Your customers have a huge impact on the success of your business.

A single negative review can change the way people perceive your business, leading to low customer satisfaction levels. These unhappy customers can not only make you lose revenue but also harm your brand's image, especially since 32% of customers report they would stop doing business with a beloved brand after just one bad experience.

In fact, according to a Salesforce report, nearly 90% of buyers say that the experience a business provides matters just as much as their products or services.

That's one of the main reasons why Customer Satisfaction Scores (CSAT) are so important when it comes to measuring customer happiness and meeting their expectations.

In this article, learn what a CSAT score is, how it compares to other metrics, its pros and cons, how to calculate it, and so much more.

What Is a CSAT Score?

A customer satisfaction score (CSAT) is a metric that measures how satisfied customers are with a specific product, service, or interaction with your company.

Think of CSAT as a report card where customers grade your performance. The survey asks one simple question: How satisfied were you with our product/service/brand?

Common CSAT rating formats include:

• Numeric scales: 1-3, 1-5, or 1-10 ranges

• Verbal indicators: Unsatisfied, neutral, very satisfied

• Visual elements: Emojis, stars, or thumbs up/down

According to Harvard Business Review, 80% of businesses use CSAT as their primary metric for improving customer experiences.

CSAT vs Other Customer Metrics

While CSAT is a powerful metric for measuring satisfaction at specific touchpoints, it's often used alongside other key performance indicators. Here's how the three main customer metrics compare:

Together, these metrics provide a complete view of customer sentiment. While CSAT shows immediate satisfaction with individual touchpoints, research indicates that overall performance on journeys is 35% more predictive of customer satisfaction. In this context, CSAT measures immediate satisfaction, CES measures ease of experience, and NPS predicts long-term loyalty.

How to Calculate the CSAT Score?

It's relatively easy to calculate your CSAT score. What you need to do is divide the number of positive responses by the total number of responses you got times one hundred.

The final result you get is the percentage of customers who are pleased with the experience you provide. Here's what the formula looks like:

CSAT = (Total number of positive answers) / (Total number of responses) x 100

Let's also exemplify this. You have 100 people who rate their experience five or four stars. If you divide the total number of positive responses to the total number of responses, your final score would be around 80%.

It's a good number, but there's still room for improvement. What this CSAT score shows is that people are overall satisfied with your services, but maybe there are some areas that you still need to work on.

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What Are the Pros and Cons of the CSAT Score?

Like every good thing in life, a CSAT score comes with its own advantages and disadvantages.

Let's start with the pros.

CSAT pros

CSAT surveys are good because they're:

✅ Easy to measure — Due to their short and intuitive nature, it's easy to capture the data you need with just one question.

✅ Customizable — CSAT scores give you the flexibility to match the context of your question by using numeric rating scales, stars, emojis; whatever your audience wants.

✅ Able to generate high response rates — Since they're so simple, CSAT scores provides data that you can analyze quickly.

CSAT cons

Here are the reasons why people are against CSAT scores:

❌ Reflect short-term impressions — The CSAT score is based on the last (and freshest) interaction a customer has with your company, which doesn't reflect their overall experience.

❌ Can be the subject of bias — Because it's self-reporting, CSAT surveys are vulnerable to bias and ambiguity, especially since the score average differs by industry.

❌ Are limited in depth — People respond to these surveys based on their feelings and moods at the moment, so it doesn't really capture the nuance of the experience.

What Is a Good Customer Satisfaction Score?

Obviously, the ideal — and best — CSAT score is 100%. However, it's not that easy to attain even if it should be your goal. This mostly happens because CSAT scores aren't an exact science, especially since every business, product, or industry is unique.

In general, anything lower than 50% is less desirable. It means that half of your customers aren't satisfied with the experience you're giving them. The sweet spot is anything above 70%, showing that your customers are satisfied. However, going beyond satisfaction to build engagement has tangible benefits, as customers with strong emotional connections have been shown to spend 46% more than those without them.

CSAT score benchmarks by industry

Every industry has its own CSAT score average.

For instance, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), the customer satisfaction percentage for General Merchandise Retailers is 77% in 2024.

Let's look at some other examples:

• Supermarket: 79%

• Online Retailers: 80%

• Automobiles: 80%

• Full-Service Restaurants: 84%

• Airlines: 77%

• Subscription TV Service: 70%

• Social Media: 74%

What you can notice is that the average satisfaction level is around 70 - 80%. It means that four in five clients give you a positive response rather than a neutral or negative one.

When Should You Use the CSAT Score?

You can ask people for feedback at any point in their journey. But timing is key. Waiting for too long will erase your customers' experience with you and too little will intimidate them.

So, when exactly should you use the CSAT score? Typically:

• After customer support — After a discussion with your customers over the phone, it feels natural to ask for feedback. The interaction is freshly imprinted in the person's mind and they can assess aspects such as quality of communication, speed, issue resolution, etc. This measures your agent's ability to provide support.

• Prior to a renewal — This tactic works best if you offer subscriptions to your customers. For instance, you can ask clients for feedback a few months before they renew their subscription. This way, you can solve any problems they might have that prevent them from renewing their subscription.

• After product releases — You can send people a survey after they interact with a demo or test a new product feature. This allows you to see what works and report any possible frustrations.

There are plenty of opportunities to use CSAT surveys to gauge what your customers are feeling. You need to find the right timing that'll yield the most benefits for you.

How to Design an Effective CSAT Survey?

If you want to design effective CSAT surveys, here's what you need to do:

1. Know your objectives

The first step is to set a goal for the survey. Why are you conducting it? Is it to measure customer satisfaction, gather feedback for a particular feature, or simply find out what you need to improve?

Once you do find your purpose, try to set your key performance indicators (KPIs) that you can measure to see if your efforts are worth it. Think of KPIs such as customer churn rates, retention rates, and more.

2. Understand your audience

Another thing to consider when creating effective CSAT surveys is to identify who your target demographic is. Who is your audience? Think of things like age, location, and preferences.

Knowing this about your target audience helps you create a survey relevant to them and allows you to tailor questions to their preferences. If your clients prefer a certain communication style, then make sure to find the questions that are relevant to their experience.

Moreover, try to use language that's familiar to your customers, aka it should align with your customers' language proficiency. The reason why you should do this is to boost understanding and response rate.

3. Keep it simple

CSAT surveys are super simple. That's what characterizes them best and you should strive to keep them that way. It's tempting to ask customers about every aspect of their journey, but chances are they're gonna get intimidated and won't spend that long on each question.

Even if you add 10 questions to your CSAT survey, try to make them as clear and straightforward as possible. This aligns with what customers value, as speed and convenience are among the most important elements of a positive experience for nearly 80% of consumers. Don't use long sentences or complicated words that will only confuse your users.

4. Choose the right types of questions

There are many types of questions to choose from, such as multiple-choice, sliders, image-based questions, etc. Mixing them up will keep respondents on their toes and interested in answering your survey.

Plus, combining image-based questions with multiple-choice questions will prove to be a more engaging experience for your users and you avoid survey fatigue, which is the frustration people feel when asked to complete too many (boring) surveys.

When it comes to questions, try to have both open-ended and closed-ended questions. They're both essential to getting comprehensive feedback. What do they mean?

Open-ended questions allow customers to leave their thoughts in their own words, offering more qualitative insights. On the other hand, closed-ended questions are all about quantifiable data used to identify patterns.

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5. Offer clear instructions and progress bars

To create a smoother experience, it's best to have visual aids like progress bars that show users how far along they are in the survey. This removes the uncertainty from the process, as users know exactly how much they have till they complete the survey.

Besides, try to give clear instructions to streamline navigation. Your survey-takers should know exactly what to do to complete the survey, which also acts as encouragement to finish it.

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What Are Some CSAT Best Practices?

To make your CSAT surveys truly shine, here are some tips to make them so:

• Use familiar language: Match your customers' communication style and language proficiency level for better response rates.

• Provide a logical flow: Group similar questions together and personalize surveys based on previous customer interactions.

• Keep text fields optional: Mandatory fields annoy customers, while optional ones get more thoughtful responses.

• Include N/A options: Let customers skip irrelevant questions to get more actionable feedback.

• White label the survey: Use your brand colors and logo to build trust and encourage participation.

• Optimize for mobile: Ensure surveys work seamlessly across all screen sizes and devices.

• Pre-test surveys: Catch potential issues before launch to ensure a smooth user experience.

• Offer incentives: Small rewards like discounts or gift cards can motivate participation.

• Act on feedback: Show customers you take their input seriously by implementing suggested improvements. According to McKinsey, maximizing satisfaction has the potential to lift revenue by up to 15 percent while lowering service costs.

Transform Customer Insights Into Organizational Knowledge

CSAT scores can impact how people view your business and make or break your reputation. Measuring your customer satisfaction levels is the only way to make sure your audience is happy with your services and keep them loyal for a long time.

But here's the challenge: how do you turn customer feedback into actionable knowledge across your entire organization?

Guru helps you connect customer insights to organizational action. Our AI Source of Truth transforms feedback into updated policies and improved processes—accessible anywhere your team works.

When you fix issues based on CSAT feedback, Guru's Knowledge Agent ensures the right answer propagates everywhere with citations and auditability.

Ready to turn customer satisfaction insights into continuous improvement? Watch a demo to see how Guru works.