Customer Effort Score: How to Measure Customer Effort Score

A customer effort score is a customer support metric that measures the amount of effort a customer puts forth as part of their user experience. Many companies regard it as a key benchmark in a customer journey with their brand. Most want to provide their customers with the maximum service while requiring a low level of effort on the customer's part.

Companies find their customer effort scores by conducting customer feedback surveys. Depending on how you write customer effort score survey questions, you may be seeking a high score or a low score. For instance, if a CES survey asked a customer how hard it was, on a scale of one to ten, to achieve their objective, a high score would indicate a high-effort experience. If the survey question asked how easy it was to achieve their objective on a scale of one to ten, a high score would indicate a low-effort experience.

To measure customer experience metrics—including a customer effort score (CES), customer satisfaction score (CSAT), and net promoter score (NPS)—most businesses turn to customer satisfaction surveys. Consider some common options for survey responses.

1. 1. The Likert scale: The Likert scale uses a series of pre-scripted responses that a customer may choose from. A prompt may read: "The company provided a very easy self-service experience." Respondents may then choose from one of the following options: “strongly agree,” “agree,” “somewhat agree,” “neutral/undecided,” “somewhat disagree,” “disagree,” “strongly disagree.”
2. 2. A ten-point scale: Another type of customer survey offers statements and asks respondents to rank their responses on a scale of one to ten. For instance, a prompt might ask: "How difficult was it to reach a member of our customer service team?" The survey then provides a ten-point scale, where one would correspond to the effortless experience of reaching customer support and a high number would suggest a very difficult process.
3. 3. A five-point scale: Some customer surveys ask respondents to reply to answers on a scale of one to five, or they provide five options. A prompt might read: "Your service interaction with our support team was..." and the available responses would be very “positive,” “somewhat positive,” “neither positive nor negative,” “somewhat negative,” and “very negative.”
4. 4. A three-point scale: Still another survey template limits the total number of responses to just three. Customers can rate their satisfaction by tapping a green smiling face, a yellow neutral face, or a red angry face.

CES scores offer advantages in measuring customer loyalty and long-term retention.

• Predictive of future purchases: Customers who experience low customer effort are typically more likely to repurchase from the same vendor.
• Easily actionable: A leadership team can use CES scores as real-time snapshots of their business and immediately work to relieve pain points in a customer journey.

CES scores have some limitations as well.

• Not always linked to long-term customer loyalty: Good customer effort scores do not always translate to loyal customers. Customer effort is only one factor in an overall customer experience, and the price and quality of the product or service may matter more than customer effort.
• Not always detailed enough: Whether you use a numerical scale or the Likert scale, you may find your customer surveys lack the needed details to improve the overall customer experience. You may wish you could ask follow-up questions but have no avenue to do so, which leads to guesswork as you try to decode why customer effort scores didn't meet the mark.

To ramp up your customer effort scores (or lower them if you're measuring difficulty), use the following tips.

1. 1. Enable self-service. If your self-service options are easy, customers won't become frustrated waiting on hold. Make self-service intuitive and easy so your customers can feel like they're making forward progress.
2. 2. Respond quickly. One way to ramp up CES scores and cut down on customer churn is to improve response times. Some major brands strive for all customer service inquiries to be answered within twenty-four hours; some go even faster. If a customer must wait days to hear back from your team, it impacts their overall effort and ramps up frustration.
3. 3. Make it easy to contact your company. Many successful retailers weave customer support integrations into all stages of the customer journey. If customers can contact customer service as they browse your website, view a product page, and get order confirmations, they’re more likely to have a positive experience. Try offering many communication touchpoints to help customers feel confident in their purchasing decisions.

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