Customer Effort Score Use Cases

The Customer Effort Score can be used in many touchpoints along the buyer journey. All CSAT questions, for example,can be replaced by CES questions.

Below are a few common use cases:

Customer Support/Service

Right after a support rep closes an issue or ticket, the customer at the other end of the interaction is prompted to answer the CES question.

Since the goal of CES is to create effortless experiences, the survey experience also needs to be as frictionless as possible. Companies might be tempted to ask several questions or poll the same customer over and over again. But CES surveys shouldn’t be overly complicated or time-consuming. Smart sampling rules and a short questionnaire—e.g., one open-ended question asked after the CES survey is completed in order to collect insights behind the score—might be the sweet spot for a lightweight customer effort feedback program.

In this customer service use case, CES would typically substitute the more standard CSAT question. But it could also supplement a CSAT program. Depending on the volume of cases a service team handles, the two programs can run simultaneously, with some customers receiving the CSAT question and others the CES question.

E-commerce Check-Out

Another popular time to measure customer effort is right at checkout.

On an e-commerce site, triggering an in-app CES survey at checkout within the app might help uncover points of friction. Using in-app surveys allows companies to collect fresh, contextual feedback.

Remember, it’s important not to overdo it by sampling customers and transactions repeatedly in order to reach the right amount of insights to improve business processes and the quality of service. Asking too many questions too often can compromise the customer experience.

Customer Onboarding

Customer onboarding is often the first step post sale. The company’s product might require a little bit of set up, training and on-ramping before it can fulfill the job it was originally hired to do.

Customer onboarding, as the name implies, is designed to make sure customers are fully capable of operating products in a way that meets their needs. Given today’s remarkably short attention span, the faster, and easier it is for the customer to understand and start using the product, the better.

A Customer Effort Score is an ideal metric for this touchpoint in the buyer journey. It’s an excellent barometer for how the company processes, the product user experience and the customer success team come together to help the customer realize the value he or she expected before the purchase was made.