Evolved Thinking Blog

Australian B2B NPS industry benchmarks -2022 edition- Evolved Thinking

Written by Garreth Chandler | April 22, 2022

What is NPS?

Net Promotor Score, or NPS, is one of the most widely used Customer Experience metrics. It measures customer loyalty based on how likely customers are to recommend a service or product.

Australian B2B NPS industry benchmarks 2022

Evolved has been tracking B2B NPS among 15 industries since the beginning of 2020, with data captured using the HumanListeningTM platform. B2B NPS specifically looks at how likely business decision makers are to recommend their suppliers to other organisations.

Our most recent wave, which ran from October to December 2021, found that overall NPS has fallen slightly to 0.

Most industries saw no significant changes, with the exception of the Engineering industry which exhibited a statistically significant increase in NPS between waves 1 and 2, and a significant decrease between waves 2 and 3.

Figure 1: NPS by wave (base, ever used providers)

NPS Wave 1: Jan-Mar’20 Wave 2: Aug-Nov’20 Wave 3: Oct-Dec’21
Overall +8 (n=990) +2 (n=3321) 0 (n=3349)
Accounting services  -18 (n=50) +2 (n=222) +1 (n=186)
Banking and financial services +20 (n=59) 0 (n=301) +11 (n=309)
Broker services – Insurance   +24 (n=58) +10 (n=143) +21 (n=103)
Broker services – Mortgages  +28 (n=61) +20 (n=91) +31 (n=55)
Building management services +5 (n=58) +4 (n=146) +4 (n=139)
Consulting services -18 (n=55) 0 (n=210) 0 (n=213)
Education and training +12 (n=74) +13 (n=270) +10 (n=359)
Employment and recruitment services 0 (n=60) -9 (n=202) +6 (n-266)
Engineering 0 (n=68) +27 (n=165) +8 (n=149)
Insurance  +3 (n=73) -13 (n=278) -6 (n=284)
IT products, services and hardware +17 (n=76) +3 (n=473) +14 (n=416)
Legal services +3 (n=66) -2 (n=141) 0 (n=135)
Property data +34 (n=65) +18 (n=104) +22 (n=93)
Telecommunication services and equipment -9 (n=82) -10 (n=326) -10 (n=336)
Travel +7 (n=85) -6 (n=249) +2 (n=306)

Other industries saw statistically significant changes in the proportion of promotors, passives, and detractors:

  • IT products, services, and hardware: significant decrease in detractors between wave 2 (28%) and wave 3 (22%)
  • Banking and financial services: significant increase in promotors between wave 2 (29%) and wave 3 (37%)
  • Travel: significant decrease in detractors between wave 2 (37%) and wave 3 (28%)

Figure 2: Wave 3 NPS breakdown (base, ever used providers)

Row % 0 to 6 7 to 8 9 to 10 NPS
Accounting services 32% 35% 33% +1
Banking and financial services 26% 37% 37% +11
Broker services – insurance 19% 40% 41% +21
Broker services – mortgages 16% 36% 47% +31
Building management services 29% 37% 33% +4
Consulting services 27% 47% 26% 0
Education and training 25% 41% 34% +10
Employment & recruitment services 31% 44% 25% -6
Engineering 23% 45% 32% +8
Insurance 35% 36% 29% -6
IT products, services and hardware 22% 42% 36% +14
Legal services 34% 32% 34% 0
Property data 18% 42% 40% +22
Telecommunication services & equipment 38% 33% 29% -10
Travel 28% 42% 30% +2

Key Findings

NPS scores showed robust resiliency and/or recovery throughout the pandemic period, suggesting continued maintenance or recovery into 2022.

  • A drop in NPS was typically observed in the second wave
  • In the third wave, NPS typically reverted to wave 1 results, although some industries continued to improve
  • NPS for property-related industries (Mortgage brokers, Property, Building Management services, and Engineering) remained mostly stable throughout the pandemic with some increases
  • There have been substantial structural adjustments across each industry in response to the pandemic, with long-term implications for B2B relationships

Want to know more?

If you’d like detailed data specific to your industry, please reach out to our Evolved Thinking team.