Customer Satisfaction Programme Template (CSAT, NPS, CES)

Purpose and scope, CSAT NPS CES measures, survey design rules, sample size and margin of error, analysis and reporting, inner and outer loop closure, governance

Customer SuccessStandardISO 10004:2018customer satisfaction programmeUpdated Oct 29, 2026

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How to use: Use it to design how you measure customer satisfaction and act on it. Fill the purpose and the decisions the results will drive first, then compute the sample before launch. The main pitfall is reporting scores without closing the loop with customers and fixing causes.

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Customer Satisfaction Programme: [Organization or product]

A programme plan for monitoring and measuring customer satisfaction: purpose and scope, which measures to use (CSAT, NPS, CES), survey design, sampling and margin of error, analysis, reporting and how to close the loop with customers and with improvement actions. Structure aligned with ISO 10004:2018, Quality management, Customer satisfaction, Guidelines for monitoring and measuring (current edition, confirmed in 2023, as checked in October 2026). Replace every [bracketed] value and every row marked Example.

Document control

Field	Value
Document ID	[CX-PRG-001]
Version	[1.0]
Status	[Draft / Approved]
Owner	[@customer-experience-lead]
Reviewers	[@head-of-support], [@product-analytics], [@data-protection-officer]
Last updated	YYYY-MM-DD
Next review	YYYY-MM-DD
Classification	[Internal]

Revision history

Version	Date	Author	Change
1.0 (Example)	2026-10-30	Customer experience lead	First programme design

1. Purpose, objectives and scope

Item	Value
Purpose	[Example: find and fix the touchpoints that most reduce customer satisfaction and loyalty]
Objectives	[Example: raise support CSAT from 84% to 88% by 2027-06-30; cut repeat contacts by a quarter]
Customers in scope	[Example: paying business customers, all regions]
Out of scope	[Example: trial users, internal users]
Frequency	[Transactional: after each event; relationship: twice a year]
Decision owners	[Who acts on the results]

2. Measures

Measure	Question it answers	Typical use	Scale and score (Example)
CSAT (customer satisfaction)	How satisfied was the customer with this interaction or product?	After a support case, delivery or onboarding	1 to 5; score = share of 4 and 5 answers
NPS (Net Promoter Score)	How likely is the customer to recommend us?	Relationship survey, twice a year	0 to 10; promoters 9 to 10, passives 7 to 8, detractors 0 to 6; score = % promoters minus % detractors
CES (customer effort)	How easy was it to get what the customer needed?	After support or self-service tasks	1 to 7 agreement; score = share of 5 to 7 answers
Open comment	Why did the customer answer that way?	Every survey	Free text, coded into themes

Notes on the measures:

NPS uses the standard recommendation question on a 0 to 10 scale as published by its owners; Net Promoter, NPS and Net Promoter System are registered trademarks and Net Promoter Score is a service mark of Bain & Company, Inc., NICE Systems, Inc. and Fred Reichheld.
Customer effort measures were popularised by Dixon, Freeman and Toman, "Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers", Harvard Business Review, July to August 2010. Write your own statement wording and keep it fixed.
Indirect indicators (repeat contacts, complaints, returns, renewal rate) complement surveys and need no extra questions.

3. Survey design

ID	Survey	Trigger	Channel	Questions
SVY-01 (Example)	Support CSAT	Case closed	Email link, in-app	CSAT score, "What is the main reason for your score?"
SVY-02 (Example)	Relationship NPS	Every 6 months per contact	Email	NPS, reason, "What one thing should we improve?"
SVY-03 (Example)	Self-service CES	Help article or task completed	In-app	CES statement, optional comment
SVY-[NN]	[Survey]	[Trigger]	[Channel]	[Questions]

Design rules:

Neutral wording; no leading phrases such as "How great was our service?".
Label every scale point or both ends; keep scale direction the same in all surveys.
Do not ask the same person more than [once every 90 days] across all surveys (survey fatigue rule).
Offer the survey in the customer's language and in an accessible format.
Staff must not ask customers for a particular score.

4. Sampling and margin of error

Example: relationship survey for N = 2,000 customer contacts, target margin of error 5 percentage points at 95% confidence, p = 0.5.

Step	Value
n0 for an unlimited population	385 responses
Adjusted for N = 2,000	323 responses
Expected response rate	20%
Invitations needed	1,615 (most of the population, so invite everyone)

With the 400 responses actually received in the Example below, the margin of error for a proportion is about 4.9 points (4.4 points with the finite population correction for N = 2,000). NPS has a wider margin than a single proportion: for 45% promoters and 20% detractors with 400 responses it is about 7.5 points (6.7 with the correction), so the move from +22 to +25 in section 5 is not evidence of change.

Bias checks: compare responders with non-responders by segment, size and region; weight or report separately if one group is badly under-represented.

5. Analysis and reporting

Example results for 2026-H2 (fictional):

Measure	Responses	Result	Previous	Note
Support CSAT	520	84.0% (437 of 520 scored 4 or 5)	82.5%	Within margin, no clear change
Relationship NPS	400	+25 (45% promoters, 35% passives, 20% detractors)	+22	Within margin
Self-service CES	300	77.0% (231 of 300 agreed 5 to 7)	n/a	First measurement

Top comment themes (Example): slow handover between support tiers (31% of negative comments), unclear invoices (18%), praise for named agents (24% of positive comments).

Report	Audience	Frequency
Dashboard by touchpoint	Team leads	Weekly
Programme report with themes and actions	Leadership, management review (`compliance/management-review`)	Quarterly
Customer-facing "you said, we did"	Customers	Twice a year

6. Closing the loop

6.1 Inner loop (individual customers)

Trigger	Action	Owner	Within
CSAT 1 or 2, or NPS 0 to 6 with a comment	Contact the customer, listen, agree a fix	Team lead or CSM	2 business days
Comment describes a complaint	Log it in the complaints process	Team lead	1 business day
Promoter who agrees to be contacted	Thank them; ask about a reference only with consent	CSM	10 business days

6.2 Outer loop (causes)

ID	Theme	Evidence	Action	Owner	Due	Result measure
ACT-01 (Example)	Slow tier handover	31% of negative comments	Add warm handover for P2 cases in the escalation policy	Head of support	2027-01-31	CSAT for escalated cases
ACT-02 (Example)	Unclear invoices	18% of negative comments	Redesign invoice layout	Finance operations	2027-03-31	Billing contacts per 100 invoices
ACT-[NN]	[Theme]	[Evidence]	[Action]	[Owner]	YYYY-MM-DD	[Measure]

7. Governance, ethics and data protection

Topic	Rule
Consent and lawful basis	[Confirmed by data protection officer; record the basis per survey]
Anonymity	[State in each invitation whether answers are anonymous, confidential or linked to the account]
Retention	[Raw responses kept for N months; aggregated results kept longer]
Incentives	[None, or a small charity donation per response; never tied to the score]
Use in targets	Scores may be team goals, never a reason to pressure customers

Standard and licence note

Structure aligned with ISO 10004:2018, Quality management, Customer satisfaction, Guidelines for monitoring and measuring (planning, design and development of the process in clause 6). Clause numbers other than clause 6 are not cited because the public table of contents could not be checked in full. All explanations, tables, formulas and examples are original wording and reproduce no text from the standard. As of October 2026 the 2018 edition is current (confirmed in 2023); check for a newer edition before use. Net Promoter, NPS and Net Promoter System are registered trademarks and Net Promoter Score is a service mark of Bain & Company, Inc., NICE Systems, Inc. and Fred Reichheld; this template is not endorsed by them.

Official text: ISO, purchase or licensed access: https://www.iso.org/standard/71582.html (also available from national standards bodies).

Template licence: MIT.

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