CSAT is a marketing metric that allows business owners to measure their customer satisfaction scores. It’s one of the easiest ways to evaluate customer satisfaction with a product or service.
In this article, we’ll consider the importance of CSAT, uncover the difference between this metric and NPS, show you how to calculate the score, and provide some tips on how to improve it.
Why is CSAT important?
Every business strives to deliver the best customer experience. It helps companies grow, build loyalty, and blow up sales. To learn whether customers are satisfied with their products and services, brands use different types of surveys, for example, NPS and customer satisfaction surveys.
CSAT allows companies to improve the customer experience they provide at different stages: acquisition, onboarding, ordering, post-purchase service, etc. All of these stages make up their customer lifecycle, which means that brands monitor this score regularly to ensure a smooth customer journey.
Almost every business will have to deal with the problem of customer churn at some point. The good news is that you can predict and prevent it by asking your clients directly if they’re satisfied with your product and service. After analyzing the results, you can act on them and focus your efforts on dissatisfied clients before they leave you.
Lastly, regular customer feedback analysis allows businesses to have a clear picture of their position on the market and in clients’ minds. Tracking CSAT regularly enables stakeholders to deliver the best customer experience and reduce their churn rate.
It was mentioned that CSAT and NPS are the most popular surveys among companies that help them reveal their clients’ attitudes towards their brands. Let’s take a closer look at each metric.
CSAT vs. NPS
Customer satisfaction scores enable companies to determine the current level of their clients’ satisfaction with a product or service. Brands can offer this kind of survey to their customers at each stage of their buyer journey and after each touchpoint, for example, after a sale or at the end of their onboarding process. This way, marketers can reveal their weak points and get more point-in-time feedback.
NPS stands for Net Promoter Score. This metric allows companies to find out if their customers would recommend the brand to their friends. With NPS, you can discover the number of Detractors (dissatisfied clients) and Promoters (enthusiasts who are ready to recommend the company). With this survey, you can have more insights into the long-term relationships with your customers.
The core difference is that very satisfied clients are not necessarily promoters. Hence, NPS is more about measuring your brand loyalty.
Now that you know the benefits of CSAT, you might be interested in how to calculate it.
How to Calculate CSAT
First of all, you need to create a survey to collect feedback. You can provide users with an automated in-app survey that they can take after each interaction with your brand, for example, after a conversation with your customer support agent, after a sale, after creating the first landing page using your service, etc.
Take a look at several examples of such surveys. Generally, they ask users if they are satisfied with a product or service. Brands often offer a 5-point scale to assess the level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
Canadian fast-food restaurant A&W offers its customers to take this kind of survey after each visit. Clients only have to choose happy or sad smiley faces. This survey provides the company with general customer feedback.
Starbucks, a world-renowned coffee chain, offers its customers to assess their satisfaction on a 5-point scale. This survey provides a more in-depth look at customer experience.
After you receive your clients’ feedback, you need to count the number of all customers who are satisfied and very satisfied. Then, count the number of all users who took your survey. Now you can calculate your CSAT with the formula below.
CSAT = (Satisfied customers/Total customer surveys)*100
The score will be expressed as a percentage.
Say, 250 users took your customer satisfaction survey. You used a 5-point scale, so the number of satisfied and very satisfied customers is 135 (45+90). Hence, your CSAT is 54% ((135/250)*100).
This result indicates that although the majority of your customers are satisfied, you need to make some improvements. In the next section, we’ll share some tips on how to do this.
How to Improve Your Customer Satisfaction Score
Follow our tips below to make customer satisfaction a priority for your business.
- Provide multichannel customer support. People are different, meaning that they solve problems in different ways. You should keep this in mind if you want to satisfy them. If a client needs a consultation, an email won’t be the best choice. Let them call you. Similarly, a chatbot or a live chat can be the best option for customers’ FAQs. With SendPulse, you can create a chatbot and a live chat for your website for free. Remember to provide your clients with an opportunity to choose.
- Provide immediate support. Clients expect businesses to answer immediately. If they fail, customers might choose a competitor. To avoid this issue, provide 24/7 customer support and enough human agents. You can automate your communication with clients and create a chatbot for Facebook, WhatsApp, and Telegram with SendPulse. This way, you can delegate some routine tasks to a chatbot and let customer care agents solve more complicated issues.
- Act on feedback timely. Customers appreciate brands that care. To be such a brand, show your clients that their opinion matters. Thank them for their feedback, and fix the issues they have immediately. Create a workflow so that each problem is directed to the department responsible for it. For example, if a client complains about some bugs, report this to your product development team. If a client requests a personalized premium plan, let your customer success team contact them.
- Monitor complaints regularly to act on them. Clients who are not supported properly often share their negative experiences on social media. This can be very harmful to a brand’s reputation. Use special tools to monitor your brand’s mentions on Facebook, for example. Once you see a complaint, act immediately. Respond to every user, and be thankful for their positive reviews as well. This makes them feel like you care.
- Offer users customer satisfaction surveys regularly. Regular collection of clients’ feedback will pay off. You’ll be able to identify their common behavioral patterns, problems, and needs. This information is pivotal for every brand because it provides insights into your performance from firsthand experience.
Congrats, now you know why CSAT is important and can measure and increase it. Make use of SendPulse tools for effective communication with clients, and improve your products and services every day!
Last Updated: 06.09.2024
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