How to Design Effective CSAT Surveys

Customer satisfaction is a topic that’s easy to understand in the abstract—it’s simply how happy your customers are with your products and services.

The problem with CSAT is that as a concrete metric, it’s not the easiest to measure. It tends to be qualitative rather than quantitative, and subjective rather than objective—not to mention unique to each individual customer.

But it is possible to measure CSAT successfully and effectively. And one of the best tactics for doing that is using CSAT surveys. These short questionnaires go out to your customers periodically, asking them direct questions about what they like and dislike about your company and/or their interactions with it.

The answers to these surveys will help you improve your products, services, and practices, which in turn will help your customers have a better experience.

In this article, we’ll discuss best practices for designing and implementing effective CSAT surveys.

Six Best Practices for Designing CSAT Surveys

When designing CSAT surveys, finding the right balance between gathering insightful data and respecting your customers’ time is crucial. That way, your surveys can be a powerful tool for understanding customer satisfaction and improving your services or products.

Below are six best practices to help you design better CSAT surveys.

1. Define CSAT Survey Goals

Before creating your survey, clearly define what you want to learn from it. Whether it’s understanding how customers feel about a recent purchase or their overall satisfaction with your brand, having clear goals will guide your question creation and ensure you gather the most relevant information.

2. Keep the Survey Short

Respect your customers’ time by ensuring your survey is to the point. A short, focused survey is more likely to be completed and provide valuable insights. Aim for no more than ten questions; remember, quality is more important than quantity.

Some examples of short, concise survey questions include:

• Were you satisfied with your experience?
• How would you rate your customer service experience today?
• How easy was it to resolve your issue today?

3. Save Open-Ended Questions for the End of the Survey

While rating scales and multiple-choice questions provide quantitative data, open-ended questions can offer deeper insights into your customers’ experiences. Include these at the end of the survey to avoid long questions at the start.

Some examples of open-ended questions include:

• How can we improve our services?
• Was our support team able to answer all of your questions today?
• Would you recommend us to a friend or colleague?

4. Avoid Intrusive Demographic Questions

While demographic data can provide audience context, asking too many personal questions can make customers uncomfortable. Stick to relevant questions and assure customers their information will be confidential.

5. Use Clear Language

Complex wording can confuse respondents and negatively impact your results. Use simple, straightforward language in your questions to ensure everyone understands what’s being asked.

6. Analyze and Act on Feedback

The real value of CSAT surveys lies in what you do with the feedback. Regularly analyze the responses, identify trends, and take action where necessary.

Share the feedback with your team and make changes based on customer input. This shows customers you value their opinions, which can boost overall satisfaction.

FAQs

What is a CSAT survey?

Customer satisfaction surveys, or CSAT surveys, are used in call centres to meaningfully measure how customers feel about the service received post-call centre interaction.

There are many ways to collect this customer feedback. Selecting the right method allows your team to increase response rates, helping you better understand the effectiveness of your call centre team and improve the service level.

What is the difference between an NPS survey and a CSAT survey?

A Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey measures customer loyalty, asking customers if they would recommend your business to other people. A CSAT survey focuses on an immediate reaction for a specific experience, such as a phone call.

What is a good CSAT score?

A good CSAT score varies by industry, but generally anything above 75% is seen as good because it indicates that the majority of your customers are happy. The closer the score is to 100%, the better–this means nearly all your customers are having a good experience.

Why measure CSAT and NPS?

Checking both CSAT and NPS scores gives you a better understanding of your customer experiences. CSAT scores help you understand the customer experience at any point throughout the interactions with you.

NPS scores show you how loyal your customers are in general, and if they’d recommend you to others. Together, these can guide you in improving your overall customer service strategies.

How to do CSAT surveys?

There are four main methods for CSAT surveys:

1. CSAT Email Surveys. Email surveys are a straightforward way to gather customer satisfaction data. Simply send an online survey link in an email and make sure the content is engaging enough to prompt them to read and complete the survey. The key is optimizing your copy, email, and survey design to maintain customer engagement.
2. CSAT SMS Surveys. SMS surveys are a more direct and immediate alternative. They’re effective for B2C businesses in general, as well as for reaching customers without an email address on file. Use solutions that allow you to send one-question CSAT surveys via text and track open and click rates for maximum effectiveness.
3. Interactive Voice Response (IVR) CSAT Phone Surveys. IVR technology enables automated gathering of information from customers through voice and keypad inputs. Ideally implemented post-call in a call centre environment, it doesn’t require a second interaction, boosting efficiency.
4. CSAT In-app Surveys. In-app surveys provide a convenient way for users to share their feedback. These surveys, embedded directly within your app, capture feedback immediately after a user completes an action. You can customize survey questions based on user behavior and preferences, and monitor response rates and feedback in real time, to improve customer satisfaction.