CSAT — Customer Satisfaction Score
Question asked: "How satisfied were you with the resolution of your request?" — answered on a 1-5 scale or via emojis (😡 😐 🙂 😄 🥰).
Calculation: the percentage of "satisfied" or "very satisfied" responses (typically 4 and 5 on the 1-5 scale) divided by total responses. Example: 80 responses of 4-5 out of 100 responses → CSAT 80%.
When to measure: immediately after each support request is resolved. Automated email, one question, 30 seconds to answer. Expected response rate: 20-35% (above that, your customers are fans; below, your survey is poorly worded or intrusive).
Benchmarks:
| Industry | Median | Top 25% |
|---|---|---|
| B2B SaaS | 87% | > 94% |
| E-commerce | 83% | > 92% |
| Banking / Insurance | 72% | > 85% |
| Telecom | 68% | > 82% |
NPS — Net Promoter Score
Question asked: "On a scale from 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend [brand] to a colleague or friend?"
Calculation: respondents are classified into 3 groups:
- Promoters (9-10): active ambassadors
- Passives (7-8): satisfied but uncommitted
- Detractors (0-6): churn risk and negative word-of-mouth
NPS = (% Promoters) − (% Detractors). Scale runs from −100 to +100. Note: passives (7-8) don't count — that's by design.
When to measure: not after every interaction (that's what CSAT is for). Quarterly or semi-annual measurement on a representative sample of your customer base. More useful in B2B (sample size is manageable).
Benchmarks:
| Industry | Median | Top 25% |
|---|---|---|
| B2B SaaS | +32 | > +55 |
| Premium e-commerce | +45 | > +65 |
| Consulting firms | +40 | > +60 |
| Traditional banking | 0 to +15 | > +30 |
FCR — First Contact Resolution
Definition: the percentage of requests resolved on the first interaction, without needing follow-up or escalation.
Calculation: number of tickets closed on the first exchange divided by total tickets opened in the period. Watch out: a ticket "reopened" within 7 days was not resolved on first contact.
Why it's central: FCR is the KPI most correlated with BOTH customer satisfaction AND operational efficiency. The higher your FCR, the happier your customers AND the less you spend on support (each re-interaction costs €5 to €10 in operational cost).
Benchmarks:
| Support type | Median | Top 25% |
|---|---|---|
| B2B SaaS | 62% | > 78% |
| E-commerce | 71% | > 85% |
| Phone-based contact center | 68% | > 80% |
| Advanced technical support | 45% | > 60% |
The classic mistake that makes all 3 metrics useless
Measuring without acting on them. Many organizations proudly display their CSAT on a dashboard but never actually act on it. That's worse than measuring nothing: it creates the illusion of being in control.
Effective management requires 3 rituals:
- Weekly: review the week's scores, identify the 5 negative cases (CSAT 1-2), and take concrete action on each (call-back, goodwill gesture, escalation)
- Monthly: trend analysis, identify recurring themes in negative comments, adjust processes
- Quarterly: strategic review with leadership, quarterly NPS, 90-day action plan on the levers identified
Which KPI to prioritize if you can only manage one?
If you're starting from scratch, start with post-resolution CSAT. It's the simplest to deploy (one automated email after each ticket), the most actionable (you see negative cases in real time), and it naturally surfaces the other metrics (low FCR shows up in CSAT comments like "I had to follow up 3 times").
NPS comes next, when you want to manage retention over the long term.
Going further
If you want to roll out these measurements end-to-end in your organization, our Tools & processes offering systematically includes the satisfaction measurement workstream. And our complete audit guide lays out how to position your numbers against the market.