What each one measures
- CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) asks, right after an interaction: "How satisfied were you with this support experience?" It's transactional, tied to one ticket.
- NPS (Net Promoter Score) asks, periodically: "How likely are you to recommend us?" It's relational, about the whole product relationship.
Support owns CSAT. NPS is a company-wide number that support influences but doesn't control.
Why optimizing NPS in support is a trap
If you tie agent performance to NPS, you're holding agents accountable for pricing, product gaps, and roadmap decisions they can't change. A customer can love your support and still be a detractor because the product is missing a feature. Use CSAT to evaluate support quality.
Reading CSAT honestly
- Response rate matters. A 90% CSAT on a 5% response rate is mostly noise. Push to get response rates above 20%.
- Watch the distribution, not just the average. Ten 5-stars and two 1-stars averages well but hides two furious customers. Read every low score.
- Negative CSAT is your best feedback channel. Every 1- or 2-star rating should trigger a follow-up.
The third metric worth tracking
Customer Effort Score (CES), "How easy was it to get your issue resolved?", often predicts loyalty better than CSAT. Customers don't want to be delighted by support; they want their problem gone with minimum effort.
Practical setup
Send CSAT automatically on ticket close. Run a relationship NPS quarterly at the account level. Sample CES on a subset of resolved tickets. Don't drown customers in surveys: one ask per closed ticket is the ceiling.