What is an NPS trigger?
Used in a sentence: Let's move the NPS trigger from app launch to the moment a delivery is marked complete, and skip anyone who rated us this quarter.
How it works
Net Promoter Score asks one question: how likely is the user to recommend the product, on a scale from zero to ten. The trigger is the rule that decides when that question appears inside the app.
A trigger combines an event with conditions. The event is a success moment, such as “order delivered” or “payment successful”. Conditions narrow it down: the user has been active for a while, has not been surveyed recently and is not in a support conversation. When all of these hold, the SDK shows the survey, usually as a bottom sheet with a follow-up question asking why they gave that score.
Example
A food delivery app used to show NPS on app launch and got answers shaped by whatever the user was about to do. The team changes the trigger to fire a few minutes after an order is marked delivered, only for users with several past orders. Users who contacted support about that order are excluded, and nobody sees the survey again within the quarter.
In-app NPS vs email NPS
| In-app NPS | Email NPS | |
|---|---|---|
| Timing | Right after the moment | Hours or days later |
| Context | Tied to a specific action | General recollection |
| Reach | Active users only | Includes lapsed users |
In-app NPS captures fresh reactions. Email reaches users who no longer open the app.
Best practices
- Trigger on a completed success event, never on app open or during a task.
- Add a short open-text follow-up so scores come with reasons.
- Set a long cooldown per user and suppress across channels.
- Compare scores by cohort and trigger, not just as one overall number.
How to do this with Digia Engage
A product team builds the NPS survey in Digia’s no-code builder and picks the trigger from success events already tracked in CleverTap, MoEngage or WebEngage. Cooldowns, exclusions and the follow-up question are set in the same campaign, and responses flow back for analysis. The survey goes live without an app release. See the mobile NPS page and the surveys product.
Frequently asked questions
- When is the best time to show an NPS survey in an app?
- Right after the user completes something meaningful: a delivery arrives, a payment goes through, an episode finishes. The experience is fresh and the user is not in the middle of a task. Avoid app open, checkout and error screens, where the survey interrupts or captures frustration with one moment rather than the product.
- How often can you ask the same user for NPS?
- Set a cooldown so each user sees the survey only occasionally, often once a quarter or less, and never again soon after they answer or dismiss it. Use suppression rules to skip users who were surveyed recently by any channel, so in-app and email requests do not overlap.
Related terms
Read more
Part of the In-app engagement glossary.