Customer Effort Score
Understand component drivers of your customer loyalty by measuring key processes in your business.
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What is Customer Effort Score?
Customer Effort Score, or CES, measures the customer’s level of effort (aka “work”) to complete an interaction with your company. Interactions might include completing a purchase, getting a quote issued, getting help or answers to a question, completing a return/refund, and many other key interactions.
Why CES is important?
Customer Effort is a key measure of loyalty. In fact, it has been shown that as customer effort increases, so does the potential for customers to turn disloyal. Intuitively, that should make sense. If it is difficult for a customer to get something done with your business, the likelihood they look elsewhere for your products or services goes up.
Ensuring that you actively reduce friction in your business, thereby allowing customers to have easier interactions, will help you increase customer loyalty, reduce churn, and strengthen your brand.
According to Gartner's research, improving your CES can create the following benefits:
- Increased NPS
- Lower costs
- Higher repeat purchases
- Higher employee retention
“96% of customers with a high-effort service interaction become more disloyal compared to just 9% who have a low-effort experience"
Gartner, Inc.
How do you measure CES?
Every business is different, and it is important to identify the key points of interaction between your business and your customers. Identify the journeys your customers follow through your business, from first contact to ongoing relations, and consider measuring CES at key interaction points.
Typically, measured using a 5 or 7 point scale, CES asks a question about the specific interaction, such as “How easy was it for you to complete your online purchase? (0=extremely difficult, 6=very easy)”. Five-point scales may run from 1 to 5 or 0 to 4, whereas seven-point scales will run from 1 to 7 or 0 to 6. The use of zero can aid respondents to know which side of the scale is good and which is bad.
Paired with an open-ended question to qualify the respondents answer, more details can be captured regarding why the customer answered as they did. This insight can be valuable in building continuous improvement plans.
How is CES calculated?
Just like Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) and Product Quality (PQUAL), CES is measured on a scale of 0 to 100, and is calculated by dividing the number of respondents who found the interaction easy in any way (e.g. 4: “somewhat easy”, 5: “easy”, 6: “very easy”) by the total number of respondents. If 70 out of 100 respondents found the process easy, you have a 70% CES for that process.
Start measuring, then build continuous improvement plans that reduces friction (i.e. effort) in the process. Set goals to increase your CES over time. Like all CX metrics, do not fixate on attaining a perfect score. Execute plans that allow you to improve CES, and maintain high levels.
CES Examples:
100 responsdents where 5 answered easy, 95 answered not easy
CES = 5 / 100
350 responsdents where 140 answered easy, 210 answered not easy
CES = 140 / 350
250 responsdents where 200 answered easy, 50 answered not easy
CES = 200 / 250
What is a good Customer Effort Score?
Measuring your CES is Just like letter grades in school. The scale starts at 0% and goes up to 100%. The higher the CES the less friction your customer is experiencing, hence the higher your CES.
Any CES of 50% or lower means at least half of your customer respondents indicate they experience friction in the measured process. That's a failing score. It's difficult to stay in business if half, or more, of your customers find it difficult to do business with your company.
Like all CX metrics, your goal is not a perfect 100. The goal is continuous improvement, until you can find your business operating in a steady-state range that is sufficiently high. If you've never measured key processes before, don't be surprised if the results are not what you expected. Listen and improve, driving CES north of 50. Then keep improving to short for that A grade, getting over 90.
If you've never measured key processes before, don't be surprised if the results are not what you expected. Listen and improve, driving CES north of 50. Then keep improving to short for that A grade, getting over 90.
Poor (50 and below)
Ok (50 to 70)
Good (70 to 90)
Great (90 to 100)
CES and NPS®
Net Promoter ScoreSM, NPS® is the leading indicator of customer loyalty. Measured over time, it gives you great insight regarding how your customers feel about your business, when considering all of their integrations and experiences.
CES, on the other hand, measures a how the customer feels about a specific, but critical, business process or interaction. Each place where a customer can interact with your business is a potential point of friction and frustration for a customer. Regularly measuring CES over time can give you an early-warning system to identify specific areas that need improving. Pairing CES surveys with your NPS surveys gives you a more complete picture of your business.
Automating CES
Like any CX process, the more automated the better. Using triggers and automations to generate lists or flows of the customers exiting your key processes (e.g. purchase, ticket, quote, shipment) will allow you to more easily engage them for CES feedback. Using a CXM (Customer Experience Management) platform, like LoyaltyLoop, will ensure the right customers are engaged at the right time.