Online businesses, which are increasing daily, have snowballed due to the pandemic. That has led to competition. Although many companies prioritize customer satisfaction, customers seek a service that can solve customer problems with minimum effort. Businesses who are aware of this fact measure CES and proceed accordingly. So, what is the customer effort score?
About Customer Effort Score
Customer effort score originates from the “Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers” article by Harvard Business Review in 2010. It’s also known as “CES.” It’s a service score that measures the effort of customers to reach your business. For example, these interactions can be how much effort the customer makes to use the product or service and how easily they find a solution when they have a problem with the product or service.
If customers spend too much time and effort to reach a service, their motivation reduces. So, they won’t have sufficient motivation to use the business again. This situation can take loyal customers away from a company since customers can share their poor experiences with the brand through social media platforms. That also affects other customers. As a result, customers switch to a business that provides easier service and solves problems.
What Is the Importance of Customer Effort Score (CES) for Businesses?
Determining the customer effort score and acting accordingly will improve your customer’s experience and help your business develop long-term customer relationships.
The most significant benefit of CES measurement is its high predictive power. According to the research of Harvard Business Review (HBR), 94% of customers who reported low-effort interactions with a company claimed that they’d buy again. In addition, 88% of these same consumers said they’d increase their spending, supporting the importance of CES.
It also shows that CES can give you an idea of how likely your customers are to refer your brand to others and how they’ll talk about it.
Customers don’t forget a negative experience even if they don’t exaggerate a positive one. That means that poor service can have a ripple effect, affecting other customers. According to the same Harvard Business Review research, 23% of customers who have a positive service engagement tell more people about it, compared to 48% of customers who have a negative experience.
How to Calculate and Evaluate Customer Effort Score?
We can also define customer effort score as customer workforce score. A customer’s engagement with your business is measured through surveys. These surveys measure how easily they can resolve an issue with customer support, make a purchase or sign up for a trial.
Businesses aware of the power of customer thoughts conduct surveys to measure customer effort scores. This way, companies can evaluate their situations and improve themselves.
These surveys usually collect updated data as a result of customer interactions. They ask customers to rate the level of effort they put into their experience with a brand from “Very Difficult to Very Easy.” It determines a customer’s loyalty metric by evaluating them on a 3, 5, or 7-point scale. Generally, a CES of more than 5 is accepted as good. However, 5 and less are not considered good scores.
The customer effort score (CES) is calculated with the following formula:
Customer Effort Score = Sum of the total responses ÷ Number of responses
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