smiley face survey

WHAT IS CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SCORE (CSAT)?

The Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) is a useful measure of how happy customers are with your products, service or company as a whole.

You could include one or multiple CSAT questions in your customer feedback survey. You might want an overall Customer Satisfaction Score, or one for each product, department or interaction relevant to your customers.  There are usually 5 answer options in CSAT questions, these could be text questions such as:

Q: How satisfied are you with the service you received today?

  • Very satisfied
  • Somewhat satisfied
  • Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied
  • Somewhat dissatisfied
  • Very dissatisfied

Or using images such as faces:

Example of a CSAT survey question

The CSAT score on its own isn’t actually that useful, yes you know the percentage of customers who are satisfied or dissatisfied but you don’t know why. We always recommend including a free text question in your survey so customers can tell you why they’re happy or unhappy.

CSAT vs NPS

Both the Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) and Net Promoter® Score (NPS) are useful way to measure satisfaction. CSAT evaluates customers’ happiness at that point in time, and is usually based on their latest experience. NPS is a longer term measurement, indicating overall happiness levels and customer loyalty.

For example, a loyal customer could receive bad service on one occasion so give a bad CSAT score. However, they know bad service is unusual and still love the company, so on your NPS question they still choose a high score. Obviously, if you don’t address the reason for the bad score your loyal customer won’t stay loyal for long.

HOW IS THE CSAT SCORE CALCULATED?

The CSAT Score is the percentage of satisfied customers, using the top two positive responses (green smiley faces, or very satisfied or somewhat satisfied) to calculate it.

No. of Satisfied Customers / No. of CSAT Question Responses x 100 = % of Satisfied Customers

Research shows that using the two highest results to measure customer satisfaction are the most accurate when calculating customer loyalty.

 

IMPROVE EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

You can use your CSAT results to identify training needs, to motivate employees and improve engagement. You could start friendly competitions between locations, departments, teams or individuals. It will encourage those with good scores to stay at the top or strive for perfection to be the best. You could offer weekly or monthly incentives, even simple things like the best parking space, leaving an hour early on Friday or a voucher, are good rewards.

Results being public should alone encourage those at the bottom to improve. You could also offer ‘most improved’  awards or incentives. You could also buddy the top performers with the worst, to share best practice and to help them develop and increase their scores.

As well as measuring customer satisfaction you can also measure employee happiness.

START MEASURING CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

It’s really easy to obtain your CSAT scores with Avius Surveys. Real-time feedback and reporting help you keep an eye on your CSAT scores throughout the day. Instant alerts mean you can react to negative feedback and resolve issues quickly.

If you act on the feedback received from customers, you should see your Customer Satisfaction Score improve in no time at all.