What Is CSAT and How Do You Measure It?

Naomi Nuta

Oct. 11, 2024

SaaS industries rely heavily on recurring revenue to remain sustainable and drive growth. Customer satisfaction metrics are critical to retaining users to achieve these goals, but most companies lack an effective system that transforms customer feedback into strategic insights that cause positive change.

Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) is a powerful tool that measures how well your service meets client expectations. For B2B companies, CSAT uncovers strategic insights that drive growth, loyalty, and competitive advantage.

How To Calculate Customer Satisfaction Score

To fine-tune your customer experience with strategic changes, you need to know customers' satisfaction levels within your service along key customer milestones. Gathering this data will pull back the curtains on customer patterns and trends, allowing you to identify bottlenecks in customer satisfaction and find ways to make the process better.

Different Methods of Calculation

The most common method of calculation is using a scale to rate satisfaction. Typically, companies use a 1-10 scale, but you might get creative with stars, emojis, or other symbols. Once you gather the data, calculate the positive response percentage.

Other common customer satisfaction score calculation methods include the Net Promoter Score (NPS) and a Customer Effort Score (CES).

Example of a CSAT Calculation

To calculate a CSAT, determine what constitutes a positive response. Using the above scale system, a positive response could mean anyone who scores a seven or higher.

Here's an example of how to calculate your CSAT:

25 positive responses / 50 total responses = .50
.50 x 100 = 50%

Divide the number of positive responses by the total responses, then multiply the answer by 100 to get your actual customer satisfaction score. For example, if 25 customers rate their experience as a seven or higher and 50 people take the customer satisfaction surveys, your CSAT score is 50% (25 divided by 50 is .50, or 50% when multiplied by 100).

CSAT vs. Other Customer Metrics

While CSAT scores are the most popular way to measure customer satisfaction, other methods, such as the NPS or CES, may be more relevant to your business.

Comparing CSAT With Net Promoter Score (NPS)

The CSAT measures a customer's specific interactions or experiences. It gives quick feedback on things like recent purchases or customer service interactions.

The NPS takes a step back and looks at the larger picture, such as customer loyalty. This metric helps understand the likelihood of customers recommending the software or service to others in their network.

Comparing CSAT With Customer Effort Score (CES)

Rather than focus on how satisfied customers are with their experience, a CES score measures how easy it was to complete a single task, like resolving an issue or completing an onboarding step.

The CES tracks customers' efforts instead of focusing on overall satisfaction. Even though a customer may be satisfied with your software, they might also have trouble using a specific feature.

When To Deploy CSAT Surveys

Picking the wrong time to deploy a CSAT survey might cause your satisfaction levels to drop. Instead of using the CSAT at inconvenient times, use industry best practices and recommended frequency levels below to create a better experience.

Best Practices for Measuring

Timing and simplicity are key for measuring your CSAT levels. Send surveys immediately after an interaction to capture relevant feedback fresh in the customer's mind. After creating a new knowledge base, send a survey once a customer interacts with it for the first time to measure your ticket deflection efforts.

Keep the surveys as short as possible so customers are more likely to respond. One or two questions are usually enough to gauge a specific part of the customer journey.

Finally, make it easy to complete the survey, whether you choose email, SMS, or within the app. Companies that automate this process are more likely to increase responses and get better insights into customer satisfaction.

Frequency of Surveys and Feedback

Sending a CSAT survey after every interaction can overwhelm customers and lead to survey fatigue. A practical frequency level focuses on the major touchpoints within your service.

A specific interaction or significant product update is an ideal place to include a CSAT survey. This is when customers will be more willing to provide feedback. Also, stagger your surveys over time rather than bombarding them with multiple surveys to get better reads on customer sentiment.

Leveraging CSAT Data: Key Advantages and Uses

All the CSAT data you collect helps improve customer expectations, but it can also benefit other areas of your organization.

Driving Business Growth Through CSAT Insights

Once you collect significant CSAT data, you will notice trends and patterns within the scores that can help drive growth. For example, your CSAT scores may determine where customers are more likely to be open to upselling or cross-selling opportunities. Use this data in your sales approach to capitalize on opportunities with a higher chance of success.

Enhancing Customer Interactions

All interactions within your service or software are measured using CSAT. Your team may notice from surveys that customers are experiencing long wait times to receive help. This is an opportunity to develop an AI chatbot that answers the most common questions you receive. You may also determine when to hire more personnel to manage the increased customer inquiries.

Qualitative and Quantitative CSAT

Your CSAT score is just the start to improving your customer experience. Other metrics like usage behavior, number of customer support requests, and waiting times are also important factors that inform how to improve the customer journey.

Your job will be to combine the qualitative and quantitative data you receive from CSAT scores and other metrics to get a comprehensive look at the entire online experience for your customers.

Strategies for Improving CSAT Scores

All companies that implement CSAT learn a set of common strategies that help improve scores. Use the tips below to make the process more efficient for your team instead of learning through a tedious process of trial and error.

Implementing Feedback

Gathering customer feedback is not enough to make significant changes within your business. You need to turn that feedback into actionable steps. Analyze common themes from customer responses, like common glitches or confusing interfaces, and create a plan to address them.

You should have a system that funnels customers' feedback directly to the team members who can have the most impact on improving the situation.

Training Staff for Better Service

While developers and engineers can work on the technical side of your service, only real team members can improve the customer service side of your company. Ensure every staff member has the proper training to handle customer service inquiries and situations that can affect the perception of your brand.

The Role of CSAT in B2B Companies

Implementing CSAT into your B2B business is an opportunity to identify critical problems with your customer experience and make strategic changes that increase retention, satisfaction, and overall growth.

Tools like AptEdge simplify the process by streamlining case resolution. Our AI-native technology and AnswerGPT eliminate the need for complex workflows and automate answers, letting your team focus on delivering exceptional experiences. Schedule a demo to see how it works firsthand.

Customer Satisfaction Index Score FAQs

What is a good CSAT score?

Generally, a good customer satisfaction score is above 70%, with 80% or higher being excellent. For SaaS companies, this score should remain between 75%-85%.

How to benchmark CSAT?

To start, you must research competitors in your niche to see their CSAT scores. These create industry benchmarks to work from. As you gather more internal data, you can benchmark progress against your initial scores.