What is the Customer Effort Score and how can it be calculated to measure the customer experience?

At a time when digital transformation is becoming more and more widespread, companies are competing on a daily basis to optimize and redefine the user experience in order to build customer loyalty and convert prospects.

With the aim of improving the customer experience, these same organizations need to gain a better understanding of their customers, and to do this they turn to a key indicator: the Customer Effort Score (CES).

Officially introduced in 2010, CES has proven to be a real lever for customer loyalty. In addition to understanding users' expectations, it also facilitates the various customer journeys by reducing the effort required at each stage of the purchasing process.

Let's take a closer look at this indispensable ally for smoothing the customer journey and building customer loyalty .

See all software Customer Service

What is the Customer Effort Score (CES)?

Definition

The Customer Effort Score (CES) is an effective indicator for measuring your customer satisfaction in one or two questions:

• "How much effort did you have to put in to get your request processed?"
• "How much effort did it take to validate your order?

The question is answered on a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 meaning a "low level of effort" and 5 meaning a "high level of effort".

👉 Its purpose is to evaluate the effort a customer has had to expend during his or her purchasing journey. Thus, the lower the level of effort, the more satisfied a customer will be, and the more likely he will be to become a loyal customer.

It measures the effort involved in the various stages of the customer journey, so it's advisable to carry out the survey just after the customer experience, to guarantee the authenticity of the answers collected. This will enable you to find out at which stage of the customer journey the user is having the most difficulty. You will then be able to define corrective actions to improve these elements.

How it differs from NPS and CSAT

CSAT

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) is the oldest and most frequently used indicator by companies. It measures the level of customer satisfaction and experience on a specific element. Each company is free to define its own response scale. It can be :

• numerical (1 - 3, 1 - 4, 1 - 5, 1 - 10),
• textual (Not at all satisfied / Not satisfied / Moderately satisfied / Satisfied / Very satisfied),
• in the form of smileys and other emojis.

NPS

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is used to assess the degree of brand loyalty, as well as to measure customer satisfaction after a key stage in the purchasing process. It is determined on the basis of responses to the question: "On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely would you be to recommend our product/service/brand to your friends and family?".

The response scale classifies respondents into 3 categories:

• Promoters (score of 9 or 10),
• Passives (score of 7 or 8),
• Detractors (score from 0 to 6).

The differences

Whether CSAT, NPS or CSE, they are all essential indicators for assessing customer satisfaction. But each has a very specific purpose, which sets them apart:

• CSAT measures customer satisfaction at a specific point in the purchasing process, or in the overall consumer experience.
• The NPS, on the other hand, measures the overall image of your customer satisfaction.
• The CES, on the other hand, specifically indicates your level of performance in managing problems in the various customer paths and user experiences.

Why use Customer Effort Score?

A real loyalty lever

Regularly setting up a CES survey will help you build long-term customer loyalty. Indeed, through the various responses you collect, you'll be able to improve your service/product, better meet the expectations of your customers and prospects, and thus guarantee their satisfaction.

👉 A satisfied customer is a customer who is much more likely to be loyal.

Safer operational decisions

Operational decisions, despite their short-term vision, need to be properly defined and implemented. The CES will enable you to better understand your customers and guarantee the success of your marketing actions, as it will identify the flaws in your customer/service/product journey. It will also support your traditional satisfaction questionnaires.

👉 In fact, if your company has a high CES, you'll immediately know which process to act on and which department to call on to satisfy your customers' needs.

A complement to other satisfaction indicators

CES is an important indicator, but it's not enough. If you really want to assess your customers' satisfaction, the NPS and CSAT seen above should not be overlooked. Together, these three KPIs can represent a real springboard for your loyalty strategy.

💡In fact, according to the American study from which the CES was born, shows that :

• 94% of customers who reported having made a lesser effort are ready to renew their purchase in the future,
• 88% are even willing to increase their spending with the company.

In this way, these indicators complement each other: the CES is used to assess loyalty in the short term, while the NPS is used to assess loyalty over the long term.

How is the Customer Effort Score measured?

The "average score" method

This is the simplest approach. The Customer Effort Score is measured as follows: simply average all the scores you've collected to obtain a score out of 7. The higher the score, the greater the effort.

👉 CUSTOMER EFFORT SCORE = Sum of scores/Number of scores

The "NPS-style calculation" method

This approach takes its name from the fact that, like NPS, customers are segmented into 3 distinct categories:

• Low effort: customers giving a score of 1 or 2
• Moderate effort: customers who give a score of 3 or 4
• High effort: customers giving a score of 5 to 7

👉 CUSTOMER EFFORT SCORE = % high effort - % low effort

The score obtained will be positioned between :

• -100 (minimum effort level)
• +100 (maximum effort level)

The only difference with the NPS is that, in the case of the CES, it is more interesting to obtain a low score.

The "Net Easy Score" method

The Net Easy Score method is based on the ease with which the customer was able to interact with the brand. The difference lies in the question asked: "How easy was it to get the help you wanted today? ".

Again on a scale of 7, this time the scores range from 1 (extremely easy) to 7 (extremely difficult). In the same way as the previous method, customers are divided into 3 categories:

• Easy: customers giving a score of 1 or 2
• Moderate: customers scoring 3 or 4
• Difficult: customers giving a score of 5 to 7

👉 NET EASY SCORE : % easy - % difficult

See all software Customer Service

What is a good CES score?

The CES score alone isn't going to benefit you or be relevant. There is no such thing as a good or bad score. In fact, the result obtained must be supported by an open-ended question that will enable you to take corrective action.

This open-ended question could be: "What can we improve to make your experience easier? The answer to this question will really help you identify the points that are hindering your customers' user experience.

The CES score itself will enable you to prioritize the most urgent steps:

• Priority stages are those with a score of 4, 5 or more;
• Secondary stages are those with a score of 2 or 3.

As you can see, the CES is an essential indicator in the evaluation of user experience, provided that :

• it is carried out regularly,
• it is supported by other KPIs,
• it is accompanied by open-ended questions.