are the Net Promoter Score (NPS) scale and the Likert scale. Both are powerful, but they serve different purposes — and choosing the right one can make all the difference in the insights you gain.
What is the NPS Scale?
The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a single-question metric designed to measure customer loyalty.
It usually asks:
“On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our product/service to a friend or colleague?”
- Promoters (9–10): Loyal enthusiasts who will keep buying and refer others.
- Passives (7–8): Satisfied but unenthusiastic customers.
- Detractors (0–6): Unhappy customers who can damage your brand through negative word-of-mouth.
- NPS is simple, quick, and gives you a benchmarkable score to track loyalty over time.
What is the Likert Scale?
The Likert scale is used to measure attitudes, opinions, or perceptions on a multi-point scale.
A typical question might be:
“How satisfied are you with our customer support?”
Options often range from:
Strongly Disagree → Disagree → Neutral → Agree → Strongly Agree
- The Likert scale is versatile, helps understand levels of agreement or intensity of feelings, and can be applied across multiple questions in a survey.
When to Use Each?
- Use NPS when you want a high-level snapshot of loyalty and customer advocacy.
- Use Likert when you want deeper insights into what’s driving satisfaction, dissatisfaction, or specific attitudes.
- Many organizations combine both. For example, start with an NPS question to measure loyalty, and then add Likert questions to uncover why customers feel the way they do.
Final Thoughts
Both NPS and Likert scales are valuable tools in survey research — the choice depends on whether you need a quick loyalty benchmark or a deeper understanding of customer perceptions.
At Infer Surveys, we help brands design, script, and analyze both NPS surveys and Likert-scale studies, ensuring you capture the right insights for smarter business decisions.
Ready to find out what your customers really think?
- Let’s build your next survey together.