When it comes to providing good customer service the majority of companies already know how important it is to measure customer satisfaction.
Even numbers say that 81% of satisfied customers are more likely to do business with you again if they have a positive experience. But, what is even more interesting and essential to accept is that 95% of customers will “take action” after a negative experience – like sharing concerns with friends and family, or in the worst-case, churning.
Nowadays, there are so many solutions for capturing customers’ experiences. It’s not a big surprise that users may fall into the confusion called the paradox of choice. Recently, Front introduced a new in-house-built CSAT tool. To make your decision process easier we have compiled the most important differences between Front’s built-in solution & third-party survey app.
Before you decide to choose any CSAT tool, it’s a good step to do proper research. This document will give you a comprehensive view of what you can expect from the Front CSAT survey. In other words, it’s the right place where your research should start.
Built-in Front CSAT tool overview
Front CSAT solution offers a five-star survey. The simple and clear design can’t disappoint you but there’s a possibility it won’t fulfill all your needs. However, everything depends on your preference and the budget. Let’s have a closer look.
How does the Front CSAT survey work?
1. The first option
If you want to allow your customers to rate every email interaction, you can insert a CSAT survey in your signature. This rating will be attributed to the agent whose signature the customer clicked the rating on.
2. The second option
You can also set up your survey for “manual collection” and you can do that by using a message template or typing {{survey}} variable in your message. The received rating will be attributed to the agent who sent the message. You can use that template in any message by clicking the message template icon in the composer and choosing the template. After choosing a template you can still make any changes before sending a survey.
3. The third option
The last option allows you to combine a message template with an automatic rule that sends your CSAT survey to customers in an email. The setup is quite easy as the Front has a team rule template built exactly for this purpose.
What does the front CSAT survey look like?
If you are wondering what your customers will see, look at the picture below. When the customer clicks on a star rating, the new web page will be opened. At that moment, customers can edit the rating or add written feedback. If you are sending a survey via SMS (the image can’t be displayed there) the receiver will see a link. After clicking on the link, the customer will be redirected to the same web page to submit. 
Where can I see the received feedback?
When the new rating appears, Front will post a comment in the conversation. You will see the CSAT score and the written comment (if the customer left some). You can also find this feedback in the “Shared with me” section. That ensures that teammates or agents following the conversation can see the rating as well. 
Pros
Pro: Automated Rules
You can automate your workflow thanks to the customs rules Front offers. Moreover, you have a predefined list of conditions that can be used immediately. One of the helpful rules is to tag conversations with CSAT tags so you can collect the ratings under one tag and view them in one place.
Pro: Distribution Channels
The five-star CSAT survey can be displayed only in email. However, you can use other distribution channels like SMS, Whatsapp (via Twilio), Front Chat, Twitter DM, and Yalo / Yalo Whatsapp – where the survey will be sent as a link.
Pro: Analytics
The good thing about analytics is that you don’t need to go to any third-party solution. Your ratings and feedback are collected in the “Customer Experience” section. And of course, it’s a “comfortable solution”, as you don’t have to log in to another application to see your data. 
Pro: The Price
Well, one of the biggest advantages to attract users is the price. The tool is free for Front users with Prime and Enterprise plans, so it won’t increase your expenses for internal tools. All you need to do is just go to the “Signature” (in “Company” or “Personal” section), create your signature and press a button to add a survey.
Pro: Easy to Set Up
You already know the interface because you use Front regularly. All you have to do is decide what will be the content of your survey and by which distribution channel should be sent. 
Pro: No third-party solution is needed
From that point of view, it is a practical thing that you don’t need to create a new account, copy API keys, or worry about incorrect credentials. Moreover, until you set everything well and your account is active, your survey should work without any problems.
Pro: “All in one package”
If your budget or requirements aren’t that huge, the Front CSAT survey it’s a good solution. You have ratings, comments, and analytics in one place. Moreover, if something doesn’t work you can solve it on the same platform with the same support team.
Cons
Cons: Limited number of rating scales
The Front CSAT survey currently offers only a five-star survey. In the case you want to set up different surveys and scales e.g. different brand branches, it’s always good to have more options. The Nicereply CSAT survey offers you three different CSAT scales – thumbs, smiley faces, and stars. 
Cons: Poor customization options
The Front CSAT survey doesn’t have an option to change the colors of the survey. In comparison to the Nicereply app you have several elements which you can customize:
The content of the survey
1. Survey name.
2. Enable instant ratings.
3. Add an extra question.
4. Upload company logo.
Thanks to the customization you can also change the language and rewrite a custom question. It opens the door to sending a survey to any country in the world.
Thank you page
1. Thank you page texts.
2. Allow sharing pictures.
3. What ratings are people allowed to share?
4. Which social networks they can share the ratings on.
5. CTA texts.
Visual theme
Do you need to follow branding and corporate colors? No problem! Choose the visual theme that fits you the most or switch to custom colors and set everything according to your design manual.
Con: Missing CES survey
There are more metrics you should measure If you want to provide excellent customer service. And you probably know it, right? One of the most common metrics that support agents measure is Customer Effort Score (CES).
CES is a metric used to evaluate how easy customers thought it was to get a resolution to their recent contact. The idea is that customers enjoy doing business with companies that are easy to work with. After all, 96% of customers who’ve been through a high effort experience report being disloyal. In comparison to the CSAT survey, you have a different (7 point) scale.
Con: Missing NPS survey
It’s not only about customer satisfaction but about customer loyalty too. And the best way to measure your customer willingness to “stay with you” is through the NPS survey.
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a metric specifically developed to measure customer loyalty, judging by a customer’s likelihood to recommend a product to others. The NPS survey is specifically centered around the question: “How likely is it that you would recommend a company to a friend or colleague?”
Customers can then respond on a scale from 1 (very unlikely) to 10 (very likely). Those responses separate customers into three categories:
Detractors (score 0-6), Passives (score 7-8), and Promoters (score 9-10)
In comparison to the CSAT survey, NPS always has a 10 point scale. It’s also the metric that is related to your brand or company more than to the service of a particular customer support agent. The same as other metrics you can distribute your NPS via an in-signature survey or set it as a trigger.
Con: The Front CSAT tool is free only for Prime and Enterprise plan users
As we mentioned above, the only hook that the new “free” Front CSAT survey has is… that you need a Prime or Enterprise plan. 
On the other hand, with the Nicereply you can set up a CSAT survey in every plan. Also, you can create as many surveys as you want.
Con: Basic analytics
The Front CSAT solution offers you only very basic analytics. 
If we look at Nicereply’s analytics you see an overview of all surveys and their score. 
With Nicereply you’ve got a comprehensive overview of all stats and trends in one place. Thanks to that you can gain much deeper insights into company data. Every rating is also linked to the conversation in the Front so you won’t lose the context of the issue. 
Another great feature of the Nicereply CSAT survey is that you can check the performance of your team in the section “Teams and Agents”. Just click on CSAT on the left bar menu > Teams and Agents. Now you see an agents’ average score and the number of metrics. 
Use the power of Nicereply filters. You can easily filter ratings with or without comments for getting more insights.
Con: CSAT & Comments Analytics are placed in two different dashboards
The Customer Experience data (CSAT score) and Team performance report are in the Front interface split into two different sections. If you click on Nicereply’s Rating Feed, you will see all data aggregated, without switching through different metrics. The cherry on the top is adding tags and lists through different issues, or using our filters on the upper bar menu. 
Conclusion
We believe this article helped to introduce you to all CSAT survey features you might be interested in. In conclusion, If your requirements aren’t that high and you’re new to the world of customer experience, surveys and metrics…the Front CSAT survey is a good tool to start with. If you are a middle-size or a bigger company, you’ll probably appreciate the extended features of dedicated third-party solutions.
