In the fast-paced world of IT support, measuring how satisfied your users are with the helpdesk experience is essential. A Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) survey helps quantify user feedback, identify improvement areas, and track the overall performance of your IT service desk.
But designing a CSAT survey that delivers actionable insights—without overwhelming your users—takes strategic planning. Here’s how to create a meaningful IT helpdesk customer satisfaction survey from scratch.
1. Define Clear Objectives
Before you start writing questions, ask yourself what you want to learn. Some common goals include:
- Measuring end-user satisfaction with ticket resolution
- Evaluating technician professionalism and responsiveness
- Identifying bottlenecks in support workflows
- Monitoring changes in user sentiment over time
Having clear goals ensures your survey stays focused and your results are actionable.
2. Choose the Right Timing
Timing matters. Ideally, the survey should be sent shortly after a support interaction—once the ticket is marked as resolved. This keeps the experience fresh in the user’s mind and improves response accuracy.
For ongoing support, consider weekly or monthly pulse surveys to get broader insights into service desk performance.
3. Keep It Short and Focused
Users are more likely to complete a survey if it takes less than 2 minutes. A good CSAT survey usually has 3 to 5 questions. Here’s a simple structure:
- Satisfaction Score (Core Question):
“How satisfied were you with the resolution of your IT issue?”
Scale: 1 to 5 or 1 to 10 - Follow-Up Feedback (Open-Ended):
“What could we have done better?” - Professionalism Check:
“Was the technician courteous and professional?”
Scale: Yes/No or Likert Scale - Resolution Time Perception:
“How would you rate the time it took to resolve your issue?”
Scale: Excellent, Good, Fair, Poor - Optional Additional Feedback:
“Any additional comments or suggestions?”
4. Use a Clean and Simple Design
Your survey should be visually clean, mobile-friendly, and easy to complete. Avoid cluttered designs or overly complex rating scales. Stick to consistent language and layout.
Tools like Microsoft Forms, Google Forms, or internal service desk software often include built-in templates for CSAT surveys that can be customized to your needs.
5. Make the Rating Scale Consistent
Be consistent in your rating scales (e.g., always use 1-5 or 1-10 across all questions). Clearly define what each score means to prevent confusion—e.g., 1 = Very Dissatisfied, 5 = Very Satisfied.
6. Ensure Anonymity (If Appropriate)
Depending on your organisation’s policies, consider allowing anonymous submissions. Users may be more honest with their feedback if they know there’s no risk of backlash.
However, if you need to follow up on critical issues, providing an option to include their email address voluntarily can be helpful.
7. Review and Act on Feedback
Collecting feedback is only useful if you act on it. Regularly review CSAT responses and identify patterns:
- Are certain technicians consistently praised or criticized?
- Are response times a recurring issue?
- Is there a recurring complaint about communication?
Share results with your team and use the data for coaching, training, or process improvements.
8. Monitor Survey Fatigue
Avoid bombarding users with surveys after every interaction. If your helpdesk receives high ticket volumes, consider triggering surveys randomly (e.g., 1 in every 3 resolved tickets), or limit responses to once every 30 days per user.
9. Benchmark and Track Over Time
Once your CSAT survey is in place, track the average satisfaction score monthly or quarterly. Set realistic benchmarks and use trends over time to assess improvement or identify decline.
Conclusion
A well-designed IT Helpdesk CSAT survey is a simple yet powerful tool. It bridges the gap between support teams and end users, offering direct insight into how your service is perceived. By keeping surveys concise, well-timed, and user-centric, you’ll gain meaningful feedback that fuels continuous improvement in your support operations.
