What is Customer Satisfaction Survey [Questions + Template]

What is customer satisfaction survey?

A customer satisfaction (CSAT) survey systematically collects valuable customer feedback regarding their interactions with your company, products and services.

These CSAT surveys are designed with carefully crafted questions that prompt customers to rate their satisfaction across crucial dimensions such as product or service quality, customer service and overall experiences. The inclusion of diverse channels, such as voice, SMS, IVR, chat and in-person meetings, ensures a comprehensive approach to gathering insights.

Importance of CSAT survey

Customer satisfaction surveys serve as a critical tool for evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of your offerings, setup and processes. The direct nature of survey responses from customers lends invaluable insights that are pivotal for strategic decision-making, optimizing customer experiences, and ultimately ensuring business success. Let's delve into why these surveys are important. 

• Assessing customer perception: Understanding how customers perceive your products and services is paramount. Customer satisfaction surveys offer direct insights into aspects such as product quality and ease of use. This not only highlights areas of success but also pinpoints those needing improvement, forming the foundation for strategic enhancements. 

• Identifying trends and patterns: Regularly conducting customer satisfaction surveys enables you to discern trends and patterns in customer feedback. This proactive approach empowers you to understand what resonates with your customers and what doesn't, providing a roadmap for continuous improvement. 

• Enhancing customer retention: Addressing concerns identified in surveys, whether related to delayed shipping or product usability, allows you to implement targeted improvements. This not only enhances overall CSAT but also leads to higher customer retention and increased loyalty. 

• Guiding product development: Customer feedback is instrumental in shaping product development and service enhancements. Whether it is introducing new features based on user requests or simplifying a product interface in response to customer feedback, aligning with customer needs and preferences is crucial for sustained success.

How to calculate CSAT

Understanding the calculation of CSAT is essential for analyzing survey results effectively. 

Formula:

Example: If out of 100 survey responses, 80 customers rate their satisfaction as 4 or 5, the CSAT would be (80 / 100) X 100 = 80%

This score indicates a high level of customer satisfaction.

Calculating CSAT helps you quantify your performance and set benchmarks for improvement.

For instance, a company might aim to reach or exceed the industry average CSAT score or improve its score by a certain percentage each quarter. These benchmarks provide clear targets for enhancing customer experiences and measuring progress over time.

💡Do you know: Modern omnichannel survey software uses AI to monitor conversations for several signals, which can be used to predict CSAT in an ongoing conversation in real-time. You can use this predicted CSAT to set up alerts, escalation logic or analyze agent performance.

Types of CSAT surveys

There are several types of customer satisfaction surveys designed to gather specific insights into various aspects of the customer experience. Here are some common types of CSAT surveys: 

Milestone survey

Milestone surveys are strategically conducted at important stages of the customer journey, like after a purchase, service interaction or product update. They reveal valuable customer sentiment and the effectiveness of customer touchpoints in the customer experience.

💡 Good to know: New age quality monitoring software enables you to view your customers’ intents, sentiments and shifts in CSAT scores across the conversation timeline in real time.

Transactional survey

Transactional survey is conducted immediately after a customer interaction, like a purchase or a support call. They aim to capture the customer's feedback on specific interactions, providing real-time data on performance and customer satisfaction with that transaction.

Product-specific survey

Product-specific survey is crucial for gathering detailed customer feedback on specific products or features. These surveys provide valuable insights for product improvements, usability and desired features. This survey plays a vital role in shaping the future of our products by guiding product development and enhancement.

Relationship surveys

Relationship survey is conducted periodically to assess the overall relationship and satisfaction of a customer with the company over time. They cover various aspects of the customer's experience using customer empathy and are crucial for long-term strategic planning and customer relationship management. 

Each type of survey plays a unique role in collecting customer service metrics and guiding businesses in enhancing their customer experience strategies.

Benefits of CSAT surveys

Customer satisfaction surveys offer strategic advantages to businesses. Here are the key benefits: 

Consistency 

Customer satisfaction surveys ensure a consistent approach to gathering feedback, allowing businesses to measure changes and improvements over time accurately. This consistency is vital for tracking customer satisfaction trends and making informed decisions. 

For example, a retail store can use monthly customer surveys to track aspects like customer wait times and product availability, helping them identify a positive trend in customer experience after a policy change, such as introducing faster checkout methods. 

Efficiency

Customer satisfaction (CSAT) surveys streamline the feedback collection process, making it easier and more efficient for you to gather valuable customer insights. This efficiency saves time and resources, enabling quick action on feedback received. 

For instance, an online service provider can automate post-interaction surveys, rapidly gathering insights on user interface ease and customer support satisfaction, quickly implementing changes like enhancing their UI design or training customer service staff for better assistance. 

Good Read: How to Measure Customer Satisfaction Without Surveys

Accuracy

Well-structured surveys designed to elicit clear, actionable feedback lead to more accurate insights. This accuracy is crucial for making targeted improvements and strategic decisions. 

Imagine a software company revising its survey to be more specific, resulting in more targeted user feedback on features like navigation ease or software speed, leading to product enhancements such as simplifying the navigation menu or optimizing software performance. 

Benchmarking

Customer satisfaction surveys enable businesses to benchmark their performance against industry standards or competitors, providing a clear perspective on where they stand in the market in terms of customer satisfaction. For example, a restaurant chain can use survey data on customer service ratings and food quality to compare its service quality with regional competitors, identifying key areas for improvement like enhancing menu variety or staff training.

Download Free Report: Social Customer Care Benchmarking Report: Industry Leaders

Improved response rates

Engaging and well-designed surveys often see higher response rates, leading to a larger data pool and more comprehensive insights. This helps you better understand your customer base and make more customer-centric decisions.

For instance, a beauty brand can redesign its surveys with a more appealing format, leading to a 30% increase in responses and providing richer customer insights such as preferences for product types or feedback on packaging design.

Top 5 CSAT survey templates and sample questionnaires

Effective CSAT surveys begin with well-crafted templates and questionnaires. These templates serve as a foundation, ensuring that you ask the right questions in the right way to gather the most valuable insights.

1. NPS template

This template focuses on measuring customer loyalty. It includes the key NPS question, "How likely are you to recommend our company/product to a friend or colleague?" You can use this template to categorize customers into promoters, passives and detractors and identify opportunities to convert passives and detractors into promoters, enhancing overall customer loyalty.

2. CSAT template

Ideal for gauging immediate customer satisfaction, the CSAT template includes questions like "How would you rate your overall satisfaction with the service you received?" This template helps you quickly assess customer satisfaction post-purchase or post-interaction and implement swift improvements in products or services.

3. Service quality template

This template helps analyze and improve customer service processes. It focuses on improving customer response times, efficiency and customer satisfaction. By identifying areas like speed, courtesy and effectiveness, you can directly impact customer satisfaction.

4. Product feedback template

This template focuses on gathering feedback about your product, including questions about usability, features and areas for improvement. It is a valuable tool to gain detailed insights into how customers interact with and perceive their products, informing product development and innovation. Use this template to gather valuable feedback and drive improvements to your product. 

Interesting Report: The Product Insights Playbook: How to Transform Customer Feedback into Actionable Insights

5. CES template

This template measures the ease of customer experience. It includes questions like, "How easy was it to resolve your issue?" OR “On a scale of 1 to 10, how swiftly were you able to address your concern?”. You can use this template to evaluate the effort customers put into interactions and improve processes for better customer experiences.

Deep Dive: Types of CES Templates and Questionnaires

Final thoughts

In an era dominated by AI and data-driven decision-making, the need for accurate measurement of customer satisfaction, identification of trends, and benchmarking of product performance has never been more critical. Enter Sprinklr’s omnichannel survey solution, a powerful tool designed to meet these demands head-on.

The platform revolutionizes the survey creation process with its zero-code survey builder, allowing for the seamless generation of effective surveys across multiple channels. The key advantage lies in its scalability, offering a range of survey templates and responsive designs. This capability enables the creation of a singular customer satisfaction (CSAT) survey that functions optimally across various channels, tailoring itself to meet the unique requirements of each.

To learn more, schedule a demo with our experts or take a 30-day free trial today!