The Good, the Bad, and the Horrible: Interpreting Net-Promoter Score and the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire in the light of good market research practice

Friday May 4, 2pm, Carslaw 173

Nicholas Fisher
University of Sydney and ValueMetrics Australia

The Good, the Bad, and the Horrible: Interpreting Net-Promoter Score and the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire in the light of good market research practice

Net-Promoter Score (NPS) is a ubiquitous, easily-collected market research metric, having displaced many complete market research processes. Unfortunately, this has been its sole success. It possesses few, if any, of the characteristics that might be regarded as highly desirable in a high-level market research metric; on the contrary, it’s done considerable damage to companies, to their shareholders and to their customers. Given the current focus on the financial services sector and its systemic failures in delivering value to customers, it is high time to question reliance on NPS.

The Safety Attitudes Questionnaire is an instrument for assessing Safety Culture in the workplace, and is similarly wide-spread throughout industries where Safety is a critical issue. It has now been adapted to assess other forms of culture, such as Risk Culture. Unfortunately, it is also highly flawed, albeit for quite different reasons.

Examining these two methodologies through the lens of good market research practice brings their fundamental flaws into focus.

Nick Fisher has an honorary position as Visiting Professor of Statistics at the University of Sydney, and runs his own R&D consultancy specialising in Performance Measurement. Prior to taking up these positions in 2001, he was a Chief Research Scientist in CSIRO Mathematical and Information Sciences.