The Free and Easy Customer Effort Score Tool
Measure and reduce customer effort. Improve your customer experience. Share results with team members. All with Melrose.
Table of Contents
- When to Use CES
- Free CES Tool
- How to Improve CES
- Tips for Building CES Surveys
- CES Formula and Example
- Bottom Line
Already familiar with CES? Join Melrose and send 1,000 surveys for free every month. No credit card required. Get started for free here.
When to Use CES
Customer effort score (CES) is a type of customer experience metric that measures how difficult it is for a customer to interact with your business. For example, how much effort was required to use a product or service, get their support ticket answered, or find the information that they needed from your knowledge base.
There are many useful CX metrics to track, including {NPS} and {CSAT}. CES fits into this toolkit by offering insights into where your experience may be lacking. For example, you may want to use CES specifically to better understand your onboarding process in particular -- whereas you might use NPS to assess the overall experience with the product as a whole.
At Melrose, we like to use the CES survey template to understand the effort associated with a new software feature or to evaluate our customer support. These are two core areas for us, as we never want the product to be difficult to use or for support to be too cumbersome.
Research from Qualtrics and ServiceNow found that 80% of customers have switched brands due to poor customer experience and 43% said they were “at least somewhat likely to switch brands” after a single negative customer service interaction (source). Given these findings, CES data can be used to gauge customer retention or customer churn.
Let’s dig into the details to learn more about online CES tools and how to deploy CES surveys to improve your customer experience.
Free CES Tool
Melrose is a free customer survey platform that offers a clean interface, useful survey templates, and a single dashboard to track results. It’s the online survey platform that you have been looking for. We offer a generous free plan with no credit card required to get started. Join Melrose and send 1,000 surveys for free every month.
How to Improve CES
According to research from Bain & Company, a 5% increase in customer retention rates increases profits by 25% or more. So it’s vital to make adjustments that decrease customer effort and increase satisfaction.
Here are a few tips on how to improve CES, based on the type of product/service that you offer.
Improve CES for Software Apps
- Smooth Onboarding Process: Ensure new users feel at ease by simplifying the app setup. Offer straightforward tutorials or interactive guides to help them get started hassle-free.
- Accessible Self-Service: Empower users to find answers independently with easily accessible FAQs and responsive chat support. By offering these resources within the app, users can resolve issues swiftly without the frustration of lengthy wait times.
- Efficient Feedback Channels: Make it effortless for users to report bugs and share feedback directly within the app interface. By streamlining these channels, users feel valued and engaged while helping the development team improve the app experience promptly.
Improve CES for Ecommerce Brands
- Effortless Shopping Journey: Make sure your website is a breeze to navigate, with products intuitively organized and easy to find. Clear menus and search functions can guide customers smoothly from browsing to checkout.
- Streamlined Returns and Exchanges: Simplify the process of returning or exchanging items by providing clear instructions and pre-paid return labels. By minimizing the effort required for these transactions, you can turn potential frustrations into positive experiences.
- Prompt and Personalized Support: Offer responsive customer service through channels like live chat or quick email responses. Providing timely assistance tailored to individual needs shows customers that you value their time and concerns, enhancing their overall experience with your brand.
Improve CES for Agencies and Service Providers
- Efficient Communication: Ensure clients can easily reach out for support through channels like a client portal or responsive email.
- Clear Processes: Simplify consulting by providing transparent guidelines and expectations upfront.
- Proactive Solutions: Anticipate issues and offer proactive recommendations to minimize client effort.
If you have a small company or startup, it could seem difficult to find ways to improve your CES. Here is a list of ways that you could outperform bigger, more well-funded companies.
Simplify Onboarding
Make your onboarding more straightforward. Provide clear instructions, step-by-step guides, and video tutorials. Use interactive elements like walk-throughs and tooltips to help people navigate through your product. If you have a service business, provide standard operating procedures (SOPs) and a PDF onboarding guide.
Offer Robust Support
Customer support is underappreciated. If you want to differentiate yourself from incumbents, look to provide helpful, multi-channel customer support. We suggest providing email, live chat, and a comprehensive self-help knowledge base.
Gather and Act on Feedback
Regularly collect feedback from your users through surveys, usability tests, and direct feedback forms. Use this data to make informed improvements to your product. Think about scheduling a recurring cadence (like once a quarter) to survey your entire user base or drill into details with a subset of your power users.
Provide Proactive Assistance
Instead of waiting for things to go wrong, be proactive and offer help at critical moments. For example, use in-app messaging for your software app.
If you sell a physical product, provide useful instructions and a QR code to a video tutorial. Think about problems that people will face -- such as including tools or batteries in your box -- so users don’t have the opportunity to get stuck or frustrated.
If you have an ecommerce store, look at offering more payment options. According to a recent study, “offering the three most popular payment methods in a given market can improve the conversion rate by up to 30%” (link).
Continuous Training and Updates
Training is another vital part of running your business that often gets underappreciated.
For employees, invest in training materials and guides so new employees can get up-to-speed and to ensure that best practices are used throughout your org.
For users, inform them of new features and updates so they are not caught off guard by design changes. Offer virtual webinars, guided tutorials, and other training materials to help them generate more value from your product or service.
Personalize the Experience
Tailor the user experience based on individual user behavior and preferences. Personalization can significantly reduce effort and improve satisfaction. Offer templates and workflows that are valuable based on things like industry, company size, or role.
How? Capture user information during onboarding and guide them through the most relevant parts of your product or service.
Monitor Metrics
Keep an eye on your CES and other related customer experience metrics regularly. Use analytics tools to track user behavior and identify areas where users face difficulties. This is where an online survey tool can be crucial.
Build metrics into your business, allowing employees to access metrics and for data to be shared across departments and teams.
Foster a Customer-Centric Culture
Encourage a company-wide focus on customer satisfaction. Ensure every team member understands the importance of making things easier for customers and is committed to continuous improvement.
It’s not just the job of a customer support agent. Everyone from the business owner to the first-line employee are influencing how seamless or difficult it is to interact with your brand.
Tips for Building CES Surveys
Here are a few tips to building useful, effective CES surveys. In short, you should keep them simple, use specific language, provide a balanced scale, send the survey when it is relevant, and follow up with open-ended questions to capture feedback.
Keep it Short and Simple: The key to a successful CES survey is simplicity. Keep the survey short and straightforward, focusing on a single question related to the ease of completing a specific task or interaction. This makes it easier for customers to respond quickly and accurately.
Use Clear and Specific Language: Ensure that the question in the survey is clear and easy to understand. Use specific language that relates directly to the customer's experience, such as "How easy was it to resolve your issue?" or "How effortless was it to complete your purchase?"
Provide a Balanced Scale: Use a balanced scale for responses that reflects the range of experiences customers may have. For example, a scale could range from "Very Easy" to "Very Difficult," with options in between like "Somewhat Easy" and "Neutral." This allows customers to provide nuanced feedback and avoids bias towards extreme responses.
Timing is Key: Consider the timing of the survey to capture feedback when it's most relevant. For example, you might send the survey immediately after a customer completes a transaction or interacts with customer support. This ensures that the experience is fresh in their mind and increases the likelihood of receiving accurate feedback.
Follow Up with Open-Ended Questions: In addition to the CES rating, consider including an open-ended question where customers can provide more detailed feedback about their experience. This allows customers to express any additional thoughts or suggestions they may have, providing valuable insights for improving the customer experience.
By following these tips, you can create CES surveys that effectively measure customer effort and provide actionable insights for enhancing the customer experience.
CES Formula and Example
Customer effort score is a survey on a scale of 1-7, with 1 being strongly disagree and 7 being strongly agree. Any response between 1-3 “disagrees” with your statement, response 4 is “neutral”, and responses 5-7 “agree” with your statement.
To calculate CES, you take the people who agree with you and compare that to the total responses for the survey. A higher CES score is better. The formula is provided below.
CES formula: (Sum of Agree / Total Responses) x 100
Here is an example to walk through the CES formula above using Acme Inc. Acme Inc sent a CES survey and had 12 respondents fall in the 1-3 category, 18 respondents fall in the 4 category, and 30 respondents fall in the 5-7 category.
CES Formula Example
- CES: (Sum of Agree / Total Responses) x 100
- CES: (30 / 60) x 100
- CES: 0.50 x 100
- CES: 50
Calculating CES manually is pretty cool, but do you want to do it in an automated way? Sign up for Melrose and send 1,000 surveys for free every month. No credit card required.
Bottom Line
CES is a useful survey for capturing how easy or difficult it is for customers to engage with your brand. Customer effort score is useful alongside other customer experience metrics, including Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Customer Satisfaction (CSAT).
Businesses of all kinds want to improve their CES in order to boost customer loyalty and improve profits. Business leaders can improve CES by enhancing the user interface, offering great customer support, providing proactive assistance, and fostering a customer-centric culture.
An online customer experience platform is vital for monitoring CES, understanding key trends, and capturing actionable insights. Brands of all sizes use Melrose as their trusted tool. Get started by using our CES survey template and sharing your survey link. It’s that easy.