Measuring emotions in customer relationships: Can NEV replace NPS?
(A2021-94506)

AUTHORS

Steffen Mueller, ZHAW School of Management and Law; Roger Seiler, Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW); Melanie Völkle, ZHAW School of Management and Law

ABSTRACT

Most companies capture customer feedback through surveys and use different key performance indicators (KPIs), e.g., customer satisfaction (CUSAT) or Net Promoter Score (NPS). Recently, executives in many companies have lost interest in CUSAT or NPS because results do not change much. As a result, new KPIs are suggested, e.g., Net Emotional Value (NEV). We investigate how NEV should be measured and whether it can replace CUSAT or NPS. We find that the twenty emotions suggested by Shaw (2007) are reasonable. We also find that NEV has a higher explanatory power than CUSAT but a lower explanatory power than NPS. Therefore, we recommend using it as an additional KPI. It can provide valuable input for a company’s communication strategy and can be applied to other data sources than surveys – e.g., text data from complaints or social media posts.