Term
CSAT
The customer satisfaction score, gathered with a short question after a specific interaction, such as resolving a request or delivering an order, usually on a scale of 1 to 5. Unlike NPS it measures the immediate impression rather than overall loyalty.
Updated
What it means
CSAT, the customer satisfaction score, measures how satisfied customers are with a specific experience. It is gathered with a short question such as “How satisfied were you with how your request was handled?” on a scale of 1 to 5, or with smiley faces. The result is usually expressed as the share of 4 and 5 answers among all answers.
Unlike NPS, which measures the overall relationship with the company and willingness to recommend it, CSAT measures the immediate impression of a single contact: a helpdesk reply, a delivery, onboarding or a consultation. That makes it well suited to monitoring the quality of individual processes and people.
CSAT is easy to collect and understand, but sensitive to timing and wording. Answers gathered right after the contact tend to be more honest and more numerous than those arriving by email a week later.
How it works in practice
We recommend asking at key points of the customer journey, not after every email. For accounting services that might be after the tax return is filed, after the year-end close or after an issue with an authority is resolved. There should be one question, with room for a comment.
Low scores with a comment are the most valuable. They point to specific places where the process creaks, such as slow responses or unclear explanations. CSAT is therefore best watched alongside whether the SLA was met, and a low score deserves a personal follow-up.
As a KPI it makes sense to track the trend and comparisons between teams or request types rather than the absolute number. Falling satisfaction often precedes a customer leaving, that is churn, and reacting early is cheaper than winning a new client.
What to watch out for
Once CSAT is tied to staff bonuses it gets gamed: people choose whom to send the survey to or ask customers for good scores. The number rises but satisfaction does not. For rewards it is better used together with other measures.
The second risk is a small sample. With ten responses a month, one bad score shifts the result by ten percentage points. With few customers it makes more sense to read the comments than to compare percentages.
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