Understanding CSAT – A Comprehensive Guide to Customer Satisfaction
CSAT is an important metric for tracking customer satisfaction. It provides valuable insight into how your support team meets customers’ expectations and drives business results.
However, it’s important to understand the limitations of this metric. In particular, how CSAT relates to other metrics like NPS and churn. Also, the question type and timing of your surveys are crucial.
What is CSAT?
Customer Satisfaction Assessment (CSAT) is a customer experience metric that measures whether customers are satisfied with the product or service they received. It does so by asking your customers to rate their experience on a predetermined rating scale, such as a 5-point scale where scores of 4 and 5 indicate satisfied and very satisfied, respectively.
CSAT surveys can be conducted at any point of interaction in your customer journey. They can be shared as part of a post-support call to gauge how customers feel about your agents or after product updates to understand how well your audience receives new features.
Despite their usefulness, there are some drawbacks to using CSAT as your primary customer satisfaction metric. One of the main ones is that CSAT only reflects short-term sentiment and a customer’s answer will be based on their mood at that moment, as opposed to how they feel about your product or service overall. It also doesn’t necessarily translate to loyalty, as customers might still be open to switching providers if they find something better for their needs or budget.
Measuring other customer experience metrics with CSAT is important to gain a more holistic picture of how your customers perceive your brand. This will allow you to identify any key areas of your business that require improvement and help you develop a strategy to maintain customer satisfaction.
How to Measure CSAT
The best way to measure CSAT is through a survey. The survey should ask a single question with a rating scale, such as “How satisfied were you with the [goods/services] provided by [company name]?” The rating options could be any number-driven responses – like 1-5 or 1-star ratings — or even symbolic responses (like thumbs up/down or emojis).
You can also measure customer satisfaction through open-ended questions, which are more helpful in understanding why a respondent was either happy or unhappy. However, using the right timing for your surveys is important, as respondents’ emotions may fade. Try to send your survey immediately after a service interaction so that the experience is fresh in their mind. Ideally, you can create a cadence of surveys triggered at specific journey touchpoints, such as after an onboarding experience or before a subscription renewal.
Another good idea is to use a mobile survey optimized for smartphones since most people always have one in their pocket. Make it easy for your respondents to complete the survey, and ensure the questions align with their expectations. This will help you achieve a high survey completion rate and more accurate results. Once you’ve gathered your results, you can analyze your data to find ways to improve customer happiness.
How to Calculate CSAT
CSAT is calculated by dividing the number of “very satisfied” (usually defined as scoring 5 out of 5) or satisfied (“4” and “5”) responses by the total number of responses and multiplying by 100. This translates to a percentage that represents the number of happy customers.
Typically, a company’s CSAT score is measured through a short survey that asks customers to rate their satisfaction with a particular product, service, or experience. The survey may ask one or more questions with a rating scale, such as stars, emojis, or numeric numbers, and it usually includes a text field for additional feedback and commentary.
Customer satisfaction surveys can be sent after any touchpoint in the customer journey. Still, they are often best suited for those important to the customer’s experience and tied to specific business goals – like purchase follow-up or user onboarding. This approach also ensures that the survey is completed on time, which can help reduce churn risk.
The frequency you measure CSAT will depend on various factors, including the customer lifecycle, industry benchmarks, resource availability, business objectives, and historical data trends. However, a common rule of thumb is to measure CSAT continuously and watch for unexpected dips that can indicate issues with the customer experience.
How to Analyze CSAT
CSAT is a good way to track the quality of your customer support experience, but there are other tools in your arsenal. It would help if you had a combination of KPIs like ticket volume, first response time, and other metrics that give you a full picture of the quality of your service.
The best way to collect your CSAT data is by asking customers for feedback after interacting with a department or feature. This can be done through built-in CSAT surveys within your helpdesk solution or with pop-up surveys on your website. Ecommerce businesses, for example, often use CSAT surveys to gauge their customers’ satisfaction with returns and other processes.
You can also send CSAT surveys regularly, such as every six months, to monitor overall satisfaction. However, ensuring your survey questions are concise and easy for respondents to understand is important. It’s also a good idea to include open-ended questions so that if someone isn’t satisfied, they can explain why in their own words.
Besides measuring CSAT, you should consider other KPIs that can give you a more comprehensive view of your customer experience, such as NPS and CES (Customer Effort Score). These measures look at overall satisfaction with a brand rather than specific interactions or products.
