CSAT: what it is and how to calculate it

Cloud4Feed Research Team ·Updated 22 Oct 2026 ·6 min read

Customer Satisfaction Score measures how satisfied customers are with something specific: a support call, a delivery, a store visit or a product. Customers answer on a short scale, usually from 1 (very dissatisfied) to 5 (very satisfied), and the result is reported in one of two ways. Top-two-box (T2B) gives the share of customers who answered 4 or 5. The 0–100 index converts every answer to a score and averages them, from 0 (everyone very dissatisfied) to 100 (everyone very satisfied).

Unlike NPS, CSAT has no single inventor or official version; it grew out of decades of market research practice. That makes it easy to adopt, but it also means two CSAT scores are only comparable when they use the same question, the same scale and the same calculation method.

Dissatisfied (1–2)Neutral (3)Satisfied (4–5)123450255075100Very dissatisfiedVery satisfied

CSAT = % of 4–5 answers (T2B), or a 0–100 index

1. 1Count the responses for each answer, from 1 to 5.
2. 2For T2B: divide the number of 4 and 5 answers by all answers and multiply by 100.
3. 3For the index: give each answer its score (1 = 0, 2 = 25, 3 = 50, 4 = 75, 5 = 100), add up responses × score and divide by all answers.
4. 4Choose one method, label it clearly and keep it the same over time.

Enter the number of responses for each answer. The score updates as you type.

The three customer metrics answer different questions. Most teams use them together: CSAT and CES right after an interaction, NPS for the relationship as a whole.

A good CSAT depends on your industry, channel and customer base, and on the method you use. The most useful comparison is your own trend over time and the gaps between your touchpoints: a CSAT of 90 at checkout next to 62 in returns tells you where to look.

If you compare against an external benchmark, use a published source and check its date, sample, scale and question. Indexes such as the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) are also reported on a 0–100 scale but are calculated with their own model, so the numbers cannot be compared directly. Inside the industry, too, some companies report CSAT as T2B and others as a 0–100 index, so check which method a benchmark uses before you compare.

The score says how many customers were dissatisfied; the comment box says why. Read all of them and tag the topics that come up again and again.

Contact dissatisfied customers quickly, fix what can be fixed and tell them what changed. A fast, personal reply often turns a bad experience into a recoverable one. See the closing-the-loop guide.

Compare CSAT across touchpoints and start where a low score meets a high number of customers. That is where one fix moves the overall score most.