Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)

What is Customer Satisfaction?

Customer Satisfaction, or CSAT, is the percentage of customers who are satisfied with using your product or service. CSAT differs from NPS (Net Promoter Score) in that it focuses on customer response to a specific moment, whereas NPS focuses on customer intention more broadly.

This is why the content of questions used to determine CSAT and NPS also differ: while CSAT asks customers about a specific aspect of their experience (“How was the delivery process?”) or even their experience in general, NPS will always ask about the customer’s likelihood of actually going out of their way to recommend the product or service to others.

Similarly to NPS, CSAT is measured on a Likert scale of either 1-5 or 1-10. “Satisfied” customers are those who give either a 4-5 or 8-10 on the survey responses. These responses are then evaluated against the total number of surveys taken to determine the CSAT score.

Customer Satisfaction is a useful KPI for your support team to monitor.

Why is measuring Customer Satisfaction important?

CSAT is important for the same reasons as NPS, although approached from a somewhat different angle. As its name describes, it’s a measure of customer satisfaction, and keeping your customers happy is the best way to attract further business, especially in a highly competitive market.

Knowing your CSAT, especially by tracking it over time, will also help you to target those specific areas of your business model that require improvement. You can set those necessary benchmarks and use your CSAT to help obtain them. Your customer input will prove invaluable in this regard.

How to calculate Customer Satisfaction

Customer Satisfaction is expressed as a percentage. Your number of "satisfied customers" are those who gave you a rating of 4-5 (or 8-10) on your survey: these are the customers you are most likely to retain.

How to increase Customer Satisfaction

Increase your Customer Satisfaction score by optimizing your surveys and survey distribution. Send out surveys immediately after customers make transactions or interactions with your support team, and at regular intervals – for example, via newsletter. While these won’t be input into CSAT calculations, provide space for open-ended answers that customers can use to give more in-depth feedback about your product or service.

Bear in mind, however, that surveys can be overused. Customers can get fatigued from answering too many surveys, and the quality of their responses may suffer as a result. CSAT should also be evaluated in context with other KPIs, as its subjective nature and narrow scope provide only a very limited insight into actual customer opinion about your company.

Other KPIs similar to Customer Satisfaction include:

• Net Promoter Score (NPS)
• Customer Effort Score (CES)
• Escalation Rate