To achieve long-term success, companies – especially in the service and support sector – inevitably need satisfied customers. How customers evaluate the service they receive, a product, or a company as a whole directly impacts hard metrics and revenue.
Companies that quantify customer satisfaction, collect it regularly, and compare results gain valuable insights and can initiate improvements early. The Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) is an effective and easy-to-collect metric for this purpose. In this article, we present the CSAT, meaningful approaches for calculating it, and additional tips.
What is the CSAT?
The Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) is a metric that measures customer satisfaction – with a purchase or an interaction such as a service experience. It provides insights into perceived quality, customer loyalty, and a company’s reputation.
What is important is that (regular) collection of this data allows critical areas, weaknesses, and customer sentiment to be identified quickly and directly. Internal and external perceptions often differ fundamentally.
The CSAT offers two key advantages:
- A high score strengthens confidence in existing processes.
- A low score is an important indicator that improvements are necessary.
How to collect the CSAT score
The CSAT score can be collected using the Likert scale. In this rating system, respondents indicate their satisfaction in the form of a number.
The following scales are commonly used:
- 1 – 5 (five-point scale)
- 1 – 10 (ten-point scale)
The following question is typically asked: “How satisfied are you with [product, service, customer experience XY]?”
Based on the five-point scale, the answer options could be:
- 1 = very dissatisfied
- 2 = dissatisfied
- 3 = neither / neutral
- 4 = satisfied
- 5 = very satisfied
With a ten-point scale, the assessment is more granular, but it usually cannot be assigned precisely to a statement such as “satisfied.” Here, the response options range from “0 = not satisfied at all” to “10 = completely satisfied.”
Tip: It makes sense to introduce a comment field in addition to the satisfaction rating, where respondents can optionally provide statements – for example, about a service experience. Such comments can be valuable because they complement quantitative values with qualitative information and therefore contribute to a validated overall picture.
However, such comments should not be mandatory, as this could negatively affect participation rates.
How to calculate the CSAT score
The Customer Satisfaction Score is calculated very simply by dividing the number of satisfied respondents (score 4 or 5)* by the total number of responses submitted and multiplying by 100.
Formula:
CSAT = Number of satisfied ratings / Total number of ratings × 100
* On a five-point scale, scores of 4 and 5 are considered “satisfied”; on a ten-point scale, the values 8, 9, and 10 apply.
Background: It is common practice to report the CSAT as the percentage of satisfied and very satisfied respondents. However, this approach reduces complexity by differentiating only between “non-approval” (scores 1 – 3) and “approval” (scores 4 and 5). A deeper analysis is worthwhile to gain more precise insights. For example, average values (arithmetic mean) can be calculated, or negative and positive ratings can be compared against one another.
Interpretation: What is a good CSAT?
How a CSAT score should be interpreted depends heavily on the respective industry, the channel used, as well as the composition and current mood of respondents. It must therefore always be viewed in the context of key conditions and – if possible – alongside additional metrics in order to evaluate customer satisfaction appropriately.
Nevertheless, the following values can serve as rough guidelines.
CSAT Score | Classification |
< 70 % | critical |
70 – 80 % | average |
80 – 85 % | good |
85 – 90 % | very good |
> 90 % | excellent |
In ITSM and support environments, most companies typically achieve scores between 80 and 90%.
However, the surrounding conditions are extremely important for interpretation, meaning the pure score should not be viewed in isolation. For example, a positive trend is often more important than the score itself. It should also be considered that the score depends heavily on the response rate: with a low response rate, extreme values – meaning especially positive or especially negative CSAT scores – occur more frequently.
If you want to observe and compare the CSAT reliably over a longer period, the wording of the questions and the measurement methods must not vary, as this leads to distortions and inaccuracies.
Advantages and disadvantages of the CSAT
The Customer Satisfaction Score has its strengths, but it also has limitations.
First, here are the key advantages in compact form:
Advantage #1: The CSAT generally has a high response rate because the questions are quick and easy to answer. This makes it possible to gather a broad picture of opinions and sentiment within a short time.
Advantage #2: Thanks to fast and direct feedback, companies can respond very quickly and implement improvements.
Advantage #3: Customers feel heard – especially when companies thank them for their feedback – because they can communicate their opinions with minimal effort.
Advantage #4: Specific measures to improve customer satisfaction can be developed based on the CSAT. Examples could include more comprehensive customer information in a self-service portal or improved support availability.
On the other hand, the following disadvantages should be considered:
Disadvantage #1: The CSAT provides a snapshot that can be strongly influenced by temporary factors – both negative and positive. Therefore, it must always be interpreted carefully and in context.
Disadvantage #2: Something may objectively be good, but the CSAT does not necessarily reflect this. For example, a company may introduce a highly functional new service tool intended to improve customer satisfaction. If mainly customers who are unhappy for other subjective reasons participate in the survey, the CSAT may contradict the objectively improved customer satisfaction.
Disadvantage #3: The CSAT only illuminates part of the truth and generalizes quite heavily. If organizations want to know more precisely how satisfied customers are with certain areas, they need to ask more specific questions. While the CSAT provides an overall picture of sentiment, it is difficult to use for highly targeted measures. This requires deeper analysis and more extensive surveys.
Why the Customer Satisfaction Score is useful
The Customer Satisfaction Score quantifies customer satisfaction by converting it into mathematical values. What is important is that it always measures satisfaction at a specific point in time, making relationships, trends, and developments visible.
Collecting comparison data
It is therefore advisable to collect the CSAT regularly over the long term in order to observe meaningful trends. For example, if the customer service score declines over time, this strongly indicates that service quality – from the customer’s perspective, which is the decisive one – has deteriorated. Satisfaction levels in different areas can also be compared simultaneously and over time.
Drawing conclusions and taking action
The conclusions organizations draw from the CSAT are especially important. In most cases, the goal is to eliminate or reduce customer dissatisfaction and negative impressions. For example, if an organization did not collect a metric such as the CSAT, it might not become aware of widespread customer dissatisfaction in time and would only be able to react later.
Therefore, the focus is primarily on continuous improvement and preventing negative developments such as declining reputation, decreasing customer loyalty, or even customer churn.
Alternatives to the CSAT
A common alternative to the Customer Satisfaction Score is the Net Promoter Score (NPS), which can also be collected simply and with minimal effort. Respondents answer – at regular intervals – how likely they are to recommend the company, service, or product.
The classification is based on a ten-point scale with ascending values, where “10” signals the highest possible approval. Unlike the CSAT, the NPS is used across many different areas and is also a proven tool for measuring employee satisfaction.
Another option is the Customer Effort Score (CES), which measures the effort a customer must make to resolve an issue.
Tip: For a holistic view, it is advisable to combine the CSAT with other metrics. Common metrics in ITSM include First Contact Resolution, MTTR (Mean Time to Resolution), ticket volume, or SLA compliance. This kind of triangulation provides a valid assessment of the service delivered. Similar approaches are also possible in other areas — beyond support and service — just as in ITSM.
(Cultural) biases in the CSAT
With the Customer Satisfaction Score, it should be noted that distortions can occur repeatedly. This is especially true when respondents come from different cultures. In highly individualistic Western societies such as the United States or Germany, people tend more toward extreme ratings such as 1 or 5, whereas collectivist societies such as China, Mexico, or Brazil tend more toward neutral ratings.
On a ten-point scale, various cultures are also more reserved when it comes to very high or very low scores. A tendency toward the upper middle range can be observed here.
How response tendencies manifest also depends heavily on the mentality and character of respondents. While some people are emotionally driven and do not shy away from excessively low ratings, many rational thinkers tend toward the middle.
Companies cannot eliminate these distortions, but they can be aware of them and take them into account during evaluation. Here too, supplementary comments from respondents are often helpful.
How can the CSAT be improved?
There is rarely a single central measure that raises the Customer Satisfaction Score to a completely new level. Rather, it requires various smaller steps that gradually increase customer satisfaction over time.
If the CSAT is more negative than desired, the affected company must first reliably evaluate the reasons for this. This metric often serves as the starting point for deeper analysis, from which more precise measures can then be developed.
Nevertheless, there are several approaches and measures that generally improve the CSAT. Some examples include:
- using a central service desk platform
- working systematically on service processes
- expanding self-service capabilities
- introducing automation to accelerate processes
- assigning customers fixed personal contacts, including backups
- using AI to respond quickly while still relying on human expertise
Conclusion: CSAT – an important metric
Customer satisfaction is of outstanding importance for most companies, because dissatisfied customers negatively affect important metrics such as revenue in the medium term. It is therefore advisable to monitor it continuously, and the Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) is one of the simplest metrics for doing so.
Despite advantages such as fast, direct feedback and generally high response rates, the CSAT also has disadvantages, including its temporary and subjective nature. In short: the CSAT is excellent as a general barometer of customer satisfaction, but more specific surveys are required for deeper insights.
As a low-threshold and easy-to-calculate metric that allows long-term comparisons, the CSAT nevertheless remains an important metric, especially for service and support.
OTRS is ideally suited as a platform for optimizing support and service processes and thereby significantly increasing customer satisfaction. Key factors include structured processes according to best practices, workflow automation, and the integration of artificial intelligence.