I was slow to pick up MetroPCS's NPS focus on their quarterly investor conference call, but it was a pretty good story for them.

The wireless industry is now aggressively duking it out for customer retention and growth, and NPS appears to be the battleground of choice. Our benchmarks continue to show a tight pack at the top, with the sole exception being SPRINT who lags the leadership group - and have financial performance to prove it.

METRO doesn't quote their NPS on their call (they make reference to it being "high") but makes a big part of their story the connection between low churn rate, customer satisfaction and customer referrals etc. 30% year on year subscriber growth is a nice story.

What I like about this story is their non-use of contracts. As a disclaimer, I don't use their service so I don't know if it's as good as advertised. But with a business model of low switching costs (no contracts) they neatly avoid the classic bad profits pitfalls of companies who enjoy the "loyalty benefits" of locking their customers in. Furthermore, with churn rates of below 5%, those contracts don't look as valuable as just plain old good service. Perhaps the lack of locked in customers actually forces them to think hard about how to retain them?