Agent Satisfaction Survey (ASAT) Score
Definition
Agent Satisfaction Survey (ASAT) Score
The Agent Satisfaction Survey (ASAT) score is the share of agents who rate themselves satisfied or very satisfied at work. Call centers run it once or twice a year to track morale, flag churn risk, and tie how agents feel to what customers actually get.
Most contact centers read ASAT next to their customer satisfaction rating and Net Promoter Score results, because satisfied agents almost always produce satisfied customers.
The 2024 Salesforce State of Service report found that companies in the top quartile for agent engagement retained roughly 40% more customers year-on-year than those in the bottom quartile.
Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace research puts global employee engagement at around one in five workers. Any center clearing 70% on ASAT is well ahead of the wider labour market.
The score is simple to calculate and hard to move. It sits inside a wider workforce equation of scheduling, coaching, tooling, and pay, and each lever nudges the number only a few points at a time.
Key takeaways
- ASAT measures the percentage of agents rating themselves “satisfied” or “very satisfied” on an internal survey.
- Formula: (satisfied + very satisfied respondents / total respondents) × 100.
- Healthy contact-center benchmark sits at 70–80%; below 60% flags attrition risk within a quarter.
- Best cadence is twice a year, correlated with CSAT, average handle time, and shrinkage trends.
- Biggest levers are schedule flexibility, coaching quality, tool stack, and career pathing.
How it works
An ASAT score is calculated by dividing satisfied and very satisfied respondents by the total survey population, then multiplying by 100. Most call centers use a five-point Likert scale and count only the top two boxes.
That top-two-box habit keeps the number conservative and comparable across sites. The formula is: ASAT = (satisfied respondents + very satisfied respondents) / total respondents × 100.
A center that surveys 500 agents and gets 380 top-two-box answers reports an ASAT of 76%. Treat ASAT as the frontline cut of a broader employee satisfaction (ESAT) read, narrowed to agents rather than the whole payroll.
Most operations pair the raw score with an employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) plus free-text comments to isolate root causes. Enterprise vendors like Qualtrics, Medallia, and Culture Amp dominate the space, while smaller BPOs run the survey on Google Forms or Typeform.
ISO 18295, the contact-center management standard, recommends measuring agent satisfaction at least annually inside a formal service-quality audit. Read that as the floor, not the target.
| ASAT band | Meaning | Typical action |
|---|---|---|
| 85–100% | Elite morale | Protect the culture; publish a case study |
| 70–84% | Healthy | Fine-tune coaching and tooling |
| 60–69% | At risk | Rework schedules, pay, and career paths |
| Below 60% | Critical | Attrition spike likely within 90 days |
Frontline managers usually turn the score into three coaching moves. They protect breaks and vacation in the roster, tighten quality assurance feedback cycles, then route the weakest teams to a supervisor with a proven record.
Workforce management teams reforecast staffing so the fix does not blow out cost per contact. Segment the result by tenure, channel, and site too, because a 76% average often hides a 55% score among agents in their first 90 days.
Survey design decides how much you can trust the number. Anonymous responses, a five-minute cap, and a mid-shift window all lift completion, and a response rate under 60% makes site-level comparison guesswork.
Examples
ASAT turns up in BPO annual reports, sales decks, and internal engagement programs. Concentrix, Teleperformance, TTEC, and Foundever all publish or track a version of the score, and site-level results vary widely inside the same company.
Concentrix publishes an internal “Employee Voice” survey twice a year across its 440,000-agent footprint. A 2024 corporate update cited an average agent satisfaction score in the low 80s across Philippines and India hubs, with individual sites peaking above 90%.
Teleperformance ties its “Jump!” engagement program to a global agent survey. It reported a four-point ASAT lift year-on-year in 2024 after rolling out hybrid-work options in Colombia and Portugal.
TTEC folds ASAT into its Humanify platform so supervisors see live morale dashboards next to CSAT, average handle time, and first-call resolution.
Foundever — formerly Sitel — targets an 80% ASAT floor across its Manila and Dumaguete sites, where competing BPOs poach experienced agents on a 30-day cycle.
Alorica, Genpact, and Wipro all publish ASAT-adjacent engagement scores in their annual ESG disclosures, alongside quality-assurance and workforce-management metrics.
Smaller specialist providers use the number as a sales asset. A boutique Manila BPO with a public 88% ASAT will beat a larger rival whose disclosed score sits in the mid-60s.
Buyers read agent satisfaction as a leading indicator of the customer experience they will inherit, so a strong ASAT shortens the trust-building stretch of any pitch.
Related terms
These metrics sit closest to ASAT in a contact-center reporting pack. Each one measures a different slice of the same relationship between how agents feel about the job and what customers get at the other end of the line.
- Customer Satisfaction (CSAT): the customer-side twin of ASAT, measured on the same scale but from the buyer.
- Employee Engagement: a broader emotional-commitment measure that treats ASAT as one input.
- Contact Center: the omnichannel evolution of the call center, where ASAT applies identically.
- Customer Experience (CX): the downstream outcome most sensitive to agent satisfaction.
- Key Performance Indicator (KPI): the family of operational metrics ASAT belongs to.
- First Call Resolution (FCR): the quality metric most tightly correlated with a rising ASAT trend.
FAQ
Common questions cover ASAT scoring, benchmarks, and survey cadence. The answers below reflect standard contact-center practice across Philippine, Indian, and Latin American delivery sites, where reporting cycles look broadly similar at the larger providers.
How is the ASAT score calculated?
Divide the number of agents who selected “satisfied” or “very satisfied” by the total respondents, then multiply by 100. Some centers use a 10-point scale and count the top three boxes instead of the top two.
What is a good ASAT score?
Anything above 75% is healthy for a contact center. Elite operations sit above 85%, and a reading below 60% usually predicts an attrition spike within a quarter.
How often should you run an agent satisfaction survey?
Twice a year is the most common cadence, split between a mid-year and a year-end pass. Pulse surveys of three to five questions can run monthly on top of the deeper annual read.
Does ASAT affect CSAT?
Yes. A 2024 Deloitte Global Contact Center Survey found that operations in the top ASAT quartile averaged roughly 12 points higher on CSAT than the bottom quartile.
What is the difference between ASAT and eNPS?
ASAT captures job satisfaction — how happy you are at work — while eNPS captures advocacy, or whether you would recommend the employer to someone else.
Ready to lift agent morale in your call-center operation? Compare vetted BPO providers on Outsource Accelerator and get matched with a shortlist in 48 hours.
Independent
