If you’re looking to automate Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) surveys using Freshdesk (Growth Tier), Fillout, and Google Sheets, you can set up an efficient system that collects and tracks feedback. Currently, the CSAT survey option is not available in the Growth tier. This requires an upgrade of 49€ per seat and upgrading to PRO. This option is expensive and without our support unnecessary.

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1. Creating the CSAT Survey Using Fillout

Start by designing your CSAT survey with Fillout, a form builder that can be easily integrated with Freshdesk. Fillout has an extremely generous free plan which will be suitable for most. This comes with automation possibilities, 1000 responses per month and form embedding. 

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When creating the survey, focus on a key question like:

"How satisfied were you with your recent interaction?"

Use a rating scale (1-5 or 1-10) to measure customer satisfaction. Optionally, add a free-text field for feedback. Once the survey is ready, you can integrate it with Freshdesk by setting up webhooks or using available integrations. This enables you to pre-fill certain customer details like ticket ID or email, making the feedback relevant.

2. Setting Up Freshdesk Automation

To ensure the survey is sent automatically upon ticket closure or resolution, you’ll need to configure automation in Freshdesk.

In your Freshdesk account, navigate to Admin > Automations > Ticket Updates. Create a rule that triggers when a ticket is resolved or closed. Add conditions such as "Ticket Status is Resolved."

For the action, select "Send Email to Requester." In this email, include a message prompting the customer to complete the CSAT survey. Add a link to the Fillout form, and use Freshdesk’s dynamic placeholders (like {{ticket.id}} or {{ticket.requester.name}}) to personalize the email. Save the automation rule to ensure that the survey link is sent to every customer after their issue is resolved.

If you want to prevent some customers from receiving a survey. You can create a ‘tag’ and agents can add the tag to the ticket, for example, ‘no_survey’. When the automation runs, you can set a rule, ‘if Tags contains none of ‘no_survey’. This will prevent the automation running for this ticket. 

3. Linking Survey Responses to Google Sheets

Once your survey is live, you’ll want to capture and store the responses. Fillout integrates directly with Google Sheets, allowing you to log all survey data in real time.

In Fillout, go to the survey settings and find the Google Sheets integration. Link your Google account and select the relevant sheet (or create a new one). Map your survey fields (such as rating, comments, or ticket ID) to specific columns in the sheet. From this point on, every response submitted will populate your Google Sheet, creating a live record of your CSAT data.

4. Advanced Automation and Data Analysis

For deeper insights, you can combine the data stored in Google Sheets with more advanced workflows using tools like Zapier or Integromat (Make). These integrations allow you to pull additional data from Freshdesk—such as ticket resolution times or agent performance—into Google Sheets alongside CSAT scores.

Once your data is in Google Sheets, you can analyze it by creating dashboards or using pivot tables to track trends over time. This allows you to calculate your average CSAT score, monitor agent performance, and observe shifts in customer satisfaction throughout different periods.

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