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 optimise and redefine the user experience in order to retain their customers and convert their prospects.

To improve the customer experience, these same organisations need to get to know their customers better, and to do this they use a key indicator: the Customer Effort Score (CES).

Officially introduced in 2010, the CES has proved to be a real driver of customer loyalty. As well as understanding user 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 streamlining your customer journey and building customer loyalty .

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What is the Customer Effort Score (CES)?

Definition

The Customer Effort Score (CES) is an effective indicator for measuring your customer satisfaction, based on 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 assess the effort a customer has had to make during their purchasing journey. So the lower the level of effort, the more satisfied a customer will be and the more likely they will be to become a loyal customer.

It measures the effort involved in the various stages of the customer journey, so it is 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.

The differences between NPS and CSAT

CSAT

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) is the oldest indicator and the one most often used by companies. It measures the level of customer satisfaction and experience in relation to a specific element. Each company is free to define the 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 and also 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 they each have a very specific purpose, which sets them apart:

• The CSAT measures customer satisfaction at a very specific point in the purchasing process, or in the consumer experience more generally.
• The NPS measures the general level 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 the Customer Effort Score?

A genuine loyalty lever

Setting up a CES survey on a regular basis will enable you to build long-term customer loyalty. Through the various responses you collect, you can improve your service/product, better meet the expectations of your customers and prospects and guarantee their satisfaction.

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

Safer operational decisions

Operational decisions, despite their short-term vision, need to be defined and implemented correctly. The CES will enable you to understand your customers better and guarantee the success of your marketing actions, as it will identify any flaws in your customer/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

The CES is an important indicator, but it's not enough. If you really want to assess your customers' satisfaction, you mustn't neglect NPS and CSAT, as we saw earlier. These three KPIs together can represent a real springboard for your loyalty strategy.

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

• 94% of customers who reported having made a lesser effort are prepared to repeat their purchase in the future,
• 88% of them are even prepared to increase their expenditure with the company.

These indicators are therefore complementary: the CES is used to assess loyalty over 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: you simply average all the scores you have 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 customers are segmented into 3 distinct categories in the same way as the NPS:

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

👉 NET EASY SCORE : % easy - % difficult

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What is a good CES score?

The CES score alone is not 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 backed up by an open 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 to identify the points that are hindering your customers' user experience.

The CES score itself will enable you to prioritise the most urgent issues:

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

As you can see, the CES is an essential indicator for evaluating the user experience, provided that :

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