Metrics
CSAT: what it is, the formula and how to raise it
19 Oct 2026 · 8 min read
The short answer
CSAT (customer satisfaction score) is the percentage of customers who gave a positive rating, usually 4 or 5 on a five-point scale, after a specific interaction. Divide positive responses by total responses and multiply by 100. Ask right after a ticket closes or a call ends.
CSAT, short for customer satisfaction score, is the percentage of customers who rate an interaction as good. You ask one question after a ticket is closed or a call ends, count the 4s and 5s on a five-point scale, and divide by everyone who answered. If 84 of 100 people answer 4 or 5, your CSAT is 84%.
It is the simplest customer service number to start with, and the easiest to misuse. Below: the formula with worked arithmetic, survey wording, when to send it on each channel, and how to raise the score.
What is the CSAT formula?
CSAT = (number of satisfied responses ÷ total number of responses) × 100. A satisfied response is a 4 or a 5 on a five-point scale. Neutral (3) and negative (1 or 2) answers count in the total but not in the top.
Worked example. In one week your team closes 400 tickets and sends the survey on each. 150 customers answer, which is a response rate of 150 ÷ 400 = 37.5%. The answers break down like this:
| Rating | Meaning | Responses |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | Very satisfied | 78 |
| 4 | Satisfied | 42 |
| 3 | Neutral | 14 |
| 2 | Unsatisfied | 9 |
| 1 | Very unsatisfied | 7 |
| Total | 150 |
Satisfied responses are 78 + 42 = 120. CSAT = 120 ÷ 150 × 100 = 80%. The average rating is (78×5 + 42×4 + 14×3 + 9×2 + 7×1) ÷ 150 = 625 ÷ 150 = 4.17. Pick one way of reporting and keep it. Mixing the percentage and the average in the same report confuses readers.
What does a CSAT survey look like?
A good CSAT survey is one question about the interaction that just happened, plus an optional comment box. Name the interaction, keep the scale fixed and label every point.
- Question: “How satisfied were you with the help you got today?”
- Scale: 1 Very unsatisfied, 2 Unsatisfied, 3 Neutral, 4 Satisfied, 5 Very satisfied.
- Follow-up (optional, shown after any answer): “What is the main reason for your score?”
- Over WhatsApp or SMS: “Thanks for contacting us. Reply 1 to 5 to rate the help you got: 5 is very satisfied, 1 is very unsatisfied.”
Avoid leading wording such as “How great was our service?”. Avoid asking two things in one question, such as “How satisfied were you with the agent and the delivery?”. If you need to know both, ask two questions or run two surveys. Change nothing about the wording once you have started, or your trend line stops meaning anything.
When should you send a CSAT survey?
Send it within minutes of the interaction ending, while the customer still remembers it. For tickets that means when the ticket is resolved. For calls it means after the call ends and the agent has finished wrapping up.
| Channel | Trigger | Best format |
|---|---|---|
| Phone call | Call ends and the ticket is resolved | SMS or WhatsApp message with a 1 to 5 reply |
| Conversation resolved | Reply with a number, sent as soon as the conversation is resolved | |
| Ticket resolved | One-click rating links in the closing email | |
| Web chat | Chat ends | Rating buttons in the chat window |
Do not survey a customer on a ticket that is still open, and do not send the survey every time the same person contacts you in one day. One survey per resolved ticket is enough. To keep scores comparable, ask everyone or ask a fixed random sample. Never let agents choose who gets the survey.
What is a good CSAT score?
There is no universal good score. Benchmarks depend on the industry, the scale and who gets surveyed, so a figure from elsewhere tells you little, and this page does not quote one. The most useful benchmark is your own score last month, split by channel and by agent.
Read your own number carefully. Watch the trend over at least four weeks. Look at the response count beside the percentage: 90% from 10 answers is noise, 82% from 300 answers is a signal. Compare channels against each other rather than blending them into one figure.
How is CSAT different from NPS and customer effort score?
CSAT measures how a customer felt about one interaction. Net Promoter Score (NPS) asks how likely they are to recommend you, which measures loyalty to the whole company. Customer effort score (CES) asks how easy it was to get their problem solved.
| Metric | Question asked | Measures | Use it for |
|---|---|---|---|
| CSAT | How satisfied were you with the help you got today? | Feeling about one interaction | Agent and channel quality, per ticket |
| NPS | How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague? (0 to 10) | Loyalty to the company | Quarterly relationship check |
| CES | To what extent do you agree: it was easy to get my problem solved? (1 to 7) | Effort the customer had to spend | Finding friction in a process |
Sources disagree on which end of the effort scale is good, because it depends on how the scale is coded. If you use an agree-style statement, a higher average means easier. Write the direction on the report so nobody reads it backwards. For a support team, CSAT after every ticket plus a quarterly NPS is enough to start.
How do you raise your CSAT score?
Raise CSAT by fixing what the low scores say, not by chasing the number. Read every 1 and 2 with its comment for two weeks and sort them into causes. Fix the cause that appears most.
- Answer faster. Check waiting first. Track first response time and the share of calls answered quickly, and staff to the busy hours with the method in how many agents you need.
- Stop making people repeat themselves. If a customer explains their problem on WhatsApp and again on a call, the second person should see the first conversation. One ticket per customer across channels does this. See what a ticketing system is.
- Close the loop on every 1 and 2. Call or message the customer within a day, apologise for the specific thing, fix it if you can.
- Own the callback. A customer who was promised a call and did not get one will score you low whatever else happens. See missed calls for how to catch them.
- Coach with the comments. Share two good and two poor comments per agent in the weekly one-to-one. Use the score to start a conversation, never to rank people in public.
- Resolve on first contact. Look for low scores that followed a second contact about the same issue. Track first contact resolution next to CSAT.
What does SautiDesk report on CSAT?
SautiDesk does not send CSAT surveys or report a CSAT score today. Until it does, run the survey yourself and keep the tally in a spreadsheet.
What SautiDesk Pro does report is the speed side that drives CSAT: the Service level report (calls answered in your target time, average and longest wait, abandon rate), the Tickets report (first reply time) and Reply times by channel. Reports are on SautiDesk Pro; Basic does not include them. See pricing.