Customers are an important asset to businesses, as everything they do revolves around consumers. Did you know that 91% of customers are likely to leave your brand without even complaining if they are dissatisfied with the overall experience? That is why it is very important to understand what your customers are feeling and implement changes that will improve their experience.
How do you know if your customers are satisfied? What’s the better way than to ask them directly? CSAT helps you measure customer satisfaction. So, what is CSAT score? How to measure it? Why is it important? Read this blog to learn everything about customer satisfaction.
What is CSAT?
CSAT, also known as customer satisfaction, is a popular measurement that shows the level of satisfaction of customers with a company’s products, services, or any other interactions. The question usually goes “How satisfied are you with our product?” and followed by 3-point, 5-point, or 7-point scale options.
CSAT score
CSAT score is the metric that determines customer satisfaction. For instance, if the CSAT score is high, it means your customers are satisfied with your products or services and vice versa. With the help of CSAT score, businesses can enhance customer experience, reduce churn rate, and boost loyalty.
Examples of CSAT questions
Here are some examples of CSAT questions:
- How satisfied are you with our IT support team?
- On a scale of 1 to 5, please let us know how satisfied you are with our service.
- How would you rate the assistance you received?
- Kindly let us know your level of satisfaction with our billing process.
Why is CSAT score important?
CSAT scores are a quick and effective way to gauge how happy customers are with your product or service. A high CSAT score typically means you are meeting or exceeding customer expectations, while a low score highlights areas that need improvement. It is a straightforward indicator of customer sentiment and a critical metric for any business looking to stay competitive.
Benefits of CSAT score
Here are some of the most common benefits of CSAT score:
- CSAT is one of the well-known and widely used customer experience metrics that many businesses use to measure customer satisfaction, which is why it will be easy to benchmark your score against your competitors.
- CSAT score provides quantitative data that is relatively easy and quick to analyze.
- Due to the simple nature of the question, customers do not need to put in much effort to complete CSAT surveys. This, in turn, is likely to increase the response rate.
- CSAT gives you an overview of how satisfied your customers are at different touchpoints.
- If there is a dip in CSAT scores, it signals that there are areas where improvements are needed.
- When customers feel that you are listening to them and making changes to enhance their experience, it will increase their loyalty towards your brand.
How to measure CSAT score?
To measure CSAT score, businesses need to send CSAT surveys to the customers. Based on the customers’ responses, CSAT score can be measured.
Example:
Question: How satisfied are you with our customer support?
- Very dissatisfied
- Dissatisfied
- Neutral
- Satisfied
- Very satisfied
For this survey, let’s imagine the total responses are 200, which are further classified into:
| Satisfaction score | Number of responses |
| 1 | 10 |
| 2 | 15 |
| 3 | 25 |
| 4 | 90 |
| 5 | 60 |
CSAT score calculation
To calculate the CSAT score, there is a standard formula which goes like this:
CSAT score = (Sum of positive responses / total number of responses) × 100
Based on the above example, here is how the calculation goes:
CSAT score = (90+60 / 200) × 100
= 0.75 × 100
= 75
So, the final CSAT score is 75.
Are you wondering if this is a good or bad score? Let’s discuss that in the next section.
What is a good CSAT score?
No two products, services, or companies are the same, which is why there is no standard “good score.” However, many businesses and industries often consider above 70-75 as a good score (unofficially of course).
After detailed research on public and private sector companies in different industries, ACSI (American Customer Satisfaction Index) created benchmark CSAT scores. The most important thing is – if your CSAT score is increasing gradually, that is the sign of improved customer experience
CSAT benchmark scores by industry
Here is how CSAT benchmark scores for 2024 vary by industry and sector:
| Industry | Sub-industry | ACSI benchmark CSAT score |
| Finance and insurance | Banks | 80 |
| Online investment | 79 | |
| Credit unions | 79 | |
| Financial advisors | 80 | |
| Health insurance | 76 | |
| Life insurance | 79 | |
| Property and casualty insurance | 77 | |
| Mortgage lenders | 75 | |
| Energy utilities | Energy utilities | 75 |
| Municipal | 75 | |
| Cooperative | 78 | |
| Investor-owned | 74 | |
| Healthcare | Hospitals | 75 |
| Nonhospital care | 83 | |
| Retail | Online retailers | 80 |
| Supermarkets | 79 | |
| Gas stations | 75 | |
| Drug stores | 77 | |
| Convenience stores | 76 | |
| General merchandise retailers | 77 | |
| Specialty retailers | 79 | |
| Manufacturing | Automobiles | 80 |
| Televisions | 82 | |
| Household appliances | 80 | |
| Cell phones | 81 | |
| Personal computers | 81 | |
| Nondurable products (food) | 81 | |
| Nondurable products (soft drinks) | 84 | |
| Nondurable products (breweries) | 82 | |
| Nondurable products (Personal care & cleaning products) | 81 | |
| Nondurable products (apparel) | 77 | |
| Nondurable products (athletic shoes) | 83 | |
| Travel | Airlines | 77 |
| Lodging | 77 | |
| Car rentals | 77 | |
| Ride sharing | 76 | |
| Online travel agencies | 77 | |
| Telecommunications and information | Wireless phone service | 76 |
| Video streaming service | 79 | |
| Internet service providers | 71 | |
| Subscription TV service | 70 | |
| Government | Federal government services | 69.7 |
| Consumer shipping | Consumer shipping | 77 |
| Restaurants | Full-service restaurants | 84 |
| Fast food restaurants | 79 | |
| Food delivery | 73 | |
| Search and social media | Search engine and information | 80 |
| Social media | 74 |
How to send CSAT surveys and gather CSAT score?
The best way to gather CSAT score is by creating and sending surveys. It is best to use an online survey tool to send CSAT surveys to your customers. Here is how you can use CSAT survey solutions:
Step 1: There are plenty of customer feedback tools in the market, so choose the best survey software that better aligns with your requirements.
Step 2: The majority of the online survey tools offer prebuilt CSAT survey templates. You can choose a template with the relevant CSAT survey questionnaire or build one from scratch.
Tip: When creating CSAT questions, make sure to use neutral language and tone to avoid bias potential.
Step 3: If you want, you can add follow-up questions to understand the reasons behind customer’s CSAT score.
Example: Please let us know what influenced your score.
Step 4: Once you are done with the CSAT survey questionnaire, you need to choose how to send the surveys to your customers. There are plenty of options like email, SMS, personal links, QR codes, social media, and more.
Step 5: After sending the surveys, you can real-time survey data on the online survey platform.
Step 6: You can also see the overall CSAT score of the customers on the scale. This visual representation will help you easily understand how satisfied your customers are with your product, services, or overall experience.
Step 7: After analyzing the score, you can check out sentiment analysis to see the reasons behind the customers’ score (this will only work if you added follow-up text-based question)
What are the benefits of using survey tools to send CSAT surveys?
Online survey tools make the entire survey creation and analysis easier and quicker, which is why many businesses prefer to use them rather than manually sending the surveys. Here are some of the benefits of using survey tools for CSAT surveys:
- You can choose from a wide range of CSAT survey templates, and the best part is that you can customize them.
- Some survey tools offer prebuilt templates that are tailored to different industries or touchpoints, which means you can directly use them without making any changes.
- You can also use features like ‘survey logic’ and ‘logic jump’ to allow customers to skip irrelevant CSAT questions based on their previous responses.
- When it comes to sending surveys, you can distribute the CSAT survey to your customers via different channels with a single click.
- Paid survey software offers white labeling features, and you can add your company’s brand logo to offer a better personalized survey experience to your customers.
- By using survey software, you can see the real-time feedback instantly and act on it to improve customer satisfaction
Create CSAT surveys and determine customer satisfaction with piHappiness
Now that you know what is CSAT score, how to measure it, and the good score range, do you want to conduct CSAT surveys and see how it works? piHappiness is here to help you.
It is a customer feedback and survey software that lets you manage everything under one platform. From creating the surveys to distributing the surveys and gathering the CSAT score to analyzing the data, piHappiness makes everything much easier.
You can sign up here to schedule a demo or contact us to share your requirements.
