“CSAT Score” Get No Satisfaction? 3-Part Customer Satisfaction Guide for the Frustrated

If you don’t know what a CSAT score is, let alone how to improve yours, take a second to review the basics and calculate your score.

As an entrepreneur, there’s a very high chance that you’re working with customers in some capacity. (We’re certainly hard pressed to find many businesses that don’t interact with clients at all!) And when you work with clients, you usually want to make sure that they are satisfied with your products, services, and outreach.

But with so many people using the Internet to make purchases, you don’t have many opportunities to get face-to-face feedback. So how do you check whether your customers are satisfied with your business?

CSAT Scores 101

That’s where Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Scores come in: these are measures made from collected data to help you track your customers’ responses. Does that sound like a mouthful? Don’t worry, we’ll break it down below!

1. What Does a CSAT Score Measure?

Customer Satisfaction Scores are a useful way to measure qualitative data. That means you’re measuring a characteristic that is not inherently numerical: when you’re collecting people’s opinions, there’s no specific number that you can look at and measure. Instead, it’s a quality that you must describe. The CSAT score measures just what it says: customer satisfaction.

Qualitative data can still be measured and analyzed with numbers; it just requires an extra step to define the numbers you’re using. For example, you can turn a qualitative question into numerical data by asking someone to judge on a scale from 1(“Very Dissatisfied”) to 5 (“Very Satisfied”).

That isn’t so hard, is it? In fact, creating a test to gather customer satisfaction score data is as simple as writing up a simple survey with a couple questions asking customers to rank their experience shopping or working with you. Even if you don’t send out a survey, think about star-based reviews on your eCommerce platform—it’s practically the same thing!

Whether you’re using a survey or product webpage reviews, you can use this data to calculate your customer satisfaction score.

2. How to Calculate Your CSAT Score

CSAT scores take the form of a percentage: 10%, 50%, or 80% satisfaction are all possible results you might see on a CSAT score, with very different meanings.

Once you’ve started collecting reviews or survey data, it’s easy to calculate your CSAT score with some basic statistics.

1. Add Up Satisfied Responses: First, take any responses that count as “satisfied” or better. In our hypothetical 1-5 scale, this would be a 4 or a 5. We count all satisfied responses together: if, out of 70 responses, 30 people respond with a 4 (“Satisfied”) and 20 people respond with a 5 (“Very Satisfied”) we add that up to 50 satisfied responses.
2. Divide By All Responses: Then we get an average by dividing the satisfied-or-better responses by the total number of responses. So, if we had 70 responses and 50 of those were “Satisfied” or “Very Satisfied”, we get 50/70. With a handy-dandy calculator, that gives us a value of 0.814.
3. Multiply by 100: Then we simply multiply that clumsy decimal value by 100 to transform it into a percentage! Let’s see what we’ve got: 0.814 x 100 = 81.4%. Our customers must really be satisfied with our business!

3. What is a Good CSAT Score?

In addition to calculating your CSAT Score, you should try to check written responses and look for patterns in your surveys and reviews. What are different respondents saying? What are the things satisfied customers like about your business? Why are dissatisfied customers discontent?

Reading customer comments alongside your data helps you figure out cause-effect relationships that make your score go up or down. Some common issues to prioritize include:

• Responding quickly to client emails and messages to answer questions and solve problems.
• Offering replacements, refunds, or repairs to clients reporting damaged or dysfunctional products in negative reviews.
• Improving FAQs and product/service descriptions on your websites or eCommerce page to ensure that customers don’t feel misled.
• Ensure that you have a communications suite where you can manage and track all your customer interactions.

Customer Satisfaction, Here You Come

Many CSAT issues come down to communication and troubleshooting. Only if your responses are showing consistent dissatisfaction with your products or services should you then move on to refocusing your goods.

Surveying your clients and tracking your CSAT score gives you a helpful statistic to make sure you won’t lose customers. Effectively managing your social media, maintaining a professional website, and keeping your clients informed can ensure satisfied, happy customers.