How To Tackle Common Pitfalls in CSAT Surveys
What are the most common mistakes made when checking for a customer satisfaction ?
Customer experience is central to business success, and gathering feedback plays a vital role in shaping it. However, what are the most common missteps companies make when seeking input from their customers? And how does Zendesk help overcome these challenges? Below is a ranked list of the most critical pitfalls, and how to solve them.
7th Place: Poorly Designed Questionnaires
Lengthy, confusing, or irrelevant surveys frustrate customers and compromise the reliability of their responses. A CSAT survey should be simple and centered around one key question: “How did we handle your request or issue?”
With Zendesk's CSAT solution, this concern is being addressed. The CSAT survey focuses on measuring each customer interaction, and offers three simple questions::
Rating: how would you rate this interaction?
Reason Selection: When a client expresses dissatisfaction or neutrality, they can choose a reason from a customizable list.
Free Text Field: Clients can express gratitude or vent their frustration, providing essential insights for addressing CSAT feedback effectively.
6th Place: Bias in the Wording used in the Survey
Leading or suggestive questions can distort responses and produce skewed results.
Thankfully, Zendesk's structured CSAT framework avoids bias. Rating the service remains straightforward unless you deliberately modify the scale in an unclear manner.
5th Place: No Segmentation
Sending a CSAT for all solved tickets seems fair, but might not measure what you need most
Not all survey results are equally valuable. For instance, feedback on complex issues should carry more weight than simple inquiries. Zendesk's reporting allows filtering based on group, ticket type, category or user types, ensuring the most impactful insights are being captured and seen within the right context
4th Place: Bad Timing
Poorly timed surveys lead to inaccurate feedback.
Zendesk addresses this by automating CSAT surveys 24 hours after a ticket has been solved. This delay allows customers time to assess the solution before sharing their thoughts. If the issue wasn’t resolved, you’d rather have the customer re-open the ticket so an agent can continue the conversation, than keeping that ticket solved and getting negative feedback for something that could have been easily solved with some more interactions.
3rd Place: Overloading Customers
Bombarding regular clients with excessive surveys diminishes their willingness to participate.
If you get requests from your clients to exclude them from CSAT’s, you might have bombarded them with your reviews. In Zendesk, rules can be set to limit the CSAT frequency—such as sending only one survey per quarter to frequent clients.
2nd Place: Lack of Communication
Failing to act on feedback discourages future participation.
Zendesk’s CSAT is designed to drive meaningful service improvements by turning customer feedback into actionable insights. Its long-term goal is to enhance customer perception. That’s why it’s not enough to simply collect feedback—you must act on it. CSAT should serve as the launchpad for customer-driven improvements.
When reaching out to a dissatisfied customer, it’s essential to understand both the issue and the sentiment behind it. Agents should identify the reason for the negative CSAT rating, but just as importantly, they must grasp the emotional tone of the feedback. Sentiment matters as much as the problem itself. Agents should respond with the right level of empathy, ensuring the customer feels genuinely heard and understood in their frustration.
1st Place: No Follow-Up
Neglecting to inform customers about changes, based on their input leaves them feeling undervalued.
In Zendesk, every “CSAT with a comment” should result in an Agent or Team Lead reading through this feedback, possibly resulting in a manual response to the client and a follow-up process initiated. (Read more Taking CSAT to the next level )
Any change in your environment that stems from customer feedback should be communicated back to the customer. For example, if a client’s input led to an adjustment in your support hours, wouldn’t it be valuable for them to know their feedback made a difference?
Acknowledging the impact of their voice not only builds trust—it reinforces the idea that their opinions matter. It strengthens the relationship and encourages future engagement.
Conclusion
Understanding these pitfalls ensures your customer satisfaction strategy thrives, while Zendesk offers tailored solutions to streamline the feedback process. The csat viewer will help you to handle your CSAT tickets with the right context at hand.
