There are two ways to measure your CSAT score: against your past performance and against your industry. Both are important to look at, as the first indicates how your team is progressing in terms of creating better customer experiences, while the second tells you how you benchmark against your competitors or other companies in your industry.
About our data: we strive to provide the freshest data available and transparency on the source. What's reported here is primarily data from 2022 and 2023. We've also noted the previous years' scores so you can spot larger CSAT trends. We've sourced the data from The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), which is the only national cross-industry measure of customer satisfaction in the United States.
So what is a good customer satisfaction score by industry? We'll break things down in this post.
What is a CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) Score?
CSAT, which stands for Customer Satisfaction Score, is a critical metric widely utilized by businesses to gauge the degree of satisfaction a customer experiences with a specific feature, service, or interaction. It serves as a direct indicator of customer happiness and provides insight into the effectiveness of company offerings and service delivery.
How is CSAT Measured?
To measure CSAT, companies distribute short surveys to their customers. These surveys are straightforward and usually ask customers to express their level of satisfaction on a scale from 1 to 5, with 5 being the most satisfied. However, some businesses may opt for different types of scales, such as a binary yes/no option or open-ended questions to capture more detailed feedback.
What is the Formula for Calculating CSAT?
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The formula to calculate the CSAT score is relatively simple:
CSAT Score=(Number of responses rating 4 or 5/Total number of responses)×100
For example, if you distribute 100 surveys and receive 80 responses, and 50 of those responses are a 4 or 5, your CSAT score would be 62.5%
This score of 62.5% is considered average, though acceptable benchmarks can vary by industry.
For more detailed guidance on calculating CSAT and to access a helpful Excel template, refer to our dedicated post on "How to Calculate CSAT."
How Often Should CSAT be Measured?
CSAT is transactional, meaning it measures satisfaction with specific interactions between the customer and the company. Ideal opportunities to measure CSAT include:
- After a customer support interaction.
- Following the use of a new feature or service.
- At key milestones in a customer’s journey or lifecycle.
Additionally, businesses might choose to measure CSAT at regular intervals, such as quarterly, to maintain a consistent pulse on customer sentiment and satisfaction trends. This regular measurement helps businesses adapt and respond to customer needs proactively.
More information about CSAT surveys can be found here: How To Create CSAT Surveys
Average CSAT scores by industry for 2023/2024
CSAT scores can range from 0 (the lowest score where none of your customers are satisfied) to 100 (the highest score where all of your customers are satisfied). A CSAT score of 75 in this list, for example, means that 75% of all survey respondents indicated that they were satisfied with a product or service.
The figures listed below are the latest ones available.
- Online search: 80 in 2023 (up from 75 in 2022, so +5% vs previous year)
- Shipping: 77 in 2023 (up from 74 in 2022, so +4% vs the previous year)
- Streaming: 77 in 2023 (up from 74 in 2022, so +4% vs the previous year)
- Online News: 73 in 2022 (down from 74 in 2021, so -1.4% vs previous year)
- Online Travel: 76 in 2023 (up from 75 in 2022, so +1% vs previous year)
- Hotels: 75 in 2023 (up from 71 in 2022, so +6% vs previous year)
- Airlines: 76 in 2023 (up from 75 in 2022, so +1% vs previous year)
- Fast Food Restaurants: 78 in 2023 (up from 76 in 2022, so +2% vs previous year)
- Energy: 72 in 2023 (same as previous year)
- Social Media: 73 in 2023 (up from 71 in 2021, so +2% vs previous year)
- Internet Providers: 68 in 2023 (down from 64 in 2022, so +4% vs previous year)
- Banks: 78 in 2022 (same as previous year)
- Health insurance: 76 in 2023 (up from 73 in 2022, so a +3% increase vs previous year)
- Life Insurance: 80 in 2023 (up from 78 in 2022, so a +2& increase vs previous year)
- E-commerce: 80 in 2023 (up from 77 in 2022, so +3% vs previous year)
- Software and SaaS: 78 in 2022 (up from 77 in 2021, so +1% vs previous year)
CSAT benchmarks for software companies
With an average CSAT score of 78 in 2022, the software industry is one of the most competitive in terms of customer satisfaction and consequently customer expectations are very high. This applies to both B2B SaaS and other models.
CSAT benchmarks for e-commerce
E-commerce companies average a CSAT score of 80 in 2023, which along with software and finance is the highest registered. Providing a great experience both pre-sale and after-sale is crucial to meet your customer’s expectations.
CSAT benchmarks for finance
Banks averaged a CSAT score of 78 in 2022, registering no change since the previous year.
CSAT benchmarks for the insurance industry
While a CSAT score of 76+ is higher than some other industries (most notably social media, energy and internet service providers), it is well below what most companies would consider a great score (above 80).
CSAT benchmarks for social media
Social media platforms register some of the lowest customer satisfaction scores out there, with only 73 on average. This may largely reflect the lack of personalized support provided by most companies in the industry and represent an opportunity to stand out for businesses willing to invest in better experiences for their users.
CSAT benchmarks for the travel industry
The online travel industry has an average CSAT score of 76, which is slightly above the total average for American consumers in all industries.
About the methodology: the data above is based on ACSI data, and we combined some of the data to better represent certain industries.
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What's a good CSAT score?
Typically, CSAT scores from 75 to 85 are considered 'good' CSAT scores by most estimates, but this is really context dependent. As you can tell from the list above, only a few industries managed to hit those targets, which should tell you that it isn't a complete picture. When determining what a good CSAT score is for your situation, you'll need to take into account a couple of things:
- Your industry
- Your competitors
- Your size
- Your survey response rates
Is being above industry standard CSAT scores enough?
For a software company, a CSAT score of 80% is above the industry benchmark, but it is likely not enough to stand out in a crowded market, and it means there is a lot of room for improvement.
More niche studies, like the "Customer Service Quality Benchmark Report" conducted by Klaus in 2022, showed that companies reported average CSAT scores of a whopping 89%!
The study mostly focused on companies in the 100-1000 employees range, and heavily in the software, e-commerce and B2B industries. It even reported that 4% of the surveyed companies had a CSAT score of 100%, which is likely due to a very low amount of respondents, and not a particularly realistic target for any company.
That being said, we can't stress enough that being just above average means exactly that: you're doing okay but are failing to make customer experience a differentiating factor.
CSAT response rate benchmarks
Unlike CSAT scores, there is no concrete data on industry standard CSAT response rates to CSAT surveys. Even if there was, it would not be relevant, and here's why: response rates can be drastically different based on the channel used to collect the data.
These channels include:
- Automated emails
- Manual, personalized emails
- In-app surveys (mobile)
- In-app surveys (desktop)
- Phone or online meeting surveys
And so on. Depending on what your company is leveraging, you may be able to drive more or less responses. Timing also matters; if you approach users that don't use your product regularly or user who haven't interact with your company recently, responses may be lower. Generally speaking, a response rate of 20 to 30% can be considered somewhat average, above 40% is considered very good, and below 15% should prompt you to revisit how you approach customers and how you can collect more responses.
CSAT benchmarks by company size
A rather dated survey from Zendesk showed that mid-market companies (in the 100-500 employee range and the 500-5,000 employee range) registered the highest CSAT scores, beating out SMBs and Enterprise corporations. We don't think you should read too much into that data, but rather understand what your competitive advantage is when it comes to your company size.
For example, if you are a small B2B company, you can take advantage of offering hyper-personalized support, and also be very personal when it comes to collecting feedback. If you are a large enterprise corporation, on the other hand, personalization may not be an option, but you have the advantage of being able to run more tests and allocate higher budgets when it comes to understanding customer pain points.
So our advice is to think about what you can do to improve customer experiences at the particular stage you're at, and set up your strategy from there.
Trends we're witnessing in 2024
Customer support, and customer experience teams in general, are playing an even more crucial role in 2024 when it comes to driving retention and growth from existing customers, especially — but not exclusively — in SaaS.
Companies are looking at support metrics like CSAT a lot more closely and are doing whatever they can to raise the bar there. With a very uncertain economic outlook and tighter budgets, customer expectations are now higher when it comes to the value they get from a product, but also the service and support offered.
In software, technology and other industries, we're expecting CSAT scores to go up overall in 2024 due to this trend.
Interested in other industry benchmarks? Check out our churn benchmarks for 2024.
FAQs
What is a good CSAT score?
Generally, CSAT scores between 75 and 85 are deemed 'good,' though this varies by context. Few industries achieve these targets, highlighting that it's not a comprehensive measure. A good CSAT score depends on factors like your industry, competitors, company size, and survey response rates.
What is a good CSAT response rate?
Unlike CSAT scores, there's no standard data on CSAT survey response rates across industries. Response rates vary significantly depending on the data collection channel, such as automated emails, personalized emails, in-app surveys on mobile or desktop, and phone or online meeting surveys. The timing of these surveys also affects response rates. Generally, 20 to 30% is average, above 40% is very good, and below 15% suggests a need to reevaluate your engagement strategies.
What is the average CSAT score?
The average CSAT score typically ranges between 75% to 85%. However, this can vary widely depending on the industry and specific customer expectations. Companies often strive for scores above 80% as an indicator of excellent customer satisfaction and successful service delivery.
How to calculate average CSAT score?
To calculate the average CSAT score, tally responses rated as satisfactory (usually scores of 4 and 5 on a 5-point scale). Divide the number of satisfactory responses by the total responses received, then multiply by 100 to get the percentage. This provides your average CSAT score.
Conclusion
While industry benchmarks are helpful to have a general idea of how your company is doing, the most important thing is to look at qualitative data and understand customer pain points. The score alone does not drive actionable business insights and you should always look at the actions that impact the score and what you should be doing differently in the future.
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