The genius of the Net Promoter Score is that it measures, with one number, consumers’ likelihood to recommend a brand. And that’s hugely important, as this correlates with consumer behavior better than any other measure.

The effectiveness of NPS has made it by far the most popular predictor of top-line revenues today. It is, as Fred Reichheld, the father of NPS, argued in his 2003 Harvard Business Review article, “The One Number You Need to Grow.” However, to be most effective, companies must first break it down into its three loyalty categories, and then prioritize those categories.

Let’s start at the beginning: The NPS system rewards a brand for creating Promoters (those responsible for most of a brand’s repeat and referral business), and penalizes it for Detractors (those who provide minimal repeat and referral business but are responsible for 80 percent of negative word of mouth and negative social reviews). Between the two are Passives (those customers who neither build nor damage your brand). 

A 10-point rating scale enables you to track your Promoter (Likelihood to Recommend ratings of 9 and 10), Passive (ratings of 7 and 8), and Detractor (ratings of 1 through 6) percentages. NPS is calculated simply by subtracting the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters.

The question is, what is the optimal strategy to increase your NPS? The answer should be based on not only the overall Likelihood to Recommend score, but on the actual percentages of Promoters and Detractors and the scores for specific guest experiences across the resort.

Increase Promoters, or Decrease Detractors?

The most important decision a business should make is whether to focus resources on increasing the percentage of Promoters or decreasing the percentage of Detractors. Either strategy can lead to increases in your score and incremental business, but the more successful strategy is the one that pursues the larger opportunity. 

Most guest experience initiatives impact one strategy or the other, and each strategy requires different executional tactics. On the one hand, increasing Promoters is achieved by delivering consistently excellent experiences to your guests throughout their visit and across visits, emotionally engaging them, and wowing them. On the other hand, decreasing Detractors is accomplished by eliminating hassles, defects, and frustrations from the guest experience and recovering with them. 

Source: Guest Research, Inc.

Determine the optimal overall strategy. How do you decide which strategy is optimal and affords the greater overall growth opportunity for your ski area? Start by looking “under the NPS hood” at the percentages of Promoters, Passives, and Detractors. Know that Detractors will hurt you more than Promoters will help you: one Detractor offsets the value of 3-9 Promoters.

So, we recommend you first consider the percentage of Detractors, and apply our rule of thumb: If the percentage of Detractors is 10 percent or higher, you should focus on reducing the Detractor percentage. If the Detractor percentage is less than 10 percent, you should focus instead on turning Passives into Promoters, so they are not just satisfied, but also loyal to your ski area.

Strategize for guest experiences across all touch points. While the strategy decision discussed before is typically applied only to the overall Likelihood to Recommend score for your ski area, we have found it equally beneficial to apply it with all the specific experiences a guest has with your resort, from pre-arrival to post-departure. That is, how do guests rate the experience at each of these touch points? 

This will help your team set Promoter vs. Detractor priorities for all departments, areas, and outlets, and involve all staff in enhancing the guest experience. The 10-percent Detractor threshold should be applied to all departments except for food and beverage, for which we recommend a 15-percent threshold.

Identify specific improvement opportunities. Once the strategy decisions are made, you’ll need to identify the specific opportunities to decrease Detractors and increase Promoters overall and throughout the guest journey.

The first step in this process is to solicit suggestions from your front-line staff. This is your best source of guest-experience information, and you should be collecting it regularly throughout the winter season. 

Next, refer to your reporting system (i.e., your surveys) for additional clues. For example, to identify opportunities to decrease Detractors by eliminating hassles, defects, and frustrations, review Detractors’ reasons for their low Likelihood to Recommend ratings. Guest comments in response to open-ended survey questions should provide additional insights.

To increase Promoters, you’ll want to identify what guests like the most, and then find ways to give them more of it. This information can be obtained by reviewing Promoters’ reasons for their high Likelihood to Recommend ratings and from the drivers of Likelihood to Recommend and Overall Satisfaction with the visit. Use correlation analysis to determine the most powerful drivers. (For more on correlation analysis, see “What Guests Want,” SAM, July 2024.)

Identifying which overall resort and overall department attributes are most highly correlated with the Likelihood to Recommend will also provide useful insights into where to look for what guests enjoy the most. Make sure to determine where and when your guests have fun, what makes them feel happy, and what makes them feel valued by your ski area—these are the three most critical emotions and the keys to increasing Promoters and decreasing Detractors.

Apply departmental benchmarks. As a final step, benchmark your ratings against your competitive set for each department to further identify relative strengths and weaknesses. This may point to other opportunities to decrease Detractors and increase Promoters.  

Net Promoter® and NPS® are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., NICE Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld. Net Promoter Score℠ is a service mark of Bain & Company, Inc., NICE Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.