CSAT vs NPS: Which CX metric should you choose?

When it comes to understanding how customers feel after interacting with your support channels, two metrics usually come into play: CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score) and NPS (Net Promoter Score). Both are widely used to measure customer experience across industries, but they serve different purposes and offer different insights.

Knowing when to use the insights from CSAT vs NPS can help you gather the right kind of feedback to improve customer satisfaction, efficiency, and employee development.

In this blog, we’ll break down what CSAT and NPS mean, how they’re calculated, where each metric shines, and how to choose the approach (or combine both) for a complete picture of how customers are experiencing your support channels.

What is CSAT?

CSAT, or Customer Satisfaction Score, measures how satisfied a customer is with a specific interaction right after it happens.

In a contact center and support context, CSAT surveys are usually sent after a ticket is resolved or a live chat ends. The goal is to capture how the customer feels while the experience is still fresh.

It helps workforce managers monitor performance, spot training opportunities, and catch customer issues early, before they escalate.

How CSAT is calculated?

1. Customers are prompted to answer a question like “How would you rate your experience with our team today?”
2. They respond using a rating scale from 1 to 5, where 1 means “very dissatisfied” and 5 means “very satisfied”.
3. The CSAT score is then calculated as:

CSAT = (# of satisfied responses / Total responses) x 100

Most companies consider ratings of 4 or 5 as “satisfied”.

What is NPS?

NPS, or NET Promoter Score, measures customer loyalty and how likely your customers are to recommend a company to others.

Unlike CSAT, which gives an immediate snapshot of satisfaction, NPS focuses on the long-term relationship customers have with a brand.

For contact center leaders, it helps answer questions like “Is our customer support driving loyalty and long-term growth?”

How NPS is calculated?

1. Customers answer a single question: "How likely are you to recommend our product/services to friends and family?"
2. They respond on a scale from 0 to 10.
3. Based on their score, they are categorized into 3 groups:
   1. Promoters (9-10): Loyal customers who actively refer others
   2. Passives (7-8): Satisfied but indifferent customers
   3. Detractors (0-6): Unhappy customers who may churn
4. To calculate your NPS:

NPS = % of promoters - % of detractors

Key differences between CSAT and NPS

While CSAT and NPS are both valuable CX metrics, they serve different purposes and provide different types of insights. Understanding these differences is essential for choosing the right metric—or knowing when to use both.

Using both together can give contact center managers a more complete view of the customer experience: CSAT for tactical and operational adjustments and NPS for strategic direction.

Here’s a breakdown of how CSAT and NPS compare:

How to choose between CSAT and NPS

If you’re leading a support or contact center team, deciding whether to use CSAT vs NPS, comes down to business goals, timing and the customer insights you need.

Choose CSAT when you need real-time feedback on your operations

If your primary goal is to:

• Measure how well agents are handling interactions
• Identify channel efficiency
• Monitor team performance

Then CSAT may be the way to go. It’s easy to implement, delivers fast feedback, and helps you course-correct quickly. It’s especially useful for QA teams and frontline managers.

Choose NPS when you want to understand loyalty and brand sentiment

If you’re focused on:

• Tracking long-term customer loyalty
• Measuring how support impacts overall brand perception
• Identifying customer at risk of churn

The NPS is a better choice. It provides broader, strategic insights into how the contact center operations fits into the bigger picture of customer experience.

It’s also ideal to inform cross-functional decisions that involve teams like marketing, product, and customer success.

While CSAT is great for tracking how well an agent handled an interaction, NPS shows whether your overall customer experience is building trust and loyalty over time.

Aligning CX metrics to your support goals

When it comes to measuring the customer experience in your contact center operations, you don’t have to choose just between CSAT and NPS. They complement each other.

• CSAT gives you immediate, interaction-level feedback, helping you monitor agent performance and optimize support processes.
• NPS provides a big-picture of customer loyalty, helping you understand the impact of support channels on brand perception and long-term success.

Measuring CSAT and NPS is only the beginning. With the right tools, you can turn customer feedback into better performance, stronger teams, and higher loyalty.

See how Aspect’s workforce engagement management (WEM) solutions help contact centers optimize agent performance, boost CX, and drive efficiency.