Companies should move beyond the Net Promoter Score (NPS), as it overstates the percentage of consumers who are considered “detractors,” argues ForeSee in a new report. Rather than assume that survey respondents who wouldn’t actively recommend a brand are “detractors,” ForeSee touts a new metric, the Word of Mouth Index (WoMI), which follows up the NPS question about likelihood to recommend with one about the likelihood of a consumer to discourage others from doing business with a company. So who tops the new metric?

The WoMI score is calculated by taking the percentage of likely positive recommendations (top-2 box score on a 10-point scale concerning the likelihood to recommend) and subtracting the percentage of likely detractors (top-2 box score on a 10-point scale concerning the likelihood to discourage the business). The new report takes a look at the top 100 US brands from this angle, using more than 21,000 consumer surveys across 90 brands (10 did not gain enough responses to be statistically significant).

The top 10 brands by WoMI are:

  • Amazon (67);
  • Apple (65);
  • Harley Davidson (64);
  • Walt Disney (62);
  • eBay/Avon (each at 61);
  • John Deere (59);
  • Honda (58);
  • HP (57); and
  • Ikea and Louis Vuitton (each at 56).

Meanwhile, languishing at the bottom were AXA (0), HSBC (20), Facebook (22), Citi (24), and Shell (25), with Yahoo! (27) also posting a relatively low score.

Overall, the average WoMI across the top brands was 44, though retail (52), automotive (49), computer and electronics manufacturers (48), and CPG (46) tended to fare better than the overall average. Top financial brands scored an average WoMI of just 32.

About the Data: The surveys were carried out in August 2013. http://www.marketingcharts.com