Customer satisfaction (CSAT) survey

A comprehensive guide to measuring and enhancing customer happiness. Discover the power of effective surveys in driving business success.

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What is a customer satisfaction survey?

A customer satisfaction survey (CSAT survey) is a questionnaire brands put together to identify their customers' satisfaction with the product or service provided. A CSAT survey can be used to track customer sentiment across each touchpoint of the customer journey.

If you have quantifiable data on how well your customers like your product or service, you can make meaningful enhancements to their end-user experience and properly address customer needs.

Why do you need CSAT surveys?

Customer feedback is one of the most important aspects of improving your customer experience and, ultimately, retention. A customer satisfaction survey is generally added at the end of every service interaction. It asks the customer to rate the quality of service provided on a scale that ranges from poor to excellent.

Apart from customer service, CSAT surveys also act as indicators for product teams to work on the customers’ requirements and build features that will genuinely be useful for them. They also help identify which agents are resolving customer problems more satisfactorily than others and develop training to help your team improve.

To sum up, CSAT surveys help you:

  • Understand customer pain points and bottlenecks

  • Have a benchmark for goal setting and growth

  • Monitor how satisfied customers are with individual support agents

  • Improve the overall customer experience

  • Understand what drives customer loyalty

  • Propagate good word of mouth for your brand and reduce customer churn

Types of customer satisfaction surveys

There is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to surveying customers. While a customer satisfaction survey is best for gauging your customers’ happiness, there are other types of customer satisfaction surveys. The survey you choose should depend on your objectives and what you want to learn from your customers.

The four main types of customer satisfaction surveys are:

How to measure and interpret customer satisfaction survey results?

Once you’ve gathered all the responses to your survey, you need to evaluate the results. You can do this by calculating the CSAT score, a metric that allows you to assess your customers’ overall satisfaction. To calculate the CSAT score, you need to add the number of positive responses received and divide that by the total number of responses.

Since CSAT score is expressed as a percentage (with 100% denoting complete customer satisfaction), you need to multiply the results by 100. So, if 80 customers responded positively out of 100 survey responses, your CSAT score would be 80%. 

Apart from visual surveys or polls, you can also measure customer satisfaction using a Likert scale: a three-, five-, or seven-point scale that enables customers to share their satisfaction numerically. In this case, the formula given below is used to calculate the customer satisfaction score:

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

The only thing that changes is your definition of a positive response. For instance, on a scale of 1-5, 1 being extremely unhappy and 5 being extremely happy, 4 and 5 count as positive responses.

How to create a CSAT survey

A well-constructed customer satisfaction survey can help you get the right insights to improve your customers’ experiences and optimize internal processes. You can design the perfect CSAT survey by following the steps below:

Step 1: Identify the goal of the survey

While measuring customer satisfaction is good for your business, you might not be able to get actionable feedback unless you have a specific objective for conducting a survey. So, you need to start with identifying your goal, which can range from assessing how satisfied your customers are with your business or customer support to figuring out what needs to be changed in your product.

Step 2: Frame the questions

The feedback you get from your customers is only as good as the questions you ask. But how do you determine what questions should be asked in your customer satisfaction survey? Here are two tips that can help you frame the right customer satisfaction survey questions:

Question type: close-ended vs. open-ended questions. Go with closed-ended questions for quantitative feedback, open-ended for qualitative, and both if you want to get comprehensive feedback.

Option type: You’ll need to decide what the options for your questions will look like. We recommend:

Option typePurpose
Poll or yes/no optionDirect, binary feedback about the helpfulness of a solution article, a support agent, etc
Empty field or answer boxOpen-ended questions
Drop-downPointed, specific feedback
Interactive slider or a visual surveyImprove response rates of frequently shared surveys
Multiple choicesWhen one of more aspects of your product/service are being evaluated

Customer satisfaction survey question examples

There are thousands of possible questions you could ask your customers to get their feedback and learn how to improve your service. Here are just a few examples of customer satisfaction survey questions:

Understanding the customer questions:

  1. What is your household income?

  2. What industry do you work in?

  3. Which age group are you in?

  4. Do you have any children?

  5. What is your highest level of education?

Understanding how they found out about your brand:

  1. Where did you first hear about us?

  2. Have you visited our website before?

  3. Which of the following social media channels do you use?

  4. Do you follow us on social media?

  5. Have you subscribed to our mailing list?

Understanding the online customer experience questions:

  1. How likely are you to return to our website?

  2. How easy was it to find what you were looking for today?

  3. On a scale of 1-5, how satisfied were you with the checkout experience?

Customer service satisfaction questions:

  1. How would you rate the customer service you received today?

  2. Did we resolve your issue today?

  3. Is there anything we could have improved about the customer service you received today?

In-store experience questions:

  1. How can we improve the in-store experience?

  2. Did you find what you were looking for in-store?

  3. Did our team help you in-store today?

  4. On a scale of 1-5, how satisfied were you with the store today?

Best practices for creating customer satisfaction surveys

Designing a great customer satisfaction survey will be an easy process if you keep the following do’s and don’ts in mind.

Do: Keep surveys short and succinct

Keep surveys short and to the point—your customers have to get back to their work or life, and you need to respect their time. If surveys are too long, customers will lose interest and leave them unfinished. If you need detailed feedback, you can set up questions to appear when customers give a particular rating.

Do: Nail the timing 

Getting the timing of sending the CSAT survey right is critical. Send it too early and your customers could still be implementing the solution suggested. Send it too late and they might forget what your conversation was about. It’s best to send the survey a little after the issue has been resolved and share a recap of the conversation to refresh the customer’s memory.

Do: Make the survey and specific questions optional 

Making the survey mandatory can annoy some customers, especially if they are in a hurry to do something else. Instead, explaining the objective of collecting feedback can improve response rates. If your survey is lengthy, you can make certain questions mandatory and keep the rest optional.

Do: End on an open question

If someone is completing your customer satisfaction survey, there’s a strong likelihood that they have a specific thought or opinion they want to share. Ending on an open-ended question such as “Is there anything else you’d like to share with us today?” or “Do you have any final thoughts about your recent experience with us?” gives them an opportunity to share their thoughts. Open-ended questions are great because they let your customers tell you what they think outside of the prescribed tick-box answers. Sometimes this is where the best insights come from.

Do: Respond promptly and personally

Your customers have taken time out of their day to complete your survey, so it’s only polite that you should thank them. Set up an email response to thank each person who completes the survey. Not only will this mean they’re more likely to complete more in the future, but it helps improve their perception of your brand overall.

Don’t: Use complicated language

You might live and breathe your brand, but your customers don’t.  Industry jargon or over-the-top brand-speak will only confuse your customers and become a barrier to them completing the survey. Ask questions in clear, simple language that they can understand and you’re more likely to get results.

Don’t: Combine questions 

Make it a point not to address two separate things in a single question. Your customers might have conflicting opinions, and this won’t help you get accurate feedback. For instance, don’t say “How happy are you with your purchase journey and product delivery?” These are two separate questions—customers might have had a seamless purchase journey but faced troubles during the delivery.

How to collect high-quality customer feedback and turn it into actionable insights

  1. Identify core problems: The first step is to look for common themes and recurring topics within your customers’ feedback. Every business has areas that they can improve on, and by analyzing raw feedback you’ll be able to find yours and work toward fixing the issues.

  2. Visualize the data: Data visualization can help you make sense of large amounts of data from customer feedback surveys. Create charts and graphs to quickly spot patterns and help you understand your customers’ preferences and problems more easily.

  3. Categorize feedback for easier analysis: Once you’ve found common patterns within the feedback, you’ll be able to categorize it. By grouping themes together, you can better understand what you’re doing well, as well as key areas for improvement.  

  4. Leverage AI to analyze data: Artificial intelligence can save you a lot of time when it comes to analyzing data. AI tools can automate the data analysis process, categorizing feedback and turning raw feedback into actionable insights you can use.

  5. Make a plan to action the insights: Once you’ve made sense of the raw feedback data, you can formulate an action plan to improve your customer service, products, or services. This will lead to happier customers, spur more repeat business, and improve your bottom line. These steps can include remaining on the path you’re on or rethinking a strategy you currently have.

How does Freshworks Customer Service Suite support customer satisfaction surveys?

Collect feedback

Collect feedback with Customer Service Suite’s 7-point CSAT scale

The Suite allows you to build detailed customer experience surveys with scales ranging from two points to seven points. Along with the standard “extremely dissatisfied” and “extremely satisfied” options, you can opt for more neutral choices such as “neither satisfied nor dissatisfied” to get more precise feedback. You can also add additional questions and allow the customer to type in their comments. Customer Service Suite also gives you the nifty option to automatically send a customized thank-you message after the customer responds to the survey.

Entire survey control

Have complete control over when you send CSAT surveys

The Suite gives you pinpoint control over which emails should have the link to your satisfaction survey. Helpdesk administrators can choose to send survey links with all emails or restrict this ability to specific cases, for instance, emails that are sent after a ticket is resolved completely. They can also allow agents to send survey links with specific emails at their discretion.

Multilingual survey

Deploy multilingual feedback surveys

If you have a customer base that spans across geographies, you can improve survey completion rates by sending satisfaction surveys in the local language. This will allow you to connect better with your entire audience and also instill a feeling of trust and comfort in your customers before they share their feedback and ratings. Currently, Customer Service Suite can translate your CSAT surveys into up to 41 languages.

Track trends 

Track trends in customer satisfaction

With Customer Service Suite’s curated analytics platform, you can create custom reports to identify trends in your CSAT scores. You can monitor the productivity of individual agents and hold them accountable for their performance. On a broader scale, managers can estimate how well the customer service department is doing as a whole by monitoring important metrics and use these findings to make data-backed operational decisions.

Loop in customers

Close the loop with customers

The last mile of customer feedback management is something you cannot overlook. With Customer Service Suite, you can send a personalized note to the customer by easily viewing and referencing any aspect of the interaction and thank them for taking the time to share feedback. You can even pass to the concerned teams by looping them into the conversation, following up on updates, and getting back to the respondents after their feedback has been addressed.

FAQs about customer satisfaction surveys

What is a customer satisfaction survey?

A customer satisfaction survey is a set of questions created by a brand to identify the level of satisfaction experienced by customers when interacting with a product or service. A CSAT survey can also be used to track customer sentiment across each touchpoint of the customer journey.

Why is a CSAT survey important?

A customer satisfaction survey is integral to your business because it helps:

- Monitor how satisfied customers are with your products/services

- Understand customer pain points and bottlenecks

- Set a benchmark for business objectives and growth

- Identify opportunities to improve customer experience

How do you create customer satisfaction surveys?

You can create a customer satisfaction survey in just two steps. The first step is to identify the objective of the survey. It can range from assessing how satisfied your customers are with your business or customer support to figuring out what needs to be changed in your product. Once you have clarity on the objective, you can create a questionnaire with the right questions to get the required insights.

What questions should I ask in a customer satisfaction survey?

The most common form of customer satisfaction survey uses either a close-ended question such as “Are you satisfied?” where the answer is yes or no or a Likert scale rating for a question like “How satisfied are you?” where the customer rates their experience on the scale. This works great for gathering quantitative feedback, whereas open-ended questions work for qualitative feedback, and together they offer comprehensive customer feedback. The three basic questions you can include in your customer satisfaction survey are:

- How satisfied are you with our customer support? Ask them to rate on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 denotes extremely happy, and 5 denotes extremely unhappy.

- Which aspect of your experience could have been better? Ask them to select from a range of options like speed, efficiency, ease of access, or agent behavior.

- Is there any additional feedback you’d like to share? End your survey with an open-ended question to get comprehensive feedback that underlines the areas where you can improve.

How to measure CSAT survey results

You can assess the CSAT survey results based on responses received on the Likert scale, that is, a three-, five-, or seven-point scale that enables customers to share their satisfaction level numerically. For instance, on a scale of 1-5, 1 being extremely unhappy and 5 being extremely happy, 4 and 5 count as positive responses. 

To calculate the customer satisfaction (CSAT) score, you need to add the number of positive responses received and divide that by the total number of responses. You can use the below formula to calculate the final score.

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

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