Bridging research and practice: The case of the Net Promoter Score

Academic marketing performance measurement tends to be psychometrically-grounded (Katsikeas et al., 2016), and underpinned by realist ontology (Borsboom et al., 2003). Conversely, practice relies on mental models to guide idiosyncratic measurement (cf., Cornelissen, 2002). Filling a need for ‘simple data’ (e.g., McColl et al., 2019) that is both reportedly academically endorsed and profitable, is the Net Promoter Score (NPS). NPS stems from an 11-point item capturing likelihood-to-recommend an organization to others. NPS is intuitive and practical (Rogers, 2019), and lauded as predicting growth (Reichheld, 2003). It has thus been adopted by commercial organizations, public sector bodies, and academic institutions, and an NPS consultancy industry has developed (e.g., Wootric). These actors have elevated it from a metric to a philosophy (cf., Reichheld and Markey, 2011). In parallel, a number of concerns are raised in marketing academia. While efforts to resolve them are proliferating (e.g., Baehre et al., 2022b), these are hampered by conceptual ambiguity at metric and philosophy levels, which has yet to be explicitly acknowledged. Adding pluralism of NPS in practice, it is unsurprising that despite recent efforts (Bendle et al., 2019), academic and practitioner convergence remains elusive. Yet, NPS knowledge requires marrying academic advances with practical applications, such that (a) theoretical and methodological developments are impactful for practice, and (b) applications are sound. NPS thus offers an exemplar context for bridging research and practice. The overarching aim of this paper is to address the challenges that threaten NPS theoretical and methodological development in marketing academia and legitimacy in marketing practice, such that the organizational benefits of NPS are expanded, while academia can resolve concerns to generate impactful knowledge. In achieving this aim, we (a) conduct a critical review of NPS literature to identify jingle/jangle fallacies, (b) marry conceptual ambiguity and pluralism, and (c) determine a green ‘zone of conformity’ (cf. Aguilera et al., 2018), where research and practice can find plausible spaces to move NPS forward in the same direction. [...]