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Meta Business PartnerGlossary term

CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score)

CSAT, short for Customer Satisfaction Score, is a metric that captures how satisfied a customer feels right after a specific interaction — a support chat, an order delivery, an onboarding call. On WhatsApp, CSAT is usually collected as a short survey sent inside the conversation itself, where the customer taps a rating or a quick-reply button. Because the question arrives in the same thread the customer just used, response rates on WhatsApp tend to be far higher than the email surveys most Indian businesses abandoned years ago. This page explains what CSAT is, how it is calculated, how to run it correctly on the WhatsApp Business API, and the mistakes that quietly wreck the number.

Customer Satisfaction Score
Full form
1–5 or 1–3 (or thumbs up/down)
Typical scale
(Positive ratings ÷ Total responses) × 100
Formula
In-conversation WhatsApp survey
Best channel
Immediately after the interaction closes
When to ask
Free inside the 24-hour service window
Cost to send

In one line

CSAT is the percentage of customers who rate an interaction positively. On WhatsApp it is collected with a quick post-conversation survey (buttons or a 1–5 scale) sent as a utility message inside the free 24-hour service window, so it usually costs nothing extra to ask.

What CSAT actually measures

CSAT is a snapshot of felt satisfaction with one specific moment, not with your brand as a whole. You ask a single, direct question — most commonly 'How satisfied were you with this conversation?' — and give the customer a small set of options to tap. The score is deliberately narrow: it tells you whether that particular ticket, delivery, or call went well, which makes it far more actionable than a vague brand-sentiment survey. Because it is tied to a concrete event, a low CSAT can usually be traced back to a named agent, a delayed shipment, or a confusing template, so you can fix the root cause instead of guessing.

  • Transactional, not relational — it rates one interaction, not overall loyalty
  • Best asked while the experience is still fresh, ideally within minutes
  • Easy for customers to answer in one tap, which is why WhatsApp suits it so well
  • Complements NPS (long-term loyalty) and CES (effort), rather than replacing them

How CSAT is calculated

The maths is intentionally simple. You count the responses you would call 'satisfied' — on a 1–5 scale that is usually the 4s and 5s, or on a thumbs-up/thumbs-down survey it is every thumbs-up — then divide by the total number of people who responded, and multiply by 100 to get a percentage. If 180 out of 220 respondents rated you 4 or 5, your CSAT is (180 ÷ 220) × 100 = roughly 82%. Two rules keep the number honest: decide upfront which ratings count as positive and never move that line mid-quarter, and always divide by people who actually answered, not by everyone you messaged. Mixing those denominators is the fastest way to produce a CSAT figure nobody can trust.

  • Positive responses ÷ total responses × 100
  • On a 1–5 scale, 4 and 5 are typically the 'satisfied' bucket
  • Report the response rate alongside the score — a great CSAT from 3% of customers is noise
  • Keep the positive-rating threshold fixed so trends stay comparable over time

Running CSAT on the WhatsApp Business API

On WhatsApp, the natural time to ask is the moment a conversation ends. Once a customer has messaged you, a free 24-hour service window opens, and any reply you send inside that window — including a CSAT survey — carries no per-message charge. That means a well-timed survey sent right after a resolved support chat usually costs you nothing. Practically, you send an interactive message with quick-reply buttons (for example a 3-point 'Happy / Okay / Unhappy') or a simple numbered list, and the customer's tap flows straight back into your dashboard. If you want to re-engage a customer whose window has already closed — say, 48 hours after a delivery — you send an approved utility template instead, and that delivered utility message is billed at Meta's utility rate. InfiQ builds the survey flow, wires the responses into your reporting, and applies transparent ₹ pricing (ex-GST) for any templated follow-ups that fall outside the free window.

  • Inside the 24-hour service window: free, use interactive quick-reply buttons
  • Outside the window: send an approved utility template, billed per delivered message at Meta's utility rate
  • Keep it to one question and one tap to protect your response rate
  • Route ratings into your CRM so a low score can trigger a human follow-up

Common CSAT mistakes

Most CSAT problems are self-inflicted. The biggest is survey fatigue: asking after every trivial interaction trains customers to ignore you, so reserve the survey for meaningful moments. The second is timing — a survey sent a day late measures memory, not the experience. A third is selection bias, where only furious or delighted customers bother to reply, stretching your score to the extremes; boosting response rate with a single-tap WhatsApp survey is the cleanest fix. Businesses also confuse CSAT with NPS and report one as the other, or they quietly redefine which ratings count as 'satisfied' to make a quarter look better, which destroys year-on-year comparability. Finally, collecting scores without acting on them is the most expensive mistake of all: a 2-star rating with no follow-up is a churned customer you paid to identify and then ignored.

  • Over-surveying until customers tune out — ask only after moments that matter
  • Sending the survey too late, so it measures recall rather than reality
  • Ignoring low scores instead of triggering a save-the-customer follow-up
  • Changing the positive-rating threshold mid-year and breaking your trend line
  • Reporting CSAT and NPS interchangeably when they answer different questions

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Frequently asked questions

What is a good CSAT score?+
It varies by industry, but many customer-service teams treat a CSAT of 80% or higher as strong. What matters more than a benchmark is your own trend: a score that climbs quarter over quarter, measured with a consistent method, is a better signal than a single high number. Always read CSAT next to its response rate — a high score from a tiny sample tells you very little.
How is CSAT different from NPS?+
CSAT is transactional — it rates one specific interaction the customer just had, like a support chat or a delivery. NPS is relational — it asks how likely someone is to recommend your brand overall, on a 0–10 scale. CSAT tells you whether a moment went well; NPS tells you whether the relationship is healthy. Most teams track both because they answer different questions.
Does sending a CSAT survey on WhatsApp cost anything?+
If you send it inside the free 24-hour service window that opens after a customer messages you — which is the usual case right after a support chat — there is no per-message charge. If you follow up outside that window, you send an approved utility template, and that delivered utility message is billed at Meta's utility rate. WhatsApp bills per delivered message by category, so a single well-timed survey inside the window is effectively free to ask.
What scale should I use for a WhatsApp CSAT survey?+
Fewer options usually win on WhatsApp because customers answer with one tap. A 3-point scale ('Happy / Okay / Unhappy') using quick-reply buttons, or a simple thumbs-up/thumbs-down, tends to get the highest response rate. A 1–5 scale gives you finer detail but slightly more friction. Pick one scale and keep it fixed so your numbers stay comparable over time.
When should I send the CSAT survey?+
As soon as the interaction closes, while it is still fresh. For a support chat, that means immediately after the ticket is resolved and ideally within the same 24-hour service window so it costs nothing to send. Surveys delivered a day or more later measure the customer's memory of the experience rather than the experience itself, and response rates drop sharply.
How do I improve my CSAT score?+
Start by acting on the low ratings — route every negative response to a human who follows up quickly, because recovering an unhappy customer often lifts both loyalty and your next survey. Then fix the systemic causes the data reveals, whether that is slow first-response times, confusing templates, or a specific step in the journey. Improving response rate with a one-tap WhatsApp survey also gives you a truer, less biased score to work from.
Why are WhatsApp CSAT surveys more effective than email?+
The survey arrives in the same thread the customer just used, so there is no inbox to check, no link to click, and no separate app to open — they simply tap a button. That drastically lowers the effort of responding, which lifts response rates and reduces the selection bias that plagues email surveys, where mostly the very happy or very angry bother to reply.
Can InfiQ set up CSAT surveys for my business?+
Yes. InfiQ builds the survey flow on the WhatsApp Business API, gets any follow-up templates approved by Meta, and wires customer ratings back into your reporting so low scores can trigger a human follow-up. Pricing is transparent ₹ pricing (ex-GST) for any templated messages sent outside the free service window.

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