Glossary
Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
A transactional metric that measures satisfaction with a specific interaction by asking customers to rate their experience on a 1–5 or 1–7 scale immediately afterward.
Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) measures how satisfied a customer is with a specific interaction — a support ticket, a service appointment, a checkout flow, a single visit. The question is typically "How satisfied were you with [the interaction]?" on a 1–5 or 1–7 scale.
CSAT is calculated as the percentage of respondents who choose the top one or two boxes (e.g. 4 or 5 on a 1–5 scale) — sometimes called "top-2-box." Typical benchmarks: above 80% is good, above 90% is excellent. Industry varies — utility-style services run lower, premium retail higher.
CSAT vs. NPS: CSAT is transactional ("how was this interaction"); NPS is relational ("how do you feel about us overall"). Most modern reputation programs run both — CSAT after each touchpoint and NPS quarterly.
How to send it: trigger immediately after the interaction, in the channel where the interaction happened (an in-app prompt after support resolution, an SMS after an appointment). Single question + optional open-text. Response rates typically run 15–40% for SMS, 5–15% for email.
Common mistakes: asking too late (memory fades), asking too long a survey (response collapses), and not closing the loop with detractors. A negative CSAT response with no follow-up is worse than not asking.
Related terms
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
— A loyalty metric calculated by asking customers how likely they are to recommend a business on a 0–10 scale, then subtracting the percentage of detractors (0–6) from the percentage of promoters (9–10).
Customer Effort Score (CES)
— A metric that measures how easy it was for a customer to accomplish a task by asking them to rate the effort on a 1–7 scale, typically after a support or onboarding interaction.