Average NPS Scores: How to benchmark your NPS and get real value from it

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is one of the most widely used metrics for measuring customer loyalty and satisfaction. Yet despite its popularity, NPS is also one of the most misunderstood and poorly implemented metrics in customer experience management.

On its own, an NPS score tells you very little. Without context, benchmarking, and proper analysis, it becomes just another number on a dashboard, easy to report but difficult to act on. Many organisations conclude that NPS “doesn’t work”, when in reality the issue is not the metric itself, but how it is measured, analysed, and used.

In this article, we explore what a good NPS score really looks like, how average NPS scores differ by industry and region, and why benchmarking only delivers value when NPS is implemented correctly. You’ll also learn how combining NPS with root cause analysis, open-ended feedback, and AI-driven insights turns it from a reporting KPI into a decision-making tool.

Why NPS still matters when used correctly

A quick clarification before we go further: this is not a “what is NPS” guide. If that’s what you’re looking for, we’ve created one here: The ultimate guide to the Net Promoter Score. But, if you’re already measuring NPS, you know the basics. What matters now is whether you’re getting real value from it.

At its core, NPS is built around one simple question: “How likely is it that you would recommend this company, product, or service to a friend or colleague?”

Respondents are grouped into promoters, passives, and detractors. Your NPS score is calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters, resulting in a score between –100 and 100.

The strength of NPS lies in its simplicity. One number gives you a directional signal of customer loyalty. If your score is above zero, more customers would recommend you than not. If it’s negative, you have a loyalty problem.

However, simplicity is also where many organisations go wrong. NPS is often treated as a standalone KPI, tracked monthly or quarterly, shared with leadership, and then forgotten. When this happens, the metric becomes disconnected from decision-making, improvement initiatives, and customer reality.

Used properly, NPS can help you:

• identify customers at risk of churn
• detect early warning signals before loyalty declines
• find and activate brand advocates
• measure the impact of CX initiatives over time

But none of this works without context.

Why benchmarking your NPS is essential

An NPS score without a benchmark is meaningless. A score of 25 might be excellent in one industry and underperforming in another. Without comparison, it’s impossible to know whether your performance is strong, average, or falling behind.

Many articles claim that a good NPS score sits somewhere between 0 and 50, or that scores above 30 or 60 are excellent. These ranges are averages across industries and regions, and they hide enormous variation. To get meaningful insight, you need to benchmark your NPS against the right reference points, primarily your industry and your market.

How to benchmark NPS in a meaningful way  

Compare like with like

Every industry has structural challenges that influence customer expectations and scoring behaviour. Telecommunications, for example, often struggles with trust, pricing transparency, and perceived fairness, factors that suppress NPS across the sector.

Benchmarking against direct competitors provides a far more accurate picture than comparing across unrelated industries.

Account for regional differences

Scoring behaviour varies by country. In many European markets, customers are less likely to give 9s and 10s than in North America. Sweden is a clear example, where cultural values around moderation tend to result in lower NPS scores. If you operate internationally, benchmarking by region is essential to avoid false conclusions.

Be consistent in measurement

Timing, channels, and survey design all influence NPS results. Sending surveys immediately after a major product change or using different channels across markets can skew results. For benchmarking to be reliable, NPS measurement must be consistent over time and comparable across segments.

The biggest NPS mistake is stopping at the number  

This is where many NPS programmes fail. Benchmarking tells you where you stand, but not why. Without understanding the drivers behind your score, NPS becomes a lagging indicator rather than a tool for improvement.

This is why NPS must always be paired with open-ended follow-up questions, root cause analysis, and continuous insight rather than one-off reporting. Asking “Why did you choose this score?” is non-negotiable. The real value of NPS lives in the comments. Open-text feedback reveals what customers care about, what frustrates them, and what drives loyalty. Without analysing this data at scale, organisations are forced to rely on assumptions, anecdotes, or small samples.

Why AI is essential for getting value from NPS

Manually analysing hundreds or thousands of open-text comments is unrealistic. This is where many NPS programmes stall.

AI-driven insight changes that. By analysing open comments across all NPS responses, AI can identify recurring themes, quantify how specific topics impact NPS, show what is driving scores up or down over time, and highlight differences by region, product, or touchpoint. This transforms NPS from a static metric into a dynamic management tool. Instead of reporting that NPS dropped by three points, teams can explain why it happened and what to do next.

This ability to connect feedback themes directly to NPS impact enables CX leaders to tell a clear, credible story to management and justify investment decisions with evidence.

Best practices for improving your NPS

Improve the customer journey

Use NPS feedback to identify friction points across the customer journey. Look for patterns in comments to prioritise improvements where they matter most.

Act faster on feedback

High NPS correlates strongly with responsiveness. Automated feedback loops that trigger follow-ups when detractors respond enable teams to resolve issues before churn occurs.

Turn passives into promoters

Passives are often overlooked, yet they represent the biggest growth opportunity. Personalised offers, clearer value communication, and closing the feedback loop can turn indifference into loyalty.

Turn insight into action

Insight only creates value when it leads to action. AI-powered tools help teams segment data, prioritise issues, and automate workflows, ensuring feedback leads to continuous improvement rather than static reports.

Benchmarking only works when NPS is implemented correctly

NPS is not a flawed metric. It is a powerful one that is often poorly implemented. Benchmarking your NPS without understanding its drivers leads to shallow conclusions. Measuring NPS without analysing open-text feedback turns it into a vanity KPI. When NPS is combined with insight, root cause analysis, and AI-driven understanding, it becomes one of the most effective tools for improving customer loyalty and business performance.

To understand how NPS varies in practice across industries and markets, we partnered with Watermelon Research to conduct a large-scale benchmarking study across Europe. While the data was collected in 2025, the findings highlight structural differences between industries and regions that remain highly relevant going into 2026 and beyond.

What is a good NPS score by industry in practice

Our research focused on three major industries, retail, financial services, and telecommunications, across three European markets: Germany, the UK, and Sweden.

The findings show clear performance gaps:

• retail leads with an average NPS of 41
• financial services follows with an average NPS of 19
• telecommunications trails with an average NPS of just 2

These differences matter. An NPS of 19 might be competitive in financial services, but it would be well below average in retail. Without industry benchmarking, companies risk misjudging both success and failure.

Country-level differences also play a role. Germany showed relatively consistent NPS performance across industries. The UK demonstrated greater variability, while Sweden recorded lower average NPS scores overall, likely influenced by cultural norms around modest scoring.

This highlights an important point: benchmarking only works when comparisons are relevant.

Industry insights on where to focus improvement efforts

Based on the benchmark study, several recurring patterns stand out across industries. While individual scores may shift over time, these themes consistently explain why some organisations outperform others.

Retail: high potential, driven by consistency

Retail tends to achieve higher NPS scores overall, but performance varies widely between brands. The biggest differentiator is consistency across touchpoints. Brands that deliver reliable service and personalised experiences at scale are far more likely to build loyalty than those that rely on isolated moments of excellence.

Financial services: relevance and trust matter most

In financial services, moderate average scores hide significant opportunity. Customers reward providers that demonstrate a clear understanding of their needs, communicate transparently, and deliver products that feel relevant to real life situations. Trust, once lost, is difficult to regain, making proactive experience management critical.

Telecommunications: reliability and transparency as foundations

Telecommunications continues to struggle with low loyalty across markets. The strongest performers focus on operational reliability and clear communication. Meeting expectations consistently, especially when issues arise, has a greater impact on loyalty than marketing messages or short-term incentives.

Find out how you compare in the European NPS benchmarks

Want to see how your NPS compares across industries and countries in Europe? The European NPS benchmarks report is based on our most recent large-scale European study and provides average NPS scores by industry and market, key CX trends shaping customer loyalty, and actionable strategies to close experience gaps. If you want to move beyond reporting and start using NPS as a true management tool, this is the next step.

Download the NPS Benchmarks Report