When designing a market research survey, there are a lot of choices for metrics. Some of the options include Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Effort Score (CES), and Customer Satisfaction (CSAT.) Each have their own unique advantages and disadvantages. CSAT is the most common and general of the three metrics. Unlike NPS and CES, if you've taken any survey in the past, you've probably seen some variation of CSAT being used. How it is measured, its advantages, and supporting questions for CSAT are highlighted below.
How is CSAT measured?
Customer satisfaction metrics come in many shapes and sizes. There is no official approach or scale to use when asking this question. Adoption ranges from 5-point scales, to 7-point scales, to 10-point scales. The anchors in the rating scales range from very dissatisfied to very satisfied. After the data is collected, groups are created which buckets respondents into dissatisfied, neutral, and satisfied groups. The common groupings on the 1 to 10 scale are as follows: (1) dissatisfied are those rating you a 1 to 3, (2) neutral are those rating you a 4 to 7, and (3) satisfied are those rating you an 8 to 10.
What are the advantages of using CSAT?
CSAT is easy to implement and is broadly used. CSAT can cover everything from rating an overall experience with your company to rating very specific categories (e.g., service, wait-time, quality of product, etc.) CSAT also allows for flexibility in what rating scale works best for your survey. Whereas NPS requires a 0 to 10 scale and CES is typically a 5-point scale, CSAT can use a variety of likert scales. When sharing CSAT data with others, it's fairly simple to explain. NPS and CES usually require some level of explanation.
Should I include a follow-up question after I ask CSAT?
As is the case with both CES and NPS, always include some type of follow-up question to obtain both measurement and exploratory data. Without a follow-up open-ended or categorized question asking the respondent to explain the rating of a "7" you will understand you have a mediocre customer satisfaction score, but not understand why? A detailed follow-up question will provide you with the actionable improvement data to raise the CSAT measurement.
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Drive Research is a customer satisfaction survey company in Syracuse, NY. Our company specializes in all forms of qualitative and quantitative market research. Need assistance with choosing the right market research project or study to fit your needs? Contact us at [email protected] or call us at 315-303-2040.