What is a Customer Effort Score?
A metric that gauges how much effort your customers need to exert to interact with your company, your customer effort score (CES) provides extremely valuable insights.
A low CES means a low level of effort for your customers—and a higher chance of customer satisfaction and brand loyalty.
How is a Customer Effort Score Calculated?
Calculating your CES requires customers to answer a simple question and provide a rating based on their interaction with your brand.
Typically, the CES question is framed like this: “On a scale from 1 (very easy) to 7 (very difficult), how easy was it for you to resolve your issue today?” From there, collect responses and then find the average of the responses to determine your CES score.
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Here’s how it works:
Imagine you’ve just launched a support survey, and your responses are:
- 3 responses of “2” (low effort)
- 1 response of “4” (moderate effort)
- 1 response of “6” (high effort)
To find your CES, average these responses.
(2 + 2 + 2 + 4 + 6) ÷ 5 = 3.2
With a CES of 3.2, you may decide there are points in your customer journey where your customers are exerting more effort than they'd like. That’s valuable info, and the data you need to understand your customer’s experience and make improvements where necessary.
Why is Customer Effort Score Important?
CES is like a crystal ball for your customer service strategy, revealing how easy (or difficult) it is for your customers to interact with your brand. A low CES score indicates that your customers are breezing through their interactions with minimal effort. On the flip side, a high CES unveils the presence of friction, such as slow responses or confusing processes, that are causing your customers to work too hard.
The less effort your customers have to exert, the more likely they are to stick around. A satisfied customer is a loyal customer—and loyal customers are worth their weight in gold (er, limes?)!
Interpreting Your Customer Effort Score
Once you have your CES, it’s time to interpret those numbers. Lower scores are typically better, indicating that your customers experienced smooth sailing when interacting with your business.
Here’s a quick guideline for interpreting your CES results:
- 1-2: Excellent! Customers found the experience to be effortless.
- 3-4: Pretty good, but there’s room for improvement.
- 5-6: Uh-oh! Customers felt the process was somewhat difficult.
- 7: Red alert! Customers encountered a significant barrier or frustration.
The good news is that whatever your score, you now have a roadmap for improving (or maintaining!) your processes based on these insights!
Using CES Surveys to Improve Customer Experience
Ready to transform your customers’ experiences? The feedback you collect can be used to identify where friction exists in your customer journey. By pinpointing the roadblocks, you can act on the insights from your CES to streamline processes, enhance support systems, and ultimately create a more enjoyable experience for your customers.
Customers will thank you for it—and they may even reward you with a little more loyalty!
Best Practices for Designing Effective CES Surveys
When it comes to CES surveys, simplicity is key! Here are a few best practices to keep in mind:
Remember, feedback is a treasure trove of zesty insights waiting to be unlocked! By incorporating these best practices into your CES survey, you’ll get the most accurate and helpful results possible. Ultimately, this will help you improve your customer experience or keep it at its best.
Let’s Get Started!
With LimeSurvey’s free CES Calculator, you’ll be well on your way to crafting an experience that’s tangy, fresh, and utterly delightful for your customers. So, what are you waiting for? Dive in and start measuring the effort today—life’s too short for anything less than a stellar customer experience!
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