Front's CSAT feature
Edited

Overview

Understanding customer satisfaction is key to operating a successful and customer-centric business, and Front's CSAT feature helps you measure just that. With a five-star scale, you can give customers the option to rate their experience, which then populates into Front's Analytics to allow you to strategically improve your service.


How it works

The CSAT workflow in Front is as follows:

  1. Set up or send out your CSAT survey using one of the survey options explained below.

  2. Your customer gives a rating.

  3. You will see the rating posted as a comment in the Front conversation.

  4. Check your CSAT score and details in Analytics.

  5. Set up any additional workflows for your CSAT using rules.


Survey options

Option 1: Signature

If you'd like customers to be able to rate every email interaction at any time, you can insert a CSAT survey in your signature. This is a passive collection method in which your customers are not specifically prompted or reminded to give a rating, but can choose to rate when they see your signature. The CSAT rating will be automatically attributed to the teammate whose signature the customer clicked the rating from.

Instructions

Step 1

Create or edit a shared signature or an individual signature, depending on where you want your CSAT survey to live. If you use shared signatures, remember that you can always use dynamic variables to automatically populate the name of the user who is sending the message.

Step 2

In the signature editor, click the Add satisfaction survey button at the bottom of the composer. You will see the CSAT survey added to the bottom of your signature, which will appear in the form of text that says {{survey}}. This {{survey}} snippet will show up for the customer as 5 stars that they can click to rate you. Additionally, you can add a question such as "How did I do?" or "How was our conversation?"

Step 3

When done editing, click Create or Save. Optionally, set this signature to be only available for certain channels, or set it to be the default signature using steps here.

Step 4

The CSAT signature is now available for use in your email messages. It will either show up in all your replies automatically according to your settings, or you can manually choose it by hovering on the top right of the signature section and clicking the Switch signature button that appears.

Option 2: Manual request

In cases where you would like to manually ask your customer to give you a rating, you can insert the CSAT survey any time by using a message template or typing the {{survey}} variable in your message. The CSAT rating will be automatically attributed to the teammate who sent the message.

Instructions using variable

Step 1

When composing the reply to your customer, type {{survey}} where you'd like to insert the CSAT survey, and the text will turn into a teal bubble to indicate the survey is a variable. Depending on the type of channel you're sending from, the survey will show up as 5 stars or as a link to click.

Step 2

You can add any additional text above or below the survey, such as "How did we do?"

Instructions using message template

Step 1

Create or edit an individual or shared message template by following these instructions.

Step 2

Type up the message template content. In the message template editor, click on the Add Satisfaction Survey button at the bottom of the composer. You will see the CSAT survey added to the bottom of your message template, which will appear in the form of text that says {{survey}}. This {{survey}} snippet will show up for the customer as 5 stars or a link that they can click to rate you. Additionally, you can add a question such as "How did I do?" or "How was our conversation?"

Step 3

When done creating your message template, click Create or Save.

Step 4

Use this CSAT message template in any message by clicking the message templates icon in the composer and choosing the template. You can still make any changes to the template you'd like before sending.

Option 3: Automatic rules

You can combine a message template with a rule to automatically send out the CSAT request to your customer in an email. Front has a shared rule template in our rule library built specifically for this purpose that you can easily set up. The rule library is not available for individual rules.

Some important features of using this option are:

  • Stop CSAT: You can stop a CSAT message from being sent to the customer on a conversation by removing the Survey Scheduled tag on the conversation, which is added by the rule to any conversation that matches your CSAT rule.

  • Prevent multiple requests: Front automatically adds a Survey Sent tag on a conversation after a CSAT message is sent to your customer by the rule. As long as this tag stays on the conversation, the rule will not run on it again.

  • Multiple CSAT rules: You can set up multiple CSAT rules for different inboxes and use cases, as a chat channel might require a shorter time before requesting CSAT as compared to an email.

  • Attributed to last teammate: The CSAT rating will be automatically attributed to the last teammate who sent a message in the conversation.

Instructions

Step 1

To create a CSAT rule for your team, navigate to Rules in your company settings, then click the Add a rule. Though individual rules do not have a rule library, you can still create one following the same rule structure below.

Step 2

Once in the rule library pop-up, select the Measure customer satisfaction template.

Step 3

You will see the rule template populated for you. Customize the rule by editing the Time passed condition, as well as which message template to send in the action section. Click Create rule when finished.

Step 4

Now, any time the trigger occurs, which is When conversation is archived by default, the rule will check for the conditions listed and send an email with your CSAT message template.


Analytics

Report graphs

You can view CSAT graphs and data in Analytics:

  1. Customer Satisfaction report

  2. Team Performance report

  3. Satisfaction score (avg)

  4. Satisfaction score (%)

The analytics shown in the reports are pulled from Front's native CSAT feature, and not any third-party CSAT integrations in Front such as Delighted or NiceReply.

Score attribution

Based on the type of CSAT method you're using to collect CSAT with Front, the score will be attributed to the teammate accordingly:

Monitor individual CSAT scores

Managers and teammates can monitor their team's CSAT scores in two ways:

  1. Analytics: In the Customer Satisfaction report, any of the three CSAT graphs are clickable and will open up the metric details panel to allow you to click into each conversation that received a CSAT. You can check which teammates received the ratings in each conversation. You can download CSAT ratings and comments using the export icon next to the Survey comments section.

  2. In-app: Within the app, you can search or set up rules. For search, use the filter in:comments "responded to a survey for" or in:comments "New survey response for" to pull up the conversations with the CSAT ratings. You can also create a rule that adds a tag such as CSAT received, then review the tagged conversations.


FAQ

What does the customer see?

When your customer selects a star rating from your message, it will open a new web page showing their rating, which they can still edit, and a box for any written feedback. If you communicate with your customer via SMS where the CSAT rating image cannot be displayed directly, they will see a link to give a rating instead, which they can click and arrive at the same web page to submit.

  • If there is one recipient on the message, their contact information will automatically be collected.

  • If there multiple recipients on the message, users will see an optional email address field. If the email address field is left blank, the rating will be submitted as anonymous.

How do I know of new ratings?

When a customer gives a rating, Front will post a comment in the conversation with the CSAT rating and any feedback the customer left. This comment action keeps the shared copy archived if it was already archived, but will reopen the subscriber copies in the teammates' Shared with me section so that the teammates following the conversation can see the CSAT.

The CSAT comment can appear with one of two wordings:

  1. [Customer name] responded to a survey for [teammate name]: The customer name will appear if Front was able to find a matching contact.

  2. New survey response for [teammate name]: The customer did not enter their contact information or their contact is not saved in your account to match to.

In rare cases, if your teammate’s name doesn’t appear in the rating, it means Front wasn’t able to find a matching teammate, such as if the teammate was deleted.

Can I automate workflows for CSAT?

Yes! You can use rules to automate actions in Front based on the CSAT comment. For example, you can set up a rule that says:

  • When New comment is added

  • If Body contains 1/5

  • Then Add tag Low CSAT and Notify teammates

Another helpful rule is to tag your conversations with CSAT received so that you can collect the ratings under one tag and view them in Front. The phrasing of the CSAT comment will differ based on whether contact information exists when your customer submits their survey response. Because of this you will need to create two rules to cover both phrasings:

  • When New comment is added from any teammate, Body contains: responded to a survey for

  • If [your chosen conditions]

  • Then Add tag CSAT received

And:

  • When New comment is added from any teammate, Body contains: New survey response for

  • If [your chosen conditions]

  • Then Add tag CSAT received

What channels support CSAT?

Most direct messaging channels support the CSAT feature, listed below.

Displays the 5-star CSAT image in the message:

  • Email

Does not display the 5-star CSAT image in the message, but sends a link to the rating: 

  • Custom channels

  • Drift

  • Facebook

  • Forms

  • Front Chat

  • Intercom

  • SMS

  • Sunshine Conversations

  • Telegram

  • Twitter

  • Twitter DM

  • Whatsapp (via Twilio)

  • Yalo/Yalo Whatsapp

What channels do not support CSAT?

These channels do not support the CSAT feature:

  • Dialpad*

  • Google Play Store

  • Justcall*

  • Liveweb*

  • Talkdesk*

*CSAT should be supported for any text based communication in these channels.

Are there other rating scales?

We currently offer only the 5-star rating scale. If you'd like to see additional rating options, please submit a feature request here.

Can I delete or edit ratings?

You cannot officially delete a CSAT rating currently, but you can create a tag such as Exclude CSAT to apply on any conversations that have a rating you'd like to exclude. Then, when you run analytics, simply exclude this tag in the report filters. You also cannot edit a rating after it's submitted by the customer.

Why is there no CSAT data in analytics?

If you've set up your CSAT but have not yet received any CSAT ratings, then CSAT analytics will show that you have not yet set up the CSAT feature. Once you receive your first rating, the analytics will populate with data.


Pricing

This feature is available on the Growth plan or above.