NPS vs CSAT vs CES: which customer metric should you use?
Three popular metrics, three different questions. Here is what each one measures, how to calculate it, and when to use it.
5 min read
- NPS measures loyalty to your company overall. CSAT measures satisfaction with one moment. CES measures how easy something was.
- Use NPS on a schedule for the relationship, and CSAT or CES straight after specific moments like support, purchase or onboarding.
- Each needs its own maths: NPS is promoters minus detractors, CSAT is % satisfied, CES is % who found it easy (or an average).
NPS, CSAT and CES are the three most common customer experience metrics, and they measure different things. Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures loyalty to your company overall. Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) measures how satisfied someone was with a specific interaction. Customer Effort Score (CES) measures how easy it was to get something done. Most teams get the best picture by using all three, each at the right moment.
The three metrics side by side
| NPS | CSAT | CES | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Measures | Loyalty to the company | Satisfaction with one moment | Ease of a task or process |
| Typical question | How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague? | How satisfied were you with [interaction]? | [Company] made it easy for me to [task]. |
| Scale | 0–10 | Usually 1–5 | Usually 1–7 (disagree to agree) |
| Score | % promoters − % detractors | % satisfied (4–5) | % who agree (5–7), or the average |
| Range | −100 to +100 | 0% to 100% | 0% to 100%, or 1 to 7 |
| When to send | On a schedule, once or twice a year per customer | Straight after the moment | Straight after the task |
| Best for | Tracking the relationship over time | Support, purchase, delivery, onboarding | Support, setup, returns, any process |
NPS: how loyal are your customers?
Net Promoter Score comes from one question: “How likely are you to recommend [company] to a friend or colleague?” answered from 0 to 10. Customers who answer 9–10 are promoters, 7–8 are passives, and 0–6 are detractors. The score is the percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors.
NPS is a relationship metric. It reflects everything a customer has experienced, not one interaction, so it moves slowly and works best tracked over months. Use it to see whether loyalty is improving, compare segments, and find accounts at risk.
Read the full guide: What is NPS?, or work out a score with the NPS calculator.
CSAT: how did that moment go?
Customer Satisfaction Score asks how satisfied someone was with a specific interaction, usually on a 1–5 scale from “very unsatisfied” to “very satisfied.”
How to calculate CSAT: count the satisfied responses (4 and 5), divide by the total number of responses, and multiply by 100.
80 satisfied responses out of 100 = CSAT of 80%
CSAT is a moment metric. Send it straight after the thing you want to measure, while it’s fresh: a support conversation closing, a purchase arriving, onboarding finishing. Because it’s tied to a specific moment, it’s the best way to compare support agents, channels or steps in your process. Try the CSAT calculator.
CES: how easy was it?
Customer Effort Score measures how much effort a customer had to put in. It was introduced in the 2010 Harvard Business Review article “Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers” by Matthew Dixon, Karen Freeman and Nick Toman, which argued that reducing effort does more for loyalty than exceeding expectations.
Today CES is usually asked as agreement with a statement, on a 1–7 scale:
[Company] made it easy for me to handle my issue.
How to calculate CES: the most common approach is the percentage of people who agree (5, 6 or 7). Some teams report the average score instead. Pick one and stick with it.
CES is a process metric. Use it after support conversations, setup, returns, cancellations or any task where friction drives people away.
When to use each
| Situation | Best metric |
|---|---|
| Tracking overall loyalty each quarter | NPS |
| Finding accounts at risk before renewal | NPS, by account |
| After a support ticket closes | CSAT or CES |
| After a purchase or delivery | CSAT |
| After onboarding or setup | CES |
| Comparing support agents or channels | CSAT |
| Finding friction in a process | CES |
| Deciding who to ask for a testimonial | NPS (promoters) or a top CSAT rating |
Using them together
The three metrics work best as a system:
- NPS tells you where you stand. Is loyalty going up or down, and in which segments?
- CSAT and CES tell you why. Which moments are delighting or frustrating people?
- Comments tell you what to do. Every survey should include one open follow-up question, because the reasons behind the score are what you act on.
For example, if NPS drops among new customers, CES after onboarding might show that setup has become harder, and the comments might point to a specific step.
Common mistakes
- Using the wrong maths. CSAT and CES are percentages of satisfied or agreeing customers; NPS subtracts detractors from promoters. Don’t average NPS answers or report CSAT as promoters minus detractors.
- Surveying too often. Sending all three to the same person in the same week wears them out. Limit how often anyone is surveyed, across every survey type.
- Changing the wording. Rewording questions breaks comparisons with past results.
- Collecting scores without replying. Every unhappy answer is a chance to fix something. See how to close the customer feedback loop.
- Treating ratings as testimonials. A top score is a good moment to ask for a testimonial, but the score itself isn’t one. See testimonials vs reviews vs ratings.
How Qintr Pulse handles all three
Qintr Pulse runs NPS, CSAT and customer effort surveys, plus post-support, cancellation and feature surveys, by email, by link or inside your product. Each survey type uses its own maths and filters: CSAT reports % satisfied, effort reports % easy, and NPS reports promoters minus detractors. Every answer lands in one inbox to reply to, and AI tags each comment with a summary, sentiment, urgency and topics.
Net Promoter®, NPS® and Net Promoter Score® are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., NICE Systems, Inc. and Fred Reichheld.