CSATbeginner

What are CSAT Surveys?

CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) Surveys measure how happy your customers are with the support they received. Atender handles creation, delivery, multi-language localization, follow-up rules, and analytics — typically triggered automatically after conversation resolution.

4 min read

What are CSAT Surveys?

CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) Surveys measure how happy your customers are with the support they received. Atender’s survey system handles everything end-to-end: creation, delivery, multi-language localization, conditional follow-ups, and analytics.

Most teams trigger surveys after conversation resolution — the conversation moves from Done to Archived, indicating the issue is truly settled — at which point the customer gets a survey that fits how they were already in contact (email, SMS, in-app).

Three question types

  • Rating scale — The main CSAT score: stars, numbers, or emoji-based satisfaction rating (typically 1–5)
  • NPS — Net Promoter Score (0–10): “How likely are you to recommend us?”
  • Open-ended — Free-text feedback for qualitative depth

The main CSAT question captures the customer’s satisfaction score. Conditional follow-ups are configured separately: after the main rating, you can ask for more context with either a text answer or another rating answer.

A common shape is a star rating followed by a conditional “tell us more” text prompt — captures both the number and the why. You can also use a rating follow-up, which keeps the same 1–5 visual style selected for the main score.

Three delivery channels

  • Email — Async support, conversations that resolved over multiple days
  • SMS — Mobile-heavy customer base, time-sensitive, when email may go to spam
  • In-app (web chat) — Conversations that happened in the chat widget — respond inline before the customer leaves

A single survey can be delivered across all three channels; Atender picks the channel matching how the conversation was conducted.

Multi-language

Each survey supports per-language versions. A Norwegian customer receives the Norwegian survey; a Spanish customer receives the Spanish one. Translations are managed centrally in Settings → CSAT Surveys → Languages tab. See Localize CSAT surveys.

Frequency controls (don’t fatigue customers)

Don’t survey every customer after every conversation. Frequency controls limit how often a single customer is asked:

  • A “no more than once per N days per contact” cap
  • A “skip if surveyed in last X conversations” rule

A customer who contacts you three times in a week should not get three surveys. Frequency caps prevent that.

Conditional follow-ups

Configure follow-up behavior based on response:

  • Low rating → ask “what could we improve?” with a text answer (qualitative depth)
  • Specific rating range → ask a rating follow-up using the same 1–5 visual style selected for the main score
  • Very low rating → trigger an automation rule (alert a manager, create a case, escalate)
  • No response → optionally send a reminder

Follow-ups are rule-based: each rule decides when to show the follow-up and whether the customer answers with text or a rating. This is where survey data becomes operational, not just reporting.

Where the data lives

  • Analytics → Customers & CSAT view — Aggregate scores, NPS over time, response rates, breakdowns by channel/team/agent
  • Settings → CSAT Surveys table — Survey configuration, response metrics, and per-rule follow-up reporting such as response count and average rating
  • CSV export — Settings → CSAT Surveys → Export. Custom date range, including main scores and follow-up answer columns. For BI tools, board reporting, or deeper analysis
  • Conversation timeline — The survey response (when received) appears as an event on the originating conversation

Where to start

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