What if some customers respond too literally to the NPS question?
Though it’s rare, sometimes a customer may interpret the wording of the NPS question too literally. They may read it as “Can you recommend us to someone you know?” When this occurs, the customer might answer “Very Unlikely” because they don't actually know anyone who could use your services - and they may state this in their survey comment.
Some of our earlier surveys used the following wording for the NPS question. The phrase "If given the opportunity" was added to address respondents taking the question to literally:
“If given the opportunity, how likely are you to recommend us to colleagues and friends?”
If your survey uses the above wording, and you have many customers are taking the question literally, we recommend changing the question to read as follows:
"How likely is it that you would recommend [brand or company] to a friend or colleague?"
The older wording of the question is in the present tense ("...how likely are you to recommend..."), whereas the updated wording is in the future tense ("...that you would recommend..."). This helps the respondent interpret the question as a future potential, and not a literal ask in the present, helping to reduce confusion.
Regardless, a small percent of customers may misinterpret any question on your survey. If you feel you have a chronic issue of confusion surrounding the NPS question, please contact our support team. We'll review your results, advise you if we feel an update is needed, and then make the changes per your approval.
We do not recommend changing this question, or other well-tested questions, due to a few occasional outliers.