Net Promoter Score and Six Sigma: A Match Made in Business Heaven

Net Promoter Score Six Sigma are two methodologies that fit perfectly together. One is meant to measure customer loyalty by identifying the sources of dissatisfaction; the other is a methodology meant to eliminate the root causes of customer dissatisfaction. Using the Google Correlate tool, I’ve been able to see some interesting and sometimes crazy relationships and also validate that I’m not alone in thinking that NPS and Six Sigma are a good fit for each other.

Google Correlate is a tool that one can search Keywords on to see what other keywords are searched in conjunction with it and then Google provides the correlation coefficient (R^2) to see how closely the words are searched together.

No, correlation is clearly not causation. The tool simply tells us which keywords are searched together.

So, today, I present Lean Six Sigma and Net Promoter Score:

Indeed, correlation is not causation. But, at the same time, it really makes sense to me to see positive correlation between lean six sigma and net promoter score (NPS).

Wht is the Relationship?

At bottom, practitioners of lean and six sigma are aiming to create a better customer experience. And, theoretically, the Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a measure claimed by Bain and Company to measure loyalty of customers to a company. The NPS can be measured by one of two questions:

• How likely are you to refer (company name or service or product) to a friend in the next (number of months)?
• How likely are you to (purchase x product) in the next (number of months)?

According to Bain and Satmetrix, the response to those questions on a 1-10 scale gives us a sense of the percentage of Promoters and Detractors and is a predictor of loyalty. If this is true, then the relationship between those who practice lean six sigma are interested in improving the customer experience by reducing the number of detractors.

That makes sense to me. But whether the Net Promoter Score itself is a decent predictor of loyalty is a different topic. I’m not so sure about that, but the Google correlate data between the keywords “lean six sigma” and “net promoter score” is interesting.