Customer Effort Score (CES)
Customer Effort Score
A metric that measures how much effort a customer had to exert to get their issue resolved, question answered, or transaction completed, based on the principle that reducing effort increases loyalty.
In-Depth Explanation
Customer Effort Score (CES) measures the ease of a customer's experience with a company. Research by the Corporate Executive Board (now Gartner) found that reducing customer effort is a stronger predictor of loyalty than customer satisfaction or delight.
CES measurement:
- Question format: "How easy was it to [get your issue resolved/complete your purchase/etc.]?" rated on a 1-7 scale
- Calculation: Average score across all responses, or percentage giving high-effort ratings
- Timing: Immediately after a specific interaction or transaction
The effort-loyalty connection:
- 96% of customers who report high effort become disloyal
- Low-effort experiences drive 94% repurchase intent
- Reducing effort is more effective than "delighting" customers
- Effort reduction directly reduces support costs
Sources of customer effort:
- Channel switching: Having to use multiple channels to resolve one issue
- Repeat contacts: Having to contact the company multiple times
- Transfers: Being passed between agents or departments
- Repeating information: Explaining the issue multiple times
- Generic service: Receiving cookie-cutter responses rather than personalised help
- Policy friction: Rigid policies that create unnecessary obstacles
Reducing customer effort:
- Anticipate customer needs and proactively address issues
- Resolve issues on first contact (improve FCR)
- Reduce channel switching by resolving issues in the customer's preferred channel
- Empower agents to make decisions without escalation
- Build effective self-service options
- Reduce the number of steps in common processes
- Pass context between agents so customers do not repeat themselves
CES vs CSAT and NPS:
- CES: Measures effort (ease of experience) - best predictor of loyalty
- CSAT: Measures satisfaction (how happy) - captures emotional response
- NPS: Measures advocacy (willingness to recommend) - captures overall relationship
Using all three together provides a comprehensive view of customer experience.
Business Context
Reducing customer effort is the most effective way to improve loyalty and reduce churn. Customers do not want to be delighted - they want their problems solved easily.
How Clever Ops Uses This
Clever Ops helps Australian businesses reduce customer effort by streamlining processes, implementing self-service solutions, and building systems that provide agents with complete customer context. We measure and track CES to ensure our solutions genuinely make things easier for customers.
Example Use Case
"After implementing a single sign-on customer portal that consolidates account management, support, and billing, a company sees its CES improve from 4.2 to 5.8 on a 7-point scale."