The Net Promoter Score system is a customer satisfaction metric that was established by Bain & Company to assess the levels of brand loyalty among customers. Today industries with higher Net Promoter Scores are seen as industry leaders. In this blog, we will discuss what is the full form of tNPS and its formula. We will share the advantages, differences from relational NPS and how transactional NPS is used in customer experience (CX).  

What is a Transactional NPS Survey? 

Transactional NPS (tNPS) measures customer experience immediately after a specific interaction or transaction with your business. Unlike the traditional (relational) NPS, which measures overall loyalty, tNPS focuses on customer experience at each touchpoint. 

The core tNPS question is simple:

Based on your recent interaction with our support team, how likely are you to recommend our business to a friend or colleague?. 

• Promoters (9–10): Likely to recommend, highly satisfied.
• Passives (7–8): Satisfied but neutral.
• Detractors (0–6): Unhappy, may spread negative word of mouth.

Trigger tNPS surveys in-the-moment for authentic feedback and higher response rates (up to 98% via channels like WhatsApp)

9 Key Touchpoints for tNPS Surveys:

Send in-the-moment tNPS surveys for genuine and higher response rates.

1. Post-purchase from an ecommerce store.
2. After resolving a software bug or ticket.
3. During the buyer journey for satisfaction mapping.
4. In offline retail setups.
5. Post-onboarding for new users.
6. After product demos (online/offline).
7. Following checkout or delivery.
8. After refunds or returns.
9. Post-event or webinar attendance.

What is the Difference Between Transactional NPS and Relational NPS?

tNPS zooms in on specific moments, while rNPS looks at the big picture. Combining both gives a complete view of CX.

What is a relational NPS (rNPS) survey?

Relational NPS (rNPS or simply NPS) measures brand advocacy based on the entire customer-brand relational NPS in a customer journey. Relational NPS captures the general perception of your brand, level of customer loyalty and learns about your brand advocates.  

Track it quarterly/ annually and compare against industry standard benchmarks.

Advantage of rNPS

• Provides an overview of a customer’s relations with a business. 
• Empowers customers to share feedback on products and services.
• Encourages passives (neutral) to share their experience as they are less likely to engage with traditional feedback forms.
• Helps businesses gather periodic user feedback to identify potential gaps in customer experience.  
• Useful for industries with long customer journeys, such as the automobile, FMCG (household machines), and banking and finance sectors. 

Disadvantages of rNPS

• Since rNPS focuses on general feedback, it cannot pinpoint specific interactions or issues within the customer journey.
• Overuse of rNPS surveys can lead to survey fatigue, prompting respondents to provide random or disengaged answers.  

How to Calculate the Transactional NPS (tNPS)?

The tNPS formula and standard NPS are calculated with the same formula.  

Percentage of promoters = (Number of Promoters / Total Number of Respondents) × 100

tNPS = % of promoters – % of detractors.
Scores can be between -100 to 100.

Example:
Out of 100 respondents, 50  promoters and 30 detractors, 20 passives. 

The calculation will be as follows:
Percentage of promoters = (50 / 100) × 100 = 50%

Percentage of detractors = (30 / 100) × 100 = 30%.

tNPS = 50% – 30% is 20.

Three types of customers in the transactional NPS survey

1. tNPS Promoters (9 or 10): Promoters are brand loyal customers who drive referrals.  

2. tNPS Passives (7 or 8): Satisfied but not super enthusiastic. They can tip on either side of the scale. 

3. tNPS Detractors (6 or below): At-risk customers who could damage your reputation. 

What is A Good tNPS Score: 2026 Benchmarks

Benchmarks vary by industry. According to 2026 data, scores above 20 are favorable, 50+ excellent and 70+ world-class. B2C averages 49, B2B 38

1. 0 or below: Indication of extremely unhappy customers. They may have switched to the competitor product. You may face loss of time, resources and risk your market reputation. 

2. 0 to 30: This indicates that the company is upgrading customer experience. There is a noticeable scope for improvement. This might be an acceptable score but brands still need to increase customer satisfaction. 

3. 30 to 50: This indicates that your customers are happy with your products and services. They are willing to recommend your brand. At this point, gather multiple positive customer testimonials.

4. Above 50: This indicates that your brand has set the industry benchmark. A high score can be extremely challenging in a competitive market. Values of 60 and above are seen as excellent.

Closing the Feedback Loop: Actions for Each Score

Based on a score value and feedback, here is what you can do to cater to your respondents

1. For promoters: 

• Launch referral programs to reward promoters for bringing in new customers. Monetize recommendations.
• Offer cross-selling or upselling opportunities related to their previous purchases.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of your NPS strategy. For instance, if only 60% of customers follow through on recommendations, your NPS reliability may only be 60%.
• Engaged promoters to provide higher quality feedback to collect in-depth customer insights, testimonials and independent reviews and participation in product testing campaigns.

2. For detractors: 

• Assess grievances with detractors.
• Segregate problems and implement feasible solutions.
• Close the feedback loop quickly to address concerns.

3. For passives: 

• Ask for specific improvement ideas.
• Implement changes to delight them. 
• Prevent passives from turning into detractors.
  

Where & When to Use Transactional NPS Surveys: 8 Examples

Here are some important transactional situations where tNPS is important. 

1. Product shipment confirmation:

A tNPS survey can capture post-purchase experiences when customers receive a live tracking number. It  identifies technical issues, checkout friction points or any other challenges during the purchasing process. 

2. Support ticket call or interaction: 

After resolving a customer’s support request, a tNPS survey can gauge satisfaction and highlight service gaps. A structured approach includes:

• Initial support call
• Feedback from a tNPS survey
• Follow-up call to ensure issue resolution

3. Product-usage information surveys:

A tNPS survey can help assess if the product meets expectations and solves the intended problem.

4. New customer onboarding:

The new customer onboarding process can be overwhelming. A tNPS survey can uncover:

• Availability of sufficient resources
• Clarity of product details
• Smoothness of the checkout process
• Effectiveness of FAQs

5. In-store customer experience:

A quick tNPS survey for walk-in customers can measure whether they had a positive experience and would consider returning.

6. Application and website feedback:

TNPS surveys help beta testers and users report bugs, glitches and usability issues. Open-ended responses combined with NPS ratings enable developers to refine the app or website experience.

7. Follow-up satisfaction surveys:

A follow-up tNPS survey at key milestones helps track ongoing customer experiences especially for high-value purchases like appliances or cars.

8. Free trial experience:

A tNPS survey during or after the trial helps determine:

• Likelihood of conversion
• Feature gaps
• Areas for improvement  

How to Use Transactional Net Promoter Score Data in Business?

Here are the main reasons for using the tNPS survey:

1. Understand customer expectations to offer memorable CX:

Customer expectations are rising. The NPS scores give insight on the current issues, usage problems, service issues. Use this data to create a welcoming experience for every customer.

2. Detect customer churn probabilities among detractors:

Detractors might churn sooner if unattended. Passives might convert to detractors during multiple unpleasant experiences.  Customer experience teams can make early amends, intervene at the right time and convert them into happy customers.

3. Identify technical problem for transactions or usage:

Mobile applications and websites need constant improvements. A transactional NPS survey can capture details on bugs, technical problems and compatibility issues. Developers constantly need these responses to work on the user interface for a seamless browsing.

4. Support teams can act faster with in-moment responses:

A transactional NPS survey needs to be in-context with the event. This can bring real time responses for CX teams. It could be during a purchase process, post purchase experience or post service calls. In-the-moment customer feedback can help CX teams offer quick resolutions and improvements.

Tips to Design High-Response tNPS Surveys

Here are the best practices to follow when curating a transactional NPS score survey.

1. Ask context-based questions for clarity:

Keep questions specific to the interaction for quick recall.
Example: Based on your recent [interaction, e.g., support ticket #123], how likely are you to recommend us?

2. Include open ended question: 

Add an open-ended response to a transactional NPS question to learn the reason before a rating.. 

3. Avoid color-coded scale:

Color coded scales (red, yellow, green) encourage bias in responses. Keep scale colour neutral and readable across screens so that customers can rate spontaneously. 

4. Remove channel barriers 

Use interactive single-touch channels of WhatsApp, messenger, chatbots to get a high response rate. Merren brings native WhatsApp tNPS surveys that have an open rate of 98%. 

5. Conduct active follow-ups

When you have promoters share their feedback, acknowledge it. This encourages them to offer periodic feedback. If customers are a passive or detractor, find ways to close the customer feedback loop in 24 hours. Personalize follow-ups and resolve conflicts.

6. Use structured triggers and automation

Building automatic survey triggers in your CRM ensures timely feedback. Trigger touchpoint-based transactional net promoter score surveys so that you can collect in-moment feedback.