CSAT, CES, and NPS get thrown around as if they’re interchangeable. They’re not. Each answers a different question, and using the wrong one tells you very little. Here’s the plain-English version.
CSAT: was this interaction good?
Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) asks, right after an interaction, “How satisfied were you?” usually on a 1–5 scale or with emoji faces. You score it as the percentage of responses that are positive (typically 4s and 5s).
CSAT is transactional: it measures one specific interaction while it’s fresh. That makes it the natural fit for support. Send it when a ticket closes and you learn whether that resolution actually landed.
Strengths: easy to understand, high response rates, directly tied to a real event. Limitation: it measures the moment, not the relationship.
CES: how hard did we make it?
Customer Effort Score (CES) asks, “How easy was it to get your issue resolved?” The insight behind it is that reducing effort predicts loyalty better than delighting customers. People don’t reward you for going above and beyond nearly as much as they punish you for making things hard.
CES is also transactional and pairs naturally with support. If your CSAT is fine but customers keep mentioning how many times they had to follow up, CES will surface that friction.
NPS: would you recommend us?
Net Promoter Score (NPS) asks, “How likely are you to recommend us?” on a 0–10 scale. Responders are grouped into promoters (9–10), passives (7–8), and detractors (0–6); the score is the percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors, producing a number from -100 to +100.
NPS is relational, not transactional. It measures overall sentiment toward your company, not a single support ticket. It’s a leadership and product metric more than a support one. Sending NPS after every ticket is a common misuse, you’ll measure how someone feels about your whole company based on one password reset.
Which should a support team track?
Start with CSAT. It’s the most direct read on whether your support is working, it’s easy for customers to answer, and you can act on the results immediately. Add CES if you suspect effort and friction are your real problem. Treat NPS as a periodic, company-wide pulse, run a couple of times a year, not a support KPI.
Make the feedback loop short
The value of any of these is acting on them. A low CSAT score the moment a ticket closes should reach the right person while the context is still warm, ideally with the customer’s comment attached. A score you read in a monthly report is a score you can’t recover from.
teckyz sends a CSAT survey automatically when a ticket closes and routes ratings (and any comment) to owners and managers right away, feeding a simple report so you can watch the trend. Pair it with sensible SLA targets and you have the core of a support quality program. See how it works.