Customer Satisfaction Rate (CSAT)
Satisfaction with a specific interaction.
Vanity Risk
CSAT is context-specific by design, but reporting a single aggregate CSAT score across all touchpoints is vanity. An 85% average can hide that support is at 95% while onboarding is at 60%.
What it measures
Satisfaction score for a specific interaction or experience, typically via a survey ("How satisfied were you?" on a 1-5 scale). Unlike NPS, which gauges overall loyalty, CSAT is best for evaluating specific touchpoints.
Benchmarks
- B2C: Target 80%+
- B2B enterprise: Target 90%+
What to watch
- Rising: The specific experience you're measuring is improving. Watch response rates, as low participation can skew results toward extremes.
- Falling: Something changed in that touchpoint. Because CSAT is context-specific, you can often pinpoint the issue. Compare before/after when you make changes.
In practice
An online education platform added video transcripts and saw course CSAT rise from 72% to 86%. But completion rates didn't improve. Learners were more satisfied but using transcripts to skim rather than engage. They redesigned transcripts as a supplement rather than an alternative to video.
Related: CES — effort-based satisfaction.; NPS — overall loyalty measure.