CSAT calculator

CSAT measures how satisfied people are with a specific thing — a support conversation, a delivery, a product, an onboarding session. It's usually collected with one question, such as "How satisfied were you with your experience today?", answered on a 1-5 scale.

Unlike NPS, which asks about the whole relationship and likelihood to recommend, CSAT is deliberately narrow. That narrowness is its strength: because you ask right after a specific event, you know exactly what the score refers to and what to fix.

When CSAT is the right metric

• Immediately after a support ticket is resolved
• Following a purchase, delivery, or return
• At the end of onboarding or a training session
• After a feature launch, to gauge reaction

The standard method is top-two-box: count everyone who chose one of the two most positive options, divide by total responses, and express it as a percentage.

Worked example

You collect 240 responses to a post-support survey: 100 people rate it 4, 80 rate it 5, 40 are neutral at 3, and 20 give a 1 or 2.

Your CSAT is 75%. Read it as: three quarters of respondents were satisfied with that interaction.

As broad guidance for a 5-point top-two-box score:

Response bias is the real problem

CSAT surveys attract people with strong feelings. Customers who had a smooth, unremarkable experience often don't bother replying, while those who were delighted or furious do. This tends to hollow out the middle of your distribution and can push your score in either direction.

You can't eliminate this, but you can watch your response rate. A sharp change in response rate alongside a change in score usually means the mix of respondents shifted, not that satisfaction did.

Timing

Ask while the experience is still fresh — ideally within minutes to a few hours of the interaction. A CSAT survey that arrives three days after a support call measures memory, not the interaction.

Keep it to one question, plus one optional

The rating itself, and an open "What made you choose that score?" field. Anything longer drops your response rate sharply, and the open text is where the actionable detail lives.

Channel

• In-app or on-page — highest response rates, best for digital products
• Email — works well post-purchase or post-delivery
• WhatsApp or SMS — strong for service businesses and local commerce
• End of chat — the standard for support desks

Scale design

Stick with 5 points and label every option in words, not just numbers. Unlabelled scales get interpreted differently by different people, and mixing labelled and unlabelled versions across surveys quietly breaks your trend line.

A score on its own changes nothing. What makes CSAT valuable is the loop that follows it.

1. Read the open-text answers. Group them into themes. Three or four themes usually account for most dissatisfaction.
2. Segment the score. By agent, channel, product line, plan tier, region. A flat 75% often hides one segment at 90% and another at 55%.
3. Follow up on low scores quickly. A same-day response to a 1 or 2 recovers a meaningful share of those customers.
4. Track the trend, not the point. Single-week movements are usually noise, especially at low volumes. Look at rolling averages.
5. Pair it with a loyalty measure. High CSAT with rising churn means you're handling interactions well but losing on something structural — price, product fit, or a competitor. Add NPS to see the relationship-level view.