Not all feedback is created equal. A five-star rating tells you something very different than a Net Promoter Score, and a thumbs-up captures a different signal than an open-ended question.
The trick isn't collecting more feedback — it's collecting the right kind at the right time. Below is a breakdown of the four survey types in Feedbaxster and when each one makes sense.
1. CSAT (Customer Satisfaction)
A 1–5 star rating that measures how satisfied a customer was with a specific experience — a meal, a support call, a purchase. CSAT is the most flexible of the four types and works well in almost any context.
Good situations to use it: after a visit, following a service interaction, or as a post-purchase check-in.
Stars are universal. Everyone understands them, and they take under two seconds to answer. You get a clear numeric score without asking anyone to overthink it.
In Feedbaxster, create a CSAT survey from your dashboard, write your question (e.g., "How was your experience today?"), and optionally enable a follow-up prompt so customers can explain their rating. The star score tells you how they feel. The follow-up tells you why. Your dashboard tracks the average and total responses in real time.
2. NPS (Net Promoter Score)
A 0–10 scale with one question: "How likely are you to recommend us?"
Responses fall into three groups:
- Promoters (9–10): Your biggest fans. They'll tell their friends.
- Passives (7–8): Satisfied but not enthusiastic. Vulnerable to competitors.
- Detractors (0–6): Unhappy customers who could hurt your reputation.
Your NPS score is: % Promoters – % Detractors. It ranges from –100 to +100.
NPS is better for understanding loyalty and long-term sentiment than satisfaction with any single interaction. Use it quarterly or monthly, after customers have had several touchpoints with your business, or when you want to benchmark against industry averages.
NPS doesn't ask "were you happy?" — it asks "would you stake your reputation on us?" That's a higher bar, and it's a better predictor of referrals. A business with a high NPS isn't just retaining customers; it's earning word of mouth.
When you create an NPS survey in Feedbaxster, customers see a clean row of 0–10 buttons labeled "Not likely" to "Very likely." Your dashboard automatically breaks responses into promoters, passives, and detractors with color-coded bars — green, yellow, red — so you can see customer loyalty at a glance. No spreadsheet math.
One thing to keep in mind: NPS is a lagging indicator. It reflects many experiences accumulated over time, not what to fix today. It works best alongside other survey types, not instead of them.
3. Quick Rating
A simple 1–5 star rating designed for speed. No follow-up, no friction — just a number.
This is the right choice for high-traffic moments where you need a signal without slowing down the customer experience: QR codes on receipts or table tents, embedded widgets on checkout pages, kiosk-style feedback at an exit.
Quick ratings pair naturally with Feedbaxster's QR code system. Create a QR code, label it for a specific location ("Table 5," "Front Counter"), and set the landing mode to "survey." You can track scan counts per code to see which spots drive the most responses, and filter by location if you have multiple.
A single 3-star rating doesn't tell you much. A steady drop from 4.5 to 3.8 over two weeks is a pattern worth digging into.
4. Yes / No
A binary thumbs-up or thumbs-down. No scale, no nuance — just a reaction.
This works well for specific, answerable questions: "Was your issue resolved?" "Would you visit us again?" "Was our team friendly today?"
Binary questions tend to have the highest response rates of any survey type. There's no cognitive load — customers don't have to decide between a 3 and a 4. They just react.
In Feedbaxster, customers see two large buttons: thumbs up and thumbs down. Enable a follow-up prompt for "no" votes so you can understand what went wrong without adding friction for happy customers.
Getting surveys in front of customers
Creating the right survey is only half the job. You also need to put it where customers will actually see it. Feedbaxster gives you three options.
QR codes — Print and place them anywhere: table tents, receipts, menus, exit doors. Each QR code can be labeled and assigned to a specific location so you know where feedback is coming from. You can configure whether customers land on a feedback form, a survey, or a survey followed by a feedback prompt.
Website widget — A floating button that lives on your website. Customize the color, position, and button text to match your brand. Customers click it, leave feedback, and never leave your site. You can restrict which domains show the widget and toggle it on or off anytime.
Shareable link — Every business gets a public feedback page. Share the link in emails, texts, or social media. Higher plans support custom subdomains or your own domain with automatic SSL.
How to choose
| Goal | Survey type |
|---|---|
| Measure satisfaction with a specific experience | CSAT |
| Gauge long-term loyalty and referral likelihood | NPS |
| Get fast, low-friction feedback at scale | Quick Rating |
| Answer a specific yes-or-no question | Yes / No |
Mix and match
The best feedback setups don't rely on a single type. A combination that works well for most local businesses: Quick Rating on QR codes for everyday volume, CSAT with follow-up on the website widget for more detail, NPS shared via link once a quarter to track loyalty, and Yes / No for targeted questions when testing a change — a new menu item, updated hours, a policy shift.
Feedbaxster lets you create as many survey templates as you need and toggle them on or off without losing data. Turn a survey off when you've learned what you needed, spin up a new one when the next question comes up.
Every survey type has a job. Stars measure satisfaction, NPS measures loyalty, quick ratings lower friction, and yes/no cuts to the answer. Pick the type that matches what you actually want to learn, put it where your customers are, and let the responses tell you what to do next.