CSAT (customer satisfaction score)
CSAT, or customer satisfaction score, is the percentage of surveyed customers who rated their experience positively.
How it is calculated
After an interaction, ask the customer how satisfied they were, usually on a five-point scale. CSAT is the number of fours and fives divided by all ratings, as a percentage. A three does not count as satisfied.
So an 85% CSAT means 85% of the people who answered gave a four or a five. The customers who didn’t answer are not in the number.
What it means in practice
Only some people answer. Survey response rates in customer service are low, and the people who reply lean towards the very pleased and the very annoyed.
The question changes the answer. “Were you satisfied with our support?” and “Was your problem solved?” give different numbers for the same conversation. A polite reply about a policy that failed the customer can still score well on the first question.
Timing changes the answer. Asked straight after a friendly reply, the score reflects the reply. Asked after the replacement arrived, it reflects the outcome. Choose the one you want to manage.
Three rules follow. Keep the question, scale and timing fixed, because changing any of them restarts the series. Read the comments, because the score only tells you something moved. Split it by type of request, because order-status questions and complaints behave very differently.
Public benchmarks
There is no reliable public CSAT benchmark for small businesses, because every company asks a different question at a different time. Published industry indexes use their own scales and survey methods, so they do not compare with a score from your own post-chat survey. Compare your CSAT with your own past results, split by type of request.
CSAT and automation
Customers are wary of AI in service. In a Gartner survey of 5,728 customers in December 2023, 64% said they would prefer companies didn’t use AI for customer service, and 53% would consider switching to a competitor. The top concern was that it would become harder to reach a person (Gartner, July 2024).
So the thing to protect is the route to a person. If a customer asks for someone, they should get someone, with the conversation passed across. Then measure CSAT separately for automated and human-handled conversations, so you can see which requests the automation handles well. See live chat handover.
Related terms
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