Core metrics

What is a CSAT score?

Also known as: CSAT, CSAT score, customer satisfaction score, customer satisfaction rating

Published September 10, 2026 · Last updated October 8, 2026 · Reviewed by the Fidiora team

Definition

A CSAT score, short for customer satisfaction score, is the percentage of customers who say they were satisfied with a specific interaction. It is usually collected with one survey question on a one-to-five scale right after a contact, and calculated as the share of responses in the top two options, four or five.

Why it matters

CSAT is the closest thing support has to a direct read on the customer experience, and it is the natural counterweight to efficiency metrics. Any automation programme that raises deflection while CSAT falls is destroying value, and CSAT is the fastest way to see that happening.

What to know

  • Response rates are typically low and skewed toward the delighted and the furious, so read trends rather than absolute levels.
  • CSAT measures the interaction, not the relationship. For the relationship, use NPS or a periodic relationship survey.
  • Segmenting CSAT by issue type and by resolved-versus-escalated is where the actionable signal lives.
  • Surveying immediately after the contact produces different numbers than surveying a day later, so keep the timing fixed.
  • Free-text comments attached to low scores are usually more useful than the score itself.

How to calculate it

CSAT = (positive responses / total responses) x 100

An example

Example: 400 customers respond to a post-chat survey, and 340 pick four or five out of five. CSAT is 85 percent. If only 400 of 6,000 contacts responded, that is a 6.7 percent response rate, and the number describes a self-selected minority.

The CSAT scale and how each answer counts

The common five-point CSAT scale. Only the top two answers count as satisfied in a standard top-two-box calculation.
ScoreTypical labelCounts toward CSAT?
5 Very satisfiedYes
4 SatisfiedYes
3 Neither satisfied nor dissatisfiedNo
2 DissatisfiedNo
1 Very dissatisfiedNo

Common mistakes

  • Reporting CSAT without reporting the response rate beside it
  • Comparing your CSAT to another company using a different scale
  • Surveying only resolved tickets, which quietly removes the unhappy cases
  • Treating a one-point move as signal when the sample is small
Where Fidiora fits

Fidiora is designed so that automation and satisfaction move together rather than against each other. Because nothing is billed unless an issue is genuinely resolved, there is no incentive to close a conversation the customer was not happy with.

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FAQ

Questions

What does CSAT mean?
CSAT stands for customer satisfaction score. It is a short survey, usually one question such as how satisfied were you with this interaction, answered on a one-to-five scale right after a support contact. The score is the percentage of respondents who chose one of the top two options.
What is a CSAT score?
A CSAT score is a percentage that shows how many customers were satisfied with an interaction. After a support contact, customers answer one question such as how satisfied were you, on a scale of one to five. The share who answer four or five is the CSAT score, so 85 percent means 85 of every 100 respondents were satisfied.
What does CSAT stand for?
CSAT stands for customer satisfaction score, sometimes written customer satisfaction rating. It is one of the three common customer experience survey metrics, alongside net promoter score (NPS), which measures loyalty, and customer effort score (CES), which measures how easy it was to get help. CSAT is the one tied to a single interaction.
How do you calculate a CSAT score?
Count the responses rated 4 or 5 on a five-point scale, divide by the total number of responses, and multiply by 100. If 340 of 400 respondents chose 4 or 5, CSAT is 85 percent. Always report the response rate beside it, since low response rates skew the result.
What is a good CSAT score?
Most support teams land somewhere in the eighty to ninety percent range on a top-two-box calculation, but the scale, the timing, and the response rate change the number more than the underlying quality does. Track your own trend.
What is the difference between CSAT and NPS?
CSAT asks about one interaction and is collected right after it. NPS asks about the overall relationship and willingness to recommend. They answer different questions and neither replaces the other.
Does AI support hurt CSAT?
It hurts CSAT when it deflects without resolving or when handoff to a human is slow and lossy. It helps CSAT when it answers correctly in seconds at three in the morning. The design of the escalation path decides which you get.

Related terms

Net promoter score Net promoter score measures how likely customers are to recommend a company, on a zero-to-ten scale. Respondents scoring... Customer effort score Customer effort score measures how much work a customer had to do to get their issue handled, usually with a single agre... Voice of the customer Voice of the customer is the structured capture, analysis, and distribution of customer feedback from every source, incl... Support quality assurance Support quality assurance is the structured review of conversations against a defined standard, scoring accuracy, tone, ...
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