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CSAT Score

CSAT Score

CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score) is a transactional metric that directly measures a customer's satisfaction with a specific interaction, product, or service. Customers rate their experience on a simple scale — typically 1–5 or 1–10 — immediately after a touchpoint. The score is expressed as the percentage of respondents who gave a positive rating (usually the top one or two values on the scale).

Updated June 9, 2026

Customer Feedback

TL;DR

CSAT gives you an instant read on how a specific interaction landed. High CSAT at the right moment is your cue to request a testimonial.

Key Points

CSAT is calculated as: (Number of satisfied responses / Total responses) × 100, giving a percentage from 0% to 100%.

Unlike [[net-promoter-score|NPS]], which measures overall loyalty, CSAT measures satisfaction with a single, recent touchpoint.

It is most valuable when deployed immediately after a transaction, support interaction, or onboarding milestone.

A CSAT of 80% or above is generally considered strong across most industries.

CSAT data can be segmented by product area, support agent, or customer cohort to identify where satisfaction is high or breaking down.

How CSAT Differs From NPS

While both CSAT and NPS measure customer sentiment, they answer fundamentally different questions. CSAT asks 'How satisfied were you with this specific experience?' making it a micro-level, transactional snapshot ideal for support tickets, purchases, and onboarding steps. NPS asks 'Would you recommend us?' — a macro-level, relationship-oriented question better suited for periodic loyalty benchmarking. CES fills a third role, measuring the ease of a specific interaction rather than satisfaction per se. Using all three together gives businesses a complete picture: NPS for overall health, CSAT for interaction quality, and CES for friction detection. For most ShowTrust users, CSAT is the trigger metric of choice for automated testimonial requests because it fires at precisely the right moment — right after a positive experience.

Using CSAT to Trigger Testimonial Requests

A high CSAT score is a buying signal in reverse: a customer is signaling delight, and the optimal response is to channel that delight into social proof. ShowTrust allows you to configure automated Review Request triggers based on CSAT thresholds — for example, sending a testimonial request to every customer who rates their experience 4 or 5 out of 5 within 24 hours of the survey. This timing is critical: customer enthusiasm decays rapidly, and a request sent the same day as a positive interaction converts at dramatically higher rates than one sent a week later. Because CSAT is collected at specific touchpoints, you also know the context of the satisfaction — a post-onboarding CSAT trigger will naturally yield testimonials about getting started, while a post-support CSAT trigger produces stories about problem resolution. This context-aware approach produces a diverse testimonial library that speaks to prospects at every stage of their buying journey.

Sources & References

1
Customer Satisfaction — Wikipedia

Last updated: June 9, 2026

Related Terms

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a widely-used customer loyalty metric based on a single question: 'How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?' Respondents answer on a 0–10 scale and are segmented into Detractors (0–6), Passives (7–8), and Promoters (9–10). The score is calculated as: NPS = % Promoters − % Detractors, yielding a number from −100 to +100.

Customer Effort Score (CES)

Customer Effort Score (CES) is a metric that measures how easy it is for customers to interact with a company — whether completing a purchase, resolving a support issue, or getting started with a product. Customers rate the ease of their interaction on a scale (typically 1–7 or 1–5), and lower perceived effort is strongly associated with higher loyalty and reduced churn.

Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is a measure of how well a product, service, or experience meets or exceeds customer expectations. It is typically tracked through surveys, ratings, and feedback mechanisms, and serves as a leading indicator of customer loyalty, retention, and revenue growth.

Feedback Loop

A feedback loop is a closed cycle in which customer feedback is systematically collected, analyzed, acted upon to improve the product or service, and then communicated back to customers. A closed feedback loop signals to customers that their input is valued and acted on — a powerful driver of loyalty and advocacy.

Review Request

A review request is a deliberate, personalized outreach to a customer asking them to share their experience through a review, rating, or testimonial. It is the primary mechanism businesses use to convert satisfied but silent customers into visible social proof.

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