Customer Effort Score (CES)

Introduction

In our era, customers have become far more aware than ever before, thanks to the variety of their experiences with many different service and product providers. Their expectations have risen, and their tendency to file complaints has grown compared to the past. Alongside this evolution in the customer came an evolution in the metrics used to predict their loyalty and their future behavior. One of the newest directions in winning customer loyalty, drawn from some recent research, was to reduce the effort customers expend — within the course of a given process that involves one or several steps — in order to reach a particular goal, such as obtaining a certain product or service.

My article today is about one of the loyalty metrics that aims to measure the effort a customer expends to reach a particular goal, across multiple touchpoints within the customer journey and through various service channels. We cannot reduce effort unless we measure it first. So it is a question concerned with understanding how the customer feels about the effort they put into doing a particular thing. The inventors of this metric found a strong statistical correlation between it and customers who will deal with the company again, as well as between it and customers who will increase the volume of their dealings or spending with that company. The same held true for the fact that these customers, who expended little effort in any given process, said they would speak about the company positively. Because all of these behaviors are tied primarily to loyalty, this metric was classified as one of the metrics distinguished by their ability to predict customer loyalty — as shown on the cover image — outperforming Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) as well as the famous Net Promoter Score (NPS).

A Short Story

A few days before writing this article, I went through a very bad experience when I renewed my internet subscription with one of the service providers. The first reason for my displeasure was that the provider cut off the service without any prior notice or warning. Where did I get the assumption that a provider should alert its customer that their subscription is about to expire? From other experiences, of course. In short, I was supposed to pay the renewal fee through the SADAD payment service and then the service would be restored. But what actually happened was that I paid the amount due through the SADAD electronic payment service, and the amount was not registered in my account with the provider. So I was asked to bring an official payment receipt from the bank, then hand it over to one of the provider’s branches, then the branch employee would file an objection, then the amount was registered — but the service still did not come back. So I had to go back to the provider’s page and request the renewal again, as they instructed, then I had to remove the SIM card from the modem, put it in a phone, make any call, then return the SIM card to the modem… all this hardship just to renew a subscription!! I filed a complaint with the Communications Authority and resolved that this dealing would be my last with this provider, because the journey was supposed to be, in short: pay the fee and then activate the service — so why all this trouble?

I told my story to illustrate that many companies do not examine their customers’ experiences closely. Offering an electronic payment service should come paired with an experience for it, and with making sure it works well — or else it should not be offered in the first place.

How the Metric Works

This metric consists of a single main question posed to the customer after their service is complete. The metric’s result helps decision-makers know whether their company is delivering a smooth, easy experience. And since the metric targets specific processes, it makes the matter of discovering the obstacles a customer faces along the journey of their experience an easy one — whereas other metrics gave an assessment of the overall picture without clarifying where the flaws lie, as this metric does.

This metric is called:

Customer Effort Score (CES) | مؤشر جهد العميل

The conversation about this metric first began in an article titled

Stop Delighting Your Customers

published in Harvard Business Review in 2010. The article delved into benchmarking metrics related to evaluating customers’ interactions with call centers, and it claimed that the effort expended by the customer is a key indicator of their loyalty, and that it is better at predicting customer loyalty than the other metrics — Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) and Net Promoter Score (NPS). The article also touched on how customers’ desire to get easier, faster service is the cornerstone in deciding whether or not to deal with a given service provider. And the article focuses on the importance of this metric for organizations that offer electronic self-service channels, whose applications have become widespread recently in order to cut costs.

How the Question Is Asked

This metric had two versions. Even though they stopped using the old version, there is nothing wrong with the reader being informed and knowing the old form of this metric and the new form, and the reason that drove the metric’s inventors to introduce a new version of the question.

The old version of the question

If you are well-versed in survey design, you will notice a problem in the scale above — specifically in the two poles of the scale. Usually the written description for point one on the scale is negative and point five is positive, but in this scale it was the reverse, which led to problems with respondents understanding the scale, as the force of habit got the better of them. The reader will say it is simple — let us reverse the descriptions of the two poles and that is that… Yes, that is correct, but that was not the only problem that pushed the metric’s inventors to change it. In fact, the word “effort” also presented difficulties of understanding in some cultures when it was translated into their local language. And rather than going on at length, let me show you the improved version of this metric.

The new version of the question

Of course, from the standpoint of the science of survey design, the new scale is much better than its predecessor in terms of naming the poles, as well as in being made up of seven points, which ensures a more varied distribution of answers.

It is also important to add an open question after the scale, to ask about the reason for choosing a particular point on the scale.

From the seven-point scale above, what is called the Net Easy Score is calculated through the following equation: those who found the experience difficult — the respondents who answered points one, two, and three — subtracted from those who found the experience easy — the respondents who answered point six or seven.

How Effective the Metric Is

If your company wants to use it, its culture must be centered around its customers. To use the metric and then do nothing about the results is a waste of time, money, and effort.

I have read many articles, some of which support this metric’s effectiveness and some of which criticize the exaggeration around it — just like all the other metrics. Still, there is agreement that this metric is the best for measuring the performance of call centers and phone-based technical support, and that it is better than Net Promoter Score (NPS) when it comes to getting into the details of services — while the latter remains better used at the overall level.

I previously criticized Net Promoter Score (NPS) in an earlier article, noting that the fact an article about it appeared in Harvard Business Review is not enough to endorse it; the same thing applies here to this metric. The burden of proof lies on the one who makes the claim, but experience is the best evidence. My professional opinion is that no company should rely on a single metric to study its customers’ loyalty and to predict expected income levels, or churn rates, or the loss or gain of market share. What spread the reputation of Net Promoter Score (NPS) was its simplicity, and this metric we are discussing today is simple too, and its use is starting to spread. Most companies want something easier, and decision-makers, too, want the simplest and shortest paths to making their decisions. In my personal opinion, having a department to analyze and study customer experiences is very important — as important as finding and applying methodologies to measure these experiences — because this department will lead the change and shift the culture of the organization’s members, and analyze every experience in tedious detail.

Conclusion

The claims and debates will continue around these various metrics and the other specialized ones that global companies offer — some of them claims built on purely commercial ambitions, and others documented and recommended by several academic bodies. The takeaway of this article, and of several earlier ones, is that there is no single magic metric that can be relied upon entirely. In the coming years many new metrics will appear, and the competition between them will go on.

And with God lies the guidance to the right path.