ForeSee claims that WoMI is a more nuanced measure than the Net Promoter Score metric as it measures both the likelihood to recommend and the likelihood to detract from a specific brand.

The company says that NPS assumes that “if someone is not recommending, they are detracting”. By not distinguishing between positive and negative word-of-mouth, ForeSee says that its own research suggests NPS overstates a brand’s detractors by 270% on average.

Larry Freed, chief executive officer of ForeSee, said: “As customer metrics evolved along with social media and methods for spreading word-of-mouth, NPS hasn’t kept pace with today’s ecosystem that includes customer megaphones such as Facebook, Twitter and Yelp.

“WoMI is the evolution of NPS, offering a more precise analytic measure to address the sophistication of customers and provide today’s businesses with an accurate number that works within a system of metrics to improve bottom-line results.”