The One Number That Can Predict Your Company’s Growth

Most executives drown in metrics. Customer satisfaction scores, market share, retention rates, each promising to be the key to growth. But in 2003, Frederick F. Reichheld, writing in Harvard Business Review, revealed a startlingly simple truth: there’s one question that outperforms them all when it comes to predicting profitable growth.

That question is: “How likely is it that you would recommend our company to a friend or colleague?”

Reichheld’s research showed that this single measure, later known as the Net Promoter Score (NPS), correlated more strongly with growth than any other customer metric. Companies with the highest NPS in their industries typically outpaced competitors in revenue growth by more than two times. Why? Because a willingness to recommend reflects genuine loyalty, not just fleeting satisfaction. Loyal customers buy more, stay longer, and crucially become ambassadors who attract new customers at little cost.

The brilliance of this approach lies in its simplicity. Customers respond on a 0-10 scale. Those giving a 9 or 10 are “Promoters,” the enthusiastic advocates. Scores of 0-6 are “Detractors,” whose negative word-of-mouth can quietly sabotage growth. Subtracting the percentage of Detractors from Promoters gives you your NPS, a number that teams across the company can rally around.

This isn’t just a marketing tool. Reichheld stressed that NPS should be embedded into the company’s operating rhythm. It becomes a catalyst for frontline teams to close feedback loops, a rallying cry for leaders to remove friction, and a constant reminder that sustainable growth depends not just on acquiring customers, but on creating such positive experiences that customers can’t help but recommend you.

Twenty years later, in an age where online reviews and social sharing amplify every experience, good or bad, the relevance of this single number has only grown. In a world overloaded with data, NPS stands out as a rare metric that both predicts performance and inspires action.

If you want to explore how NPS can help your business build loyalty, boost referrals, and drive sustainable growth, contact us . We’d be glad to guide you in embedding it into your company’s operating rhythm.