Business Context

AcmeLearn is a subscription-based learning app with 2.4M monthly active users and 310K paying subscribers. Over the last two quarters, paid subscriber growth slowed from 18% QoQ to 7% QoQ even though top-of-funnel acquisition remained stable. The growth team wants to know whether NPS and other satisfaction signals can help explain and predict growth.

Metric Scenario

In Q1, AcmeLearn's overall NPS was 41; in Q2 it fell to 34. During the same period, 90-day paid retention declined from 72% to 67%, referral-driven new paid subscriptions fell from 14% to 10% of total new paid adds, and trial-to-paid conversion stayed roughly flat at 8.4% to 8.2%. App store rating also declined from 4.6 to 4.3, while support ticket rate rose from 18 to 26 tickets per 1,000 MAU. Leadership is asking whether NPS should be treated as a leading indicator for growth, how to combine it with behavioral metrics, and what actions should follow.

Requirements

1. Define how you would use NPS in a growth framework rather than as a standalone score.
2. Explain whether NPS is a leading, lagging, or diagnostic metric for AcmeLearn's growth goals.
3. Decompose the growth slowdown into acquisition, conversion, retention, and referral effects using the data above.
4. Propose a metric tree linking satisfaction signals to business outcomes.
5. Recommend which segments and cuts you would analyze first, and what actions you would take based on likely findings.

Data Available

• nps_responses: survey_date, user_id, score_0_10, free_text, product_area, plan_type
• subscriptions: user_id, trial_start_date, paid_start_date, cancel_date, plan_type, acquisition_channel
• product_events: user_id, event_time, lesson_started, lesson_completed, streak_days, session_length
• referrals: referrer_user_id, referred_user_id, referral_sent_date, referral_conversion_date
• support_tickets: user_id, created_at, issue_type, resolution_time_hours
• app_store_reviews: review_date, platform, star_rating, review_text