What is Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) and How is it Measured?

Today’s business world is highly competitive. No matter what industry your business is in, or whether it’s a start-up or enterprise, it’s highly likely that you will be competing with a large number of companies selling similar products or services.

The only way to stand out from the crowd is to create a world-class customer experience (CX) that focuses on customer satisfaction.

That’s where customer service comes in. Great customer service gives your organization the opportunity to turn a bad customer experience into a fantastic one, and solve customer queries before they become an issue.

According to a survey from Genesys Global, bad customer service costs organizations $338.5 billion globally per year in lost business.

That’s why it’s important to measure customer satisfaction. By measuring customer satisfaction, your business will be able to retain customers, create a loyal customer base, improve the customer experience and lower churn rates. One of the most popular methods to measure customer satisfaction is Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT).

What is CSAT and how is it measured?

CSAT is a measurement of customer satisfaction. It measures how happy or satisfied a customer is with your business, your customer service team or the product/service that you offer.

This customer satisfaction metric requires customers to rate their satisfaction with your service, business or product, using a scale that generally ranges from 1-3, 1-5, or 1-10. This scale can be changed depending on what you are trying to measure and ranges from “very unsatisfied” to “very satisfied”.

For example:

“How satisfied were you with your purchase experience? Please rate on a scale of 1 to 5.”

1. Very unsatisfied
2. Unsatisfied
3. Neutral
4. Satisfied
5. Very satisfied

The answers to this survey are then expressed as a percentage between 0 and 100 percent. 100 percent being total customer satisfaction, and 0 percent representing total customer dissatisfaction.

When should you use CSAT?

CSAT surveys can be highly effective to measure customer satisfaction, but they must be employed at the right time. An online survey sent one month after a customer interacts with your company is pretty much useless, and will almost certainly be ignored.

Here are a couple of the best times to send your CSAT survey:

During customer onboarding: Most companies are so eager to convert a lead that they forget to interact with their customers during the onboarding experience. Improving the onboarding experience creates happier and loyal customers, so it’s important to learn how you can improve it.

Right after a sale or customer service experience: No matter how a customer interacts with you, whether it’s through artificial intelligence (AI), social media or a customer service representative, every communication adds to your overall CX. Sending a survey when an interaction is fresh in your customers’ mind will ensure you get invaluable data that can be acted on.

What other customer satisfaction metrics can your business use?

Customer Satisfaction Score purely measures your customers’ satisfaction, so to get data that truly empowers your company to improve customer service and the customer experience it’s essential you combine CSAT with other metrics. O

ther customer satisfaction metrics you should consider using include:

• Net Promoter Score (NPS)
• Customer Effort Score (CES)
• Churn
• Abandonment Rates
• Customer Health Score

There’s no one metric that’s best for analysing customer satisfaction. In fact, using a combination of metrics is the best way to effectively pinpoint, and address, customer service issues within your organization's customer experience.

Customer service is becoming increasingly complex, particularly in a world where customers have an increasing number of touchpoints to interact with your organization. That’s why many companies choose to outsource their customer service to a nearshore call center.

Want to learn how Advantage Communications uses customer satisfaction metrics to transform our client’s customer service strategy to drive profits and create loyal customers? Contact us today to find out more.