Measuring Customer Effort—Why It Matters and 5 Ways To Reduce It

A frustrated man on the phone while looking at his laptop with an abstract negative customer experience gauge overlaid

Think about the last time you had an easy, stress-free customer experience. A new smartphone was mailed to your home to self-activate and it automatically synced your contacts, apps, images, and more. You returned a product with just a few taps on an app and left the package on your front porch for pickup.

Contrast that with a typical Tier 1 broadband support experience, with its long hold times, multiple transfers, difficulty troubleshooting, etc.

Connecting Customer Effort and Churn

Companies succeed when they create memorable moments and remove friction at every step. Every extra step adds frustration, and, when subscribers feel like it’s too hard to get what they need, they churn.

That’s where a Customer Effort Score (CES) comes in. How difficult was it for the customer to complete their desired action? Unlike Net Promoter Score^SM (NPS^®) or Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), CES focuses on ease of experience, measuring how simple (or frustrating) it is for subscribers to get what they need.

Broadband service providers (BSPs) often prioritize NPS or CSAT over CES, assuming satisfaction reflects ease of service. But subscribers can be happy with a support outcome while still being frustrated by the effort it took to get there. Leaning into CES will reflect positively in your NPS.

Identifying High-Effort Customer Interactions

CES is also important in your evolutionary journey to become a broadband experience provider (BXP). You cannot deliver improved experiences if you don’t consider how to measure them. However, we know that data siloed across touchpoints means CES isn’t easy to implement—complicating the tracking of customer effort throughout the subscriber journey.

Instead, a good first step is to focus on awareness—to get every team to start thinking about the customer effort. With this mindset in place, map out the memorable moments in your customer journey and consider the proxy for collecting data to measure the customer’s effort during each step.

For example, you can spot friction by examining:

How much effort is required by the customer during installation? A quick post-install survey can surface hidden pain points.
How difficult is it to file a support ticket? Utilize your website analytics or consider a small test group with real users—how many clicks does it take?
How often do subscribers have to repeat themselves? If they’re relaying the same issue across multiple touchpoints, it’s a problem.

5 Ways To Deliver Effortless Experiences

Reducing effort isn’t just about making subscribers happy; it’s about creating a smooth support experience so they never have to think about it. Here are five ways you can intentionally focus on customer effort by reducing friction and gain insight into opportunities for improvemen.

Increase first call resolution. Ensure support teams have end-to-end visibility of the subscriber experience to solve problems quickly in one call.
Streamline self-service. Invest in intuitive, easy-to-use apps and online tools so subscribers can handle basic tasks themselves—reducing calls to support.
Minimize cold handoffs. Ensure seamless handoffs to other teams—and ensure that everyone has the same information—so subscribers don’t have to repeat themselves.
Measure effort directly. The only way to improve a metric is to set a baseline. Ask subscribers, “How easy was it to resolve your issue today?”
Follow up proactively. A simple check-in after a service interaction, such as a quick email or phone survey, builds trust and prevents future frustration.

Identify your memorable moments, map out proxies to collect information on the customer effort, and then take steps to reduce the effort—or, better yet, make it effortless—and you will build lasting customer loyalty.

Want to create effortless subscriber experiences? Schedule a consult with Calix Business Insights today.

Net Promoter^®, NPS^®, NPS Prism^®, and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., Satmetrix Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld. Net Promoter Score℠ and Net Promoter System℠ are service marks of Bain & Company, Inc., Satmetrix Systems, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.