The Complete Guide to Customizing Zendesk CSAT Surveys for Maximum Engagement

Your brand is defined by every interaction with your customers. One often-overlooked touchpoint is your customer satisfaction (CSAT) survey. While these surveys provide invaluable insights into customer experiences, they also offer an opportunity to reinforce your brand’s identity.

In this article, we’ll explore the steps you can take to tailor your Zendesk CSAT surveys to fit your brand perfectly. From personalizing questions to adding your company’s unique personality, we’ll guide you through making your feedback process as distinctive as your brand itself. Ready to create a seamless, branded customer experience? Let’s dive in.

Why Tailoring Your CSAT Survey Makes a Difference

Building Trust Through Consistency: Customizing your Zendesk CSAT survey allows you to extend your brand consistency across the customer journey. Whether it’s aligning the survey’s tone with your brand voice or incorporating your logo and colors, small tweaks can make a big difference. A survey that feels like an organic extension of your brand can improve response rates and build greater trust with your customers.

Boosting Response Rates: Customizing your CSAT surveys can significantly boost response rates by making them feel more familiar and relevant to your customers. A personalized survey feels less generic and more like an extension of the customer’s experience with your brand, increasing the chances they’ll take the time to provide valuable feedback.

Creating a Memorable Experience: Customized surveys demonstrate to your customers that you genuinely value their feedback. When a survey feels personalized and thoughtfully designed, it shows that your brand goes the extra mile in every interaction. Ultimately, a customized survey not only gathers valuable insights but also enhances the overall customer experience.

How to tailor your CSAT survey for success

Match your survey’s tone to your brand identity

Tailoring the language and tone of your survey questions to match your brand’s voice is crucial for maintaining consistency and engaging your audience. Whether your brand is formal and professional or casual and friendly, using the right tone helps create a seamless experience. For example, a formal brand might ask, “How satisfied were you with the support you recieved?” whereas a more casual brand might say, “How did we do in helping you out today?” This alignment makes the survey feel more natural and relatable, encouraging thoughtful and honest responses. By speaking in a language your audience is familiar with, you build trust and make the survey feel like an authentic extension of your brand.

To update the copy, you need to customize the Zendesk CSAT survey template. In the Admin Center, Go to Satisfaction Settings: Under the Channels section, select Settings > Customer Satisfaction to access the customer.

Zendesk’s native CSAT email template lets you customize these 3 elements:

  1. Email subject line
  2. Email body content
  3. Default survey question

Customizing the CSAT rating scale

The built in Zendesk CSAT survey uses a binary rating scale of “Good” or “Bad”. If you’ve ever been frustrated by the lack of customization in Zendesk’s built-in surveys, you’re not alone. A simple 👍 or 👎 doesn’t always capture the full picture of your customer’s experience, and it can be limiting when you need more specific insights.

For more nuanced CSAT survey ratings, such as using a 3, 4, or 5-point scale, integrating a third-party add-on like Sondar can provide the flexibility you need. Sondar’s surveys are highly customizable and incredibly easy to embed into Zendesk. Once you design your survey, Sondar gives you an HTML code snippet that you can easily paste directly into any Zendesk email template, including CSAT surveys. This allows you to seamlessly integrate more detailed feedback options into your Zendesk workflow while maintaining brand consistency.

💡 Bonus Tip!

Concerned about overwhelming your customers with too many emails? Try combining the “solved” email notification with the customer satisfaction survey. It’s simple! Just deactivate the CSAT automation, then head over to your triggers and edit the “solved” notification trigger. Add the customer satisfaction placeholder {{satisfaction.rating_section}} or HTML snippets from Sondar into the notification email template, and you’re done! Now, your “solved” email will include the survey, streamlining the experience for your customers.

Applying your brand identity

Adding your company’s branding to your Zendesk CSAT survey is a simple yet impactful way to create a cohesive customer experience. Matching the colors used in your website or app helps create a consistent visual identity, making the survey feel like an organic part of the customer journey. These small customizations go a long way in reinforcing your brand while encouraging more engagement from customers.

While Zendesk’s built-in CSAT surveys offer essential functionality, they do not support branding customizations. In this case, an add-on like Sondar provides the flexibility you need. With Sondar, you can easily upload your logo and choose custom colors that reflect your brand’s identity, ensuring the survey looks and feels like an extension of your customer touchpoints.

Share fun and engaging surveys that are on brand

Asking additional questions

Customizing your Zendesk CSAT survey by adding additional questions allows you to gather more relevant and specific feedback. Instead of relying solely on a general satisfaction score, you can include follow-up questions that focus on specific aspects of the interaction. This not only helps you dig deeper into the customer experience but also provides actionable insights that can drive improvement. Tailoring your questions to target particular areas of interest ensures you receive feedback that is directly aligned with your business goals and customer needs. Here are examples of additional questions to ask post ticket resolution.

Agent Performance

• “How would you rate the professionalism of the agent who assisted you?”

• “Was the agent knowledgeable about your issue?”

• “Did the agent communicate clearly and effectively?”

Timeliness

“Was the time it took to resolve your issue acceptable?”

“How satisfied are you with the speed of the resolution?”

“Was there anything that could have been done to resolve your issue faster?”

Follow-up Action

“Was there any follow-up action you expected but didn’t receive?”

“Do you feel like any additional follow-up is needed?”

Ease of Contact

“How easy was it to get in touch with our support team?”

“Did you have any difficulty reaching the right person to handle your issue?”

Satisfaction with Communication Channels

“Did you prefer the communication channel used (e.g., chat, email, phone)?”

“Was there another channel you would have preferred for this interaction?”

Additional Feedback

“Is there anything else we could have done to improve your support experience?”

“Do you have any additional feedback or comments on how we handled your request?”

While Zendesk’s built-in CSAT surveys provide a basic satisfaction rating, they don’t allow for adding additional follow-up questions to gather more in-depth feedback. If you’re looking to dive deeper into customer insights, Sondar offers a great solution. With Sondar, you can easily add custom questions to your surveys, allowing you to ask for more detailed feedback, such as specific pain points or suggestions for improvement. This added flexibility helps you gain more actionable insights from your customers and drive continuous improvement in your service.

Choosing the Right Moments for Feedback

Choosing the right moments to trigger your Zendesk CSAT survey is crucial to gathering meaningful feedback. Customizing the timing ensures you’re reaching customers when they’re most likely to respond thoughtfully. For example, sending a survey immediately after resolving a ticket allows customers to provide feedback while the interaction is fresh in their minds. You can also trigger surveys based on ticket priority or issue type, focusing on more critical cases where feedback can be particularly valuable.

Customizing the Survey Trigger

The default built-in Zendesk CSAT survey is 24 hours after a ticket is close or resolved.

Follow these steps to change these defaults.

  1. In Admin Center, click the Objects and rules icon () in the sidebar, then select Business rules > Automations.
  2. Open Request customer satisfaction rating (System Automation).

Customizing the thank you message

The thank you message after a CSAT survey is a powerful moment to turn satisfied customers into brand advocates. A customized thank you page or message allows you to not only express gratitude for their feedback but also invite them to take the next step, such as leaving an online review or sharing their positive experience on social media. Unfortunately, Zendesk’s built-in CSAT surveys don’t support customizing this post-survey interaction. However, with a third-party tool like Sondar, you can easily bridge this gap. By creating a branded thank you message that prompts happy customers to leave a review or recommend your services, you can transform loyal supporters into active promoters of your brand.

Key Takeaways

To recap, branding and personalization in your Zendesk CSAT surveys are essential for creating a consistent and engaging customer experience. By tailoring the language, tone, and even the timing of your surveys, you can reinforce your brand’s identity and gather more meaningful feedback. Though Zendesk’s built-in surveys provide basic functionality, adding personal touches like logos, custom questions, and a tailored thank-you message can elevate the entire process.

Now is the time to take action! Start customizing your Zendesk CSAT surveys to better reflect your brand’s voice and make the feedback experience more relatable for your customers. A personalized survey not only boosts engagement but also builds trust and loyalty.

To unlock even more customization options, including adding additional questions and fully branded elements use Sondar to supercharge your feedback game. Start a free trial today.