Category: Experts Talk

If your daily routine revolves around CX metrics, chances are you have already come across CES or Customer Effort Score. You also probably know that it’s quite important for customer loyalty, but you haven’t incorporated it in your strategy yet. So, where does one start with CES?

What is Customer Effort Score (CES)?

 

CES is a fairly recent CX metric that, along with NPS (Net Promoter Score) and CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score), can provide insights on customers’ satisfaction and the quality of their relationship with a brand/store. 

The question used to measure CES is along the lines of “How easy was it for you to (e.g. complete your transaction)?” An index from 1 to 5 or from 1 to 7 (1 standing for “very difficult” and 5 or 7 for “very easy”) that measures the effort that customers put into a transaction/interaction with a company. Answers between 5 and 7 are considered a good CES, although an industry benchmark has not been set yet.

So, CES has emerged to shine a light on how easy it is for customers to get involved with a brand or a store. The origins of CES can be traced back to 2010 and a Harvard Business Review article named “Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers”. Its writers presented a case against the established notion that delight leads to loyalty. Their conclusion? The easiest way to increase customer loyalty is not through “wowing your customers,” but rather through making it easier for them to get their job done.

What is the difference between CES and CSAT?

 

CSAT has evolved to serve as the primary metric for companies that wish to evaluate their customer experience. But what happens when we talk about customer loyalty? Harvard Business Review research has shown that CES provides more accurate future loyalty predictions that CSAT. This is due to the fact that CSAT measures customer satisfaction for a specific interaction/transaction, while CES paints a more comprehensive picture of a customer’s relationship with a brand/store. 

But let’s take a look at the numbers… According to Gartner, 96% of customers that report high effort experiences become disloyal, compared to 9% of customers with low effort experiences.

Impressive as these numbers may be, that does not mean that CES has come to take other metrics’ place! On the contrary, metrics synergy is the key to bringing more value to overall CX measuring. 

And even though most CX experts see CES as highly valuable in measuring customer service departments’ performance, it has also been proven effective in the self-service sector, where we can also place the process of online shopping.

What are the Pros & Cons of CES?

 

As is the case with every kind of metric or indicator, CES comes with its own set of pros and cons:

What is the best way to measure CES? 

 

CES may be a relatively fresh metric, but the debate on its measuring has been raging! According to the Corporate Executive Board (CEB) consulting firm, when a client moves from 1 to 5 on the CES index, his loyalty is increased by 22%. But if a customer moves from 5 to 7 on the index, then the loyalty increase is estimated at just 2%. These numbers naturally lead to an important question: do you need to measure averages or study the answers’ distribution when it comes to CES?

And the answer is… distributions, not just averages! Only by factoring both into your analysis, can you be in a position to estimate whether your customers have a difficult or an effortless experience and identify customer segments that you need to focus your energy on, in the hopes of making their interaction with your brand easier.

Measuring CES… in action!

 

Taking into account your objectives and the type of feedback that you wish to collect, maybe it’s time to consider activating CES and measure your customers’ effort, whether it concerns the navigation of your website/e-shop, the process of completing their transactions or how easy it is for them to use your services/products. Check out how L’Artigiano successfully took advantage of this metric using e-satisfaction’s tools for some much-needed CES inspiration!

Questionnaires are all set and running, but your customers’ response is not what you would call enthusiastic? Time to get to the root of the problem and collect the feedback that you crave!

 

Before we delve into the practices that have been proven to increase response rate, it’s important to talk a little about what an average response rate is. So, let’s start from the basics and work our way from there.

What is Response Rate?

 

When you run surveys, the response rate is simply the percentage of people who answered your questions. To calculate it, the number of the people who answered needs to be divided by the number of people that you sent your survey. Then, you multiply the result by 100 to get the percentage.

A considerable response rate is important, because a higher number of answers means more reliable metrics and more actionable feedback.

What is the average Response Rate?

 

The average response rate is a rather relative number that ranges across industries and depends on a list of factors, one of them being the type of survey used (e-mail, online or in-app surveys). 

From a data analysis that e-satisfaction.com performed, we came up with two interesting figures:

• Estimated Response Rate on Check Out Surveys: 20%
• Estimated Response Rate on After Sales Surveys: 10%

Now, according to international CX reports, the highest expected Response Rate is estimated at 23-25%, while 10%-20% Response Rates are classified as reasonable. 

Of course, averages are meant to be surpassed… Check out how L’Artigiano achieved a 39% Response Rate with the help of e-satisfaction.com!

What can you do to boost your Response Rate?

 

If your response rate is on the low side, then you need to rethink your approach, survey-wise. Whether you have set up online or e-mail questionnaires, there are a number of ways to tweak, improve them and reap the benefits. 

What follows is a list of best practices that will set you on the right path towards a higher response rate:

• Mention the objective of your survey! Customers are more willing to provide answers when they know the reason you’re asking them questions in the first place and what it means for them. If you also add the estimated time they will need to complete the survey, then you are setting an inviting atmosphere that leads to more respondents. 

• Keep the whole affair short and to-the-point! Time is the most precious commodity nowadays and people don’t like to spend it on answering surveys that seem to go on forever. Don’t forget that if you want to delve deeper and ask further questions, you always send them a follow-up questionnaire.

• Used branded questionnaires! They contribute to a higher response rate since they draw customers’ attention and show that you went the extra mile and did not use a generic template. 

• Keep your tone of voice consistent! If your brand uses a friendly or relaxed tone to communicate with your audience in all of its assets, you don’t want your surveys to come out as flat or uninspired. You can keep your spark and wit, but make sure that your message is clear.

• Optimize for mobile! OK, this one is practically a no-brainer and it should be on the top of your list when it comes to improving your surveys. Almost 50% of customers use their smartphones for online purchases and web browsing. Wouldn’t it be a shame if you lose their precious answers because they find it difficult to answer your questionnaires through their mobile devices?

• Check your frequency! Nobody likes a spammer and you should be careful about how often you reach out to your customers. They need to feel that you care about their opinion and not that you are begging for it.

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Always keep in mind that a higher response rate is not something that will happen overnight. You need to try different things, measure their impact and keep adjusting and tweaking until you reach that sweet spot with your audience, the one where they eagerly share their feedback with you.

And it always helps if you use a platform like e-satisfaction.com, that allows you to streamline the whole process: from the set up of a questionnaire to the ways with which it can yield results!

 

One of the most persistent myths surrounding customer engagement is that to do it properly and generate results, one should be prepared to spend a lot of money. This myth is dangerous, not only because it deters a lot of companies from engaging with their customers, but it also strips away the whole process of customer engagement from one of its most essential aspects: creativity!

Luckily for you, the reality couldn’t be farther from this myth! Of course there are a lot of customer engagement tools and strategies out there that are designed to cater to the needs of profitable companies, although that doesn’t mean that a smaller or medium-sized business or brand cannot find ways to boost their levels of engagement while maintaining a low cost.

If you start your customer engagement efforts with a clear objective, there are lots of ways and methods to be creative and get your customers to interact with you and provide you with valuable feedback.

Let’s have a look at 5 simple cost-effective methods that can help you engage your audience in a meaningful way!

1. Interact with your social media followers!

We assume that you are already using social media to promote your brand and your products. Aside from scrolling, you know what else people love to do on social? They like to talk, share their experiences with your products and ask questions! Ignoring them is, simply put, a customer engagement sin. Monitor and answer their comments and DMs, use posts as a means to ask them how they feel about your company and manage complaints in a timely fashion. 33% of customers that participated in a survey conducted by Statista claimed that they don’t expect any response at all on the complaints they post on brands’ social media accounts. Imagine their surprise when you get to be the one that proves them wrong and start having conversations with your fans and followers.

2. Make a memorable first impression!

Good reviews can make your day, but they can also be used to make people more eager to engage with you! Use them as testimonials on your homepage or share them in the form of social media posts. There is no need to be coy when it comes to the kind words that customers have for your brand. Not only they serve as an encouragement for others to do the same and share their positive experiences, it also creates a first impression that makes new customers feel at ease and recognize you as a brand that listens to its audience.

3. Robots are cool, but you shouldn’t talk like them!

Take a minute to assess your brand’s overall tone of voice… How do you think your customer feels when reading your content or talking to you? Does he/she feel that there is a human behind the words or a robot? Sure, robots are cool, but they don’t excel at customer engagement (yet!). Customers love brands that interact with them using a friendly, human voice and don’t appreciate autoresponses, bland thank you pages and generic survey questions. A few tweaks that make your voice more humane can go a long way to boosting your engagement!

4. Personalize your communication, not just for personalization’s sake!

Before you protest that personalization is time-comsumming and costly, let us clarify one thing: personalization is not just a customer experience buzzword that brands need to spend a ton of money on in order to get results. Personalization is a process that comes naturally when you truly know your customers. So before you start implementing it, ask yourself if you are sure what your customers want to hear from you in order to feel unique and valuable. If you don’t feel so confident, take a step back, use the data at your disposal or focus your energy and budget on generating feedback. If you do that, then personalization will not only be more targeted and successful, it will also prove to be more cost-effective than you initially had in mind.

5. Ask the right questions at the right time!

Running surveys is a great way to engage with your website’s visitors and your customers! However, the level of their engagement depends on you recognizing when, where and what to ask them. People who browse a website don’t want their experience to be disturbed by a huge pop-up window and check-out questionnaires shouldn’t look like they will take a lot of their precious time. Put yourself in their shoes and rethink your approach. Be timely and friendly and soon you will see that people will be more willing to share their feedback.

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Creativity, authenticity and out-of-the-box thinking… These are your weapons when it comes to enhancing your customer engagement. And a tool that collects customer feedback across all stages of your buyer’s journey will sure come in handy! e-satisfaction.com offers you a variety of features that help you meaningfully engage with your customers, get inside their minds and take actions that will grow your revenue!

 

 

How likely is it that you would recommend our company to a friend or a colleague?” This is the simple question that made NPS (Net Promoter Score) an essential customer loyalty metric that online retailers swear by. And chances are that you are probably already using it to gather valuable customer feedback. But are you using it to its full advantage?

There are plenty of reasons why NPS is a must-have metric for every e-shop, since it basically works as a key to your customers’ minds, revealing their opinion on your brand and/or products and whether they have a good word to say to others about you. It works as a tool for you to segment your audience into Promoters, Passives and Detractors, as well as a way to gauge your potential word of mouth (WOM).

And it all starts with a simple question:

What more can I get from NPS Surveys?

Now, let’s assume that you have already posed this classic question to a number of your customers and gathered a fair amount of data. Well, data are good, but they are as good as what you make of them. That being said, now is probably the time to step up your NPS game, let your customers speak their mind and engage them in a meaningful way. And you can set the whole thing in motion by following four steps.

1. Gather qualitative feedback using open-ended questions

Posing the appropriate open-ended question to the appropriate customer segment is the step forward that will help you shed more light on what your customers actually like or don’t like about your brand/product and use your findings to grow your business.

The classic NPS question is score-based, which means that it gives you quantitative data. Open-ended questions give you the chance to combine quantitative with qualitative feedback. Simply put, you ask your customers a question that can be answered in detail by them typing their answers in a text box. And since you probably have a fair knowledge of your Promoters, Passives and Detractors, you can use customized questions for each segment. Here are three examples to get you started:

• Promoters: What’s your favorite part about our product/service?
• Passives: What would make you love us?
• Detractors: What could we do to improve your experience?

2. Customize your Thank You messages

A sincere thank you message can go a long way towards delighting your most loyal customers, creating a spark in your passives and even convincing your detractors that you are not ignoring their opinions. The word again is “personalization’. Create tailor-made thank you messages and put them at the end of your NPS surveys to express your gratitude towards your customers in a way that will address their own sentiments and will show them how much you value them.

3. Use the feedback to create testimonials

Learning the reasons why your customers like your brand and products is not just a great marketing asset but also a source of ready-to-use testimonials that you can strategically use in your website for customer proof. After all, 72% of consumers say positive testimonials and reviews increase their trust in a business, according to a report by Big Commerce.

4. Share your NPS surveys’ findings with your teams

Gathering feedback is important, but what is feedback’s purpose if it doesn’t reach the people that will work to improve it? The benefits of feedback distribution cannot be stressed enough and a way to think of it is as a fuel that will power your employees to think more creatively, make better decisions, prioritize and fix any detected issues and offer them a better understanding of customer sentiment.

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As you have probably realized by now, all it takes for you to get the most out of your NPS surveys is a set of highly customizable NPS survey templates, a handful out-of-the-box questions and a list of your promoters, passives and detractors. Well, with e-satisfaction.com you can get all three with just a few clicks, plus an array of easy-to-ease extra features that will help you really get inside your customers’ minds and give them what they really want!

As you already know, people are complicated. Psychology and business are a lot alike at their core as they both seek to explore and understand people’s needs, wants, choices and behaviors.

Every single one of your customers is an individual with different background, experiences, issues and mindsets. Whatever emotional or behavioral peculiarities these people come with, your customer service team will always be in the front line. No matter how great your product is or how talented your employees are, one of the things that customers are more likely to remember is the direct positive or negative interaction they have with your company. As a result, your customer service team is established as the front face of your company, and customers’ experiences will be defined by the quality of the support they receive.

Here you will find 4 elements which will help you better understand your customer service team and make everyone, from your employees to your customers, happy!

1. Good customer service is achieved with systems as well as smiles.

Any frontline employee can provide great customer service on an one-off or once-in-a-while basis. However, you can’t always rely on the occasion. In between, you need systems to ensure most things go right most of the time.

Having the best and most appropriate systems in place is very important to your customer service team. Nonetheless, your systems can only be brought to life through the efforts and emotional involvement of your employees.

2. You won’t be able to provide good customer service if you don’t hire the appropriate employees.

Hiring improperly and expecting great results are not two things that go together.

Below you will find some of the personality traits that make for a great customer-facing employee and they spell WETCO:

W is for Warmth: Human kindness. Warmth is perhaps the simplest and yet most fundamental of these five traits. In a nutshell, it means to enjoy our human commonality, flaws and all.

E is for Empathy: The ability to sense what another person is feeling. Empathy is one step up from warmth as it goes beyond the plateau of liking other people and is more like reading people and sensing what a customer needs, or wants, regardless of whether this desire is even yet apparent to the customer.

T is for Teamwork: Teamwork might be viewed as a slightly paradoxical member of the WETCO group of personality traits. After all, customers need the help of ambitious employees who will be in charge of the situation, people who are willing to fix a problem all by themselves if necessary. Nonetheless, that attitude needs to be experienced as the affection of a team approach, otherwise sooner or later your business will suffer from the disagreements that will evoke.

C is for Conscientiousness: Conscientiousness can be defined as detail orientation, including an ability and willingness to follow through completion. This trait is key for successfully supporting customers, and unfortunately it is not always found in those who are otherwise suited to a customer service department.

An employee can smile, empathize, and play well with the team, but if they can’t remember to follow through on the promises they have made to customers, they will most certainly kill your company’s image.

O is for Optimism: Optimism is necessary in customer-facing positions as it is the ability to take a step back and to not internalize challenges. Employees need to have a positive, optimistic self-image as well as to drive themselves forward in the reality of daily adversity.

3. Even after you have selected the people that will compose the customer service team you should be careful…

If you treat those people poorly, make them feel scared about their long-term prospects with you, and so forth, you will never be able to receive their best efforts and their extra efforts in customers’ support. Those extra efforts are really the ones that your business needs and the ones you can count on to provide an outstanding customer service and therefore, a promising customer experience.

4. Managing correctly your employees plays an important role in whether they will treat customers wonderfully.

It is not possible to predict every single thing in every situation that needs to be done for a customer. Employees need to have the freedom to do what’s best for the customer.

No matter how talented and emotionally appropriate an employee is for customer service work, improper or even nonexistent training, guidance or leadership automatically means that you are throwing away a potentially great resource.