What is customer satisfaction score (CSAT)?

A metric for how satisfied customers are with a specific interaction, asked right after it happens — usually 'How satisfied were you?' on a 1-to-5 scale.

How is CSAT calculated?

Divide the number of satisfied responses — typically 4s and 5s on a 5-point scale — by total responses and multiply by 100; 84 satisfied raters out of 100 gives a CSAT of 84%.

How does CSAT differ from NPS?

CSAT grades a single touchpoint immediately after it happens; NPS asks about willingness to recommend, which reflects the whole relationship over time.

Growth Marketing Glossary

Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)

C·SATnoun

How happy was that, exactly — the percentage of customers who rate the moment a 4 or 5 out of 5.

Schematic — the share of customers who rate the moment satisfied

Term: Customer Satisfaction Score
Asks: How satisfied were you with this
Score: % answering 4 or 5 of 5
Scope: One interaction, not the relationship

Forms & parts of speech

CSAT · noun

Satisfaction with a moment.

"Support's CSAT ran 92% but checkout's sat at 71% - the survey told us exactly where the journey hurt."

Definition in plain terms

Customer satisfaction score (CSAT) measures how satisfied customers are with a specific interaction — a purchase, a support chat, a delivery — usually by asking one question right after it happens. 'How satisfied were you with X?' on a 1-to-5 scale. The score is the percentage of respondents who chose 4 or 5, so a CSAT of 84% means 84 of every 100 raters called that moment good. Its defining trait is its narrowness. CSAT grades a touchpoint, not the whole relationship — that wider question belongs to NPS.

The mechanics

The standard formula divides satisfied responses (4s and 5s) by total responses and multiplies by 100. The craft is in deployment, and three choices decide whether the number means anything. First, timing — ask immediately after the interaction, in the channel where it happened, while the memory is fresh. Second, placement — CSAT is a thermometer for specific moments, so instrument the moments that matter (post-purchase, post-support, post-delivery) separately rather than averaging everything into one blended number that hides where the pain lives. Third, follow-through — the score only earns its keep when someone reads the low ratings' open comments and fixes the cause. Know the metric's biases too. Response rates are low and skewed toward the delighted and the furious; survey-weary customers ignore it; and teams bonused on CSAT learn to beg for 5s, which corrupts the signal. Read it alongside its siblings — NPS for relationship loyalty, CUSTOMER EFFORT SCORE for how hard the task felt — and treat the trend and the verbatims as the product, not the headline percentage.

When it matters

CSAT matters wherever specific interactions decide whether customers return — support queues, onboarding, fulfillment — because it localizes problems the way relationship metrics cannot. A churn number tells you something is wrong; a checkout CSAT of 71% against a support CSAT of 92% tells you where. Use it to compare touchpoints, track the effect of fixes, and catch deterioration early. The discipline is acting on it. A dashboard CSAT nobody investigates is theater, and a CSAT gamed by reps coaching customers toward 5s is worse than no measurement, because it hides exactly what it was built to find.

Worked example. A subscription-box company watches churn creep upward while its blended CSAT holds steady at 86%, and concludes the problem must be price. Splitting the measurement per touchpoint breaks the mystery open — post-purchase CSAT runs 93%, but CSAT on the box-skipping flow scores 58%, with verbatims describing a buried setting and a confirmation that never arrives. Customers who could not skip a month canceled the whole subscription instead. The team rebuilds the skip flow, confirmation email included, and that touchpoint's CSAT climbs to 88% over two quarters while churn falls measurably. The blended average had hidden the failure; instrumenting each moment separately is what found it.

Failure modes to watch. Averaging all touchpoints into one blended score that hides where the pain is; collecting scores nobody investigates or acts on; letting bonused teams coach customers toward 5s, corrupting the signal; ignoring response-rate bias toward the delighted and the furious; and treating a moment metric as if it measured the whole relationship.

Synonyms & antonyms

Synonyms

customer satisfaction scoreCSATsatisfaction score

Antonyms

net promoter scorerelationship metric

Origin & history

Customer satisfaction has been studied in marketing science since the 1970s, with formal national measures like the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), launched at the University of Michigan in 1994, standardizing the construct. The one-question post-interaction CSAT survey became a service-industry staple as digital channels made asking at the moment of experience nearly free.

Etymology: source.

Usage trends

Search interest for this term over the last five years:

View interest-over-time on Google Trends →

Common questions

What is customer satisfaction score (CSAT)?: A metric for how satisfied customers are with a specific interaction, asked right after it happens — usually 'How satisfied were you?' on a 1-to-5 scale.
How is CSAT calculated?: Divide the number of satisfied responses — typically 4s and 5s on a 5-point scale — by total responses and multiply by 100; 84 satisfied raters out of 100 gives a CSAT of 84%.
How does CSAT differ from NPS?: CSAT grades a single touchpoint immediately after it happens; NPS asks about willingness to recommend, which reflects the whole relationship over time.

Related tools & calculators

toolCAC calculator
toolLTV:CAC calculator

Resources & people to follow

referenceWikipedia — Customer satisfaction
referenceCustomer-experience measurement research (CSAT, NPS, CES comparisons)
referenceRGM analysis — instrument the moments separately; the blended average hides where the journey hurts

Curated, non-competitor resources verified per term.

Related training

modulePerformance marketing

Disciplines

Areas of marketing where customer satisfaction score (csat) is a core concern:

Performance marketingGrowth strategy

Sources

trendsGoogle Trends — "csat"