Why does CES matter? It matters because effort turns out to be a better indicator of customer loyalty than customer happiness or delight. And the more loyal a customer is, the more likely they are to give you referrals, and the less likely they are to churn. Reducing customer effort is a big deal because when customers have an issue and need to resolve it, out of the gate they are four times more likely to become disloyal. So the real opportunity is to avoid creating disloyal customers who speak negatively about your product and your brand. Gartner research has shown that when you give customers a low-effort experience, only 9% of them become disloyal, compared to 96% who become more disloyal in a high-effort experience.
And as an added bonus, reducing the effort your customers need to exert to accomplish their task often reduces your own cost of supporting or servicing customers. In general, use this metric after a specific interaction a customer has with your company.
While surveying customers, provide a statement, not a question, along with a 5-point Likert scale where 5 is Extremely easy and 1 is Not at all easy. This survey methodology helps uncover points of friction in specific customer interactions, can provide actionable insight if a follow up question is used, and is 40% more accurate at predicting customer loyalty as opposed to Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), according to Gartner research. However, this methodology may score some customers low based on one interaction, which may not be reflective of the health of the overall relationship. It can also be difficult to segment by customer.
Key considerations for successful surveys include optimizing for mobile, triggering surveys automatically, keeping the questions simple, and acting on the results internally and with clients.
A sample survey question might be structured as follows:
Based on your most recent experience with <Company>, please indicate how easy it was to accomplish your goal. Follow this question up with options on a scale such as:
- Extremely easy
- Very easy
- Somewhat easy
- Not very easy
- Not at all easy
- Decline to answer
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