What is a CSAT score1

What is a CSAT score?

SHARE THE ARTICLE ON

Table of Contents

Evaluating customer satisfaction is an important part of the success of the business. CSAT score or Customer Satisfaction Score is one of the most used methods to gather customer’s voices on their experience with the brand. 

CSAT score is a tool used to improve customer experience to pave the way for customer retention. Customers feel more secure with a company when they are satisfied with either a particular or overall experience. 

User Experience

Measure CSAT score

The simple formula to calculate your CSAT score is

What is a CSAT score2

CSAT score = Total no. of positive responses/ total no. of responses collected X 100

The percentage you receive from the calculation indicates the overall percentage of customers satisfied with your business. 

Questions like “how satisfied are you on the scale of 1 to 7 with our ‘brand’?” can help you calculate your CSAT score. The questions should be worded simply and the scale should be 5-point or a 7-point scale.

What is a CSAT score3

If the direction of the range is 1 being ‘bad’ and 5 or 7 being ‘good’, then for calculation any score after mid-point is considered positive. This means for a 5-point scale the score of 4 and 5 are positive, similarly for the 7-point scale it is 5, 6, and 7. 

After collecting responses via the CSAT survey you can use the formula for calculation. The result you get indicates the percentage of customers who are happy with your brand’s service and their experience. 

Why should you calculate your CSAT score?

Poor customer service is one key reason why the U.S. companies lose $62 billion annually. Improving satisfaction across customer journeys leads to a 20% increase in CSAT. This further leads to a 15% increase in revenue for the company. 

Lower customer churn rate:

CSAT surveys can help identify the customers who are on the verge of churning. This gives you a heads-up to resolve their cause of dissatisfaction with the company and prevent their churn. 

A 10% lift in a CSAT score of a brand can provide a 12% increase in customer’s trust in the company. Improvement in customer satisfaction and experience can lead to a long-lasting relationship between customer and company, thus improving retention. 73% of consumers claim that to influence their brand loyalty, a good experience is the key.

Identify customer expectations and do better:

Customers are more dissatisfied when companies fail to meet their expectations. With the CSAT survey you can gather their feedback for various touch points throughout their journey. The CSAT score can reveal if you have met their expectation or not. As a result, you can figure out where you need improvement and develop strategies accordingly. 

Increase revenue from current customers:

Customers say that outstanding customer service is one important reason for them to spend 17% more on a company. The CSAT survey is a good way to monitor customer happiness. CSAT score focuses on the positive response and so helps identify the customers who are ‘satisfied’ or ‘extremely satisfied’ with your company, product, or service. It thus helps the company to ensure that customers remain satisfied and solve issues of those who are not satisfied. 

The survey creates an opportunity for you to resolve customer’s issues and convert them into happy customers. A customer who moves from ‘unsatisfied’ to ‘satisfied’ experience is more likely to repurchase or renew their service with your company. 

The shift into more ‘satisfied’ customers will help the company to generate more revenue from the existing customers. 

What is a good CSAT score?

What is a CSAT score4

75% to 85% is the range for a good CSAT score, however, it varies across different industries. CSAT score focuses on the positive response thus it only calculates the score given by promoters. American Customer Satisfaction Index is a national economic indicator that measures CSAT across the U.S. According to ACSI, the U.S. had an overall CSAT score of 74.4%. Some of the industry benchmarks for CSAT score are as follows:

  • Airline – 75
  • Apparel – 79
  • Banks – 78
  • Breweries – 81
  • Consumer Shipping – 76
  • Department and Discount stores – 76
  • Food Manufacturing – 82
  • Full-service Restaurants – 79
  • Hotel – 73
  • Hospitals – 69
  • Personal care and cleaning products – 83
  • Soft drinks – 82
  • Subscription Television service – 64
  • Supermarket – 78
  • U.S. postal service – 73
  • Video Streaming service – 76
Customer experience

When should you collect your CSAT score?

After Completion of Customer Lifecycle Moment:

Sending a CSAT survey after a customer completed a key moment in the journey can help you gather valuable insight. The experience they had during the key moment is still fresh when you send them a survey right at the completion. 

  • After Purchase
  • After Onboarding
  • After Customer Support
  • After Webinar or Education Interaction

The fresh experience evokes authentic and accurate feedback from the customers. At the end of their experience customers have most likely decided whether or not they are happy with your service. You can gather their feedback on how you can improve their experience.

Before Service Renewal:

If you are a subscription-based industry you can send out your CSAT survey a few months prior to the renewal. Make sure you have time in between to act upon the feedback, so it is better to send the survey at least 6 months prior. 

CSAT survey before renewal can help you identify what issues customer’s faced during their subscription period. You can use the collected information and solve the issue before the new term of subscription, rather than having the customer face the problem again. 

Multiple Touchpoints:

It is not only the most important and crucial moments in the customer journey that needs to be evaluated. You can schedule CSAT surveys for multiple touchpoints throughout the customer journey to collect valuable data. 

CSAT score is easy to calculate and evaluate which makes it plausible to deploy the CSAT survey on a regular basis. The constant loop of feedback and action will bring customer’s sentiment to your attention. It can keep you updated of any trouble at any touchpoint and you can jump into action right away. 

Relationship Survey:

Relationship surveys are an assessment of the customer’s perception about the company, the product, services, support, etc. CSAT can be used to deploy an easy relationship survey annually. The CSAT survey can be designed to ask relevant questions that help diagnose the overall performance of the Brand. You can ask questions on service and product quality, responsiveness, support, and other aspects of business that customers interact with. 

You can also add an open-ended question to give customers the opportunity to share their experiences. They may want to share their issues in detail or the factors that impressed them. CSAT score will be more effective with a reason to back up the score. 

Improve Customer Retention

FAQs

CSAT is a tool to measure Customer Satisfaction. The score helps understand how customers feel about your company, its products, services, etc. 

To calculate a CSAT score you need to ask a rating question with a 5-point or 7-point scale. Then you have to divide the total positive responses by the total number of collected responses. Multiply the result by 100 to get the percentage of customers satisfied with your company. 

CSAT scores vary in a different industry but the average industry standard is 75% to 85%. 

Read more