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The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Survey
Guides

The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Survey

Written by | May 15, 2024

May 15, 2024

The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Survey

Happy customers are the foundation of long-term success for businesses in any industry. If you want to know how your customers feel about your company and products, the easiest way is to ask them.

A customer satisfaction (CSAT) score is one of the most popular customer satisfaction metrics. To calculate your CSAT score, you need to gather data via a CSAT survey. 

Designing a reliable survey is the key to getting accurate results that can help you find ways to increase customer satisfaction and retention. Follow these steps to create an effective CSAT survey.

Understanding CSAT surveys

A CSAT survey is built around one essential question: “How satisfied are you with [COMPANY NAME]?” Usually, the survey asks the respondent to provide a numerical answer between 0 and 10 (with higher numbers being better), but there’s no universal standard. 

CSAT surveys can use different scales, and the scales can be represented by phrases or even emojis. As long as there’s a clear correlation between those choices and numbers in the given range, the surveyor can use the responses to calculate a CSAT score. 

The formula to calculate your CSAT score is:

(Number of positive responses/Number of total responses)*100 = CSAT%

Positive responses are your highest-scoring answers, such as 4s and 5s on a scale of 1 to 5. That’s divided by the total number of responses, then multiplied by 100. A good CSAT score varies depending on the industry. For example, software providers have an average CSAT score of 78. When it comes to software and SaaS companies, most experts recommend aiming for a CSAT score of at least 70%.

CSAT vs. Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Like CSAT, an NPS survey centers on one specific question: “How likely are you to recommend [COMPANY NAME] to a friend or colleague?” However, many NPS surveys include follow-up feedback questions asking the respondent to explain their answer.

Most NPS surveys use a 0-10 scale, and scores are divided into three categories. Scores between 0 and 6 are called “detractors,” while scores of 7 and 8 are “passives” and scores of 9 and 10 are “promoters.“

To calculate the NPS score, subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. Unlike a CSAT score, an NPS score is an integer, not a percentage, and can be negative if you have more detractors than promoters. 

CSAT vs. Customer Effort Score (CES)

Another way to measure customer satisfaction is to learn how clients feel about the effort your products require of them. That’s the topic of a Customer Effort Score (CES) survey. CES surveys are often used immediately following customer interactions, such as making a purchase or talking to a customer service representative.

Most CES surveys use a single question asking respondents to rate how easy or difficult it was to take a specific action. For example, “How easy was it to get the help you needed?” or “How much effort did you need to put forth to resolve your issue?” You can offer multiple-choice answers or use an agree/disagree scale. Either way, you want the number of positive (easy/low effort) responses to outweigh the negative ones.

CSAT, NPS, and CES: Which survey is best?

CSAT, NPS, and CES surveys are not a case of one type of survey being better than the other. They are all useful customer feedback collection tools that tell you different things about your customer base. Many companies use all three or choose one based on the exact customer insights they want to gain.

However, if you want to increase response rates and get a general idea of how happy your customer base is, CSAT is a good choice. It’s short, simple, and intuitive. Once you’ve gathered those responses, use Sprig’s AI Analysis tool to sift through them and provide you with key takeaways.

Planning your CSAT survey

Ensuring meaningful feedback from a CSAT survey requires good planning, including:

  1. Define your objectives: What do you want to achieve with your CSAT survey? Determine whether you want to measure your customers’ satisfaction with your company as a whole or with a specific product or interaction.
  2. Identify respondents: Choose the right demographic for your survey. For example, if you want to measure customer satisfaction with a particular product, send the survey only to customers who have purchased that product. 
  3. Choose survey timing: Your objective will inform the timing of your survey. If you’re measuring overall customer satisfaction, you could send quarterly CSAT surveys. If you want to evaluate clients’ satisfaction with your customer service department, send the survey immediately after customers interact with representatives.

Designing your CSAT survey

Designing an effective CSAT survey is all about developing the right questions. Consider reviewing survey question examples for inspiration. Then, adapt those questions based on the objectives and target audience you identified earlier.

Here are some survey design best practices to follow:

  • Keep questions simple: Use clear, simple language. Make sure the scale you choose is intuitive. Your respondent should be able to look at score options and immediately understand them.
  • Avoid too many open-ended questions: You don’t necessarily need to have more than one question in your CSAT survey. If you want additional context for each response, you can add one or two more open-ended questions, so users can share their full thoughts. But don’t make the survey too long — users should be able to finish it quickly.
  • Use personalization: Customizing your survey can help increase response rates. For example, you can change the formality or tone of your survey to align with your target audience. 

Distributing your CSAT survey

There are several ways to send a survey to your users. 

  • Email: This is a popular method for distributing CSAT surveys. It allows you to personalize the form, like including the user’s name or details of their recent interaction. You may also want to set up a couple of reminder emails in case your first survey gets lost in the inbox.
  • In-app: Surveying users while they’re using your platform is a great way to increase response rates. In-product surveys may also be more accurate — users can quickly and clearly identify how they feel about your company or product because it’s top of mind. Sprig’s in-product Surveys are designed to capture real-time insights, and they can be customized to target specific users based on their actions or customer history.
  • Social media: Most social media platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn, have online survey tools such as polls, which you can use to launch your survey. This approach will probably draw responses from current and potential users. It’s not limited to paying clients, but it can be useful for gauging how your target audience feels about your company.

You can encourage people to respond by keeping the survey short. Sometimes, fun response options, like using emoticons or emojis instead of numbers, can help increase response rates, especially on social media. 

Another option is to offer an incentive for completing the survey. However, it’s crucial to use clear language—it shouldn’t look like you’re trying to bribe users into giving good scores. 

Finally, ensure recipients that their information won’t be stored or used for other purposes. This can help allay concerns about data privacy or sharing sensitive information with your team. You can include a statement with your survey such as, “Your information will not be shared with any outside party.”

Analyzing and acting on CSAT survey results

If your CSAT score is below 50%, that means you have more unsatisfied users than satisfied ones. You might want to consider sending a follow-up survey to those users with a few more open-ended questions to identify the main reasons why they feel let down by your product.

On the flipside, if your CSAT score is good, it’s important not to stop there. Identify what precisely makes your users so satisfied with your product. Follow-up surveys can be helpful here as well. 

You can also consider sending a different type of survey, such as a CES survey. You can use your CES results to determine correlations with your CSAT answers and any specific low-effort aspects of your products.

Whatever your CSAT survey shows, it’s important to share that data with your product developers, customer service representatives, marketing, sales, and other relevant departments. Encourage them to offer ideas to improve your score. 

Once you implement those ideas, continue surveying your customers. Track the results to see if things are changing. Then, use that feedback to iterate on your changes to improve your score even more.

CSAT survey examples, best practices, and challenges

The best CSAT surveys are short and simple. These get higher response rates and provide more accurate data because there’s less cause for confusion among your respondents. 

Sometimes a binary CSAT survey can work well. Ask “Were you satisfied with your customer service interaction?” and offer two options: yes or no. You could use a visual scale instead: thumbs up/down or smiley/frowny face.

Avoid common CSAT survey mistakes, like crafting long, complicated questions or including too many questions in the survey. Keep technical errors in mind as you design, too. For example, make sure your survey is compatible with both mobile and desktop applications.

Finally, remember that a CSAT survey isn’t the only way to gather customer feedback. It’s crucial to use other types of surveys to measure different aspects of your customer’s feelings about your brand. 

Think beyond surveys as well — Sprig’s Replay tool captures clips of user behavior, helping you identify common issues. You can also use this tool to watch how users respond to changes you make to address prior feedback. By watching user journeys, you can see what’s working and identify new areas for improvement.

Use CSAT surveys to evaluate and improve customer satisfaction

A CSAT survey can help you evaluate how your customers feel about your company and products. Once you have feedback from your survey, you can analyze it to identify the features and aspects that your customers like. You can also find areas for improvement.

Sprig helps you gather and analyze customer feedback more accurately and efficiently. In-product Surveys and Session Replays offer a real-time view into customer behavior, and AI Analysis evaluates data quickly and accurately to provide actionable insights. Get better survey results faster. Start your Sprig free trial today.

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