Consider this. What is the faster and easiest way to convert your customers into loyal fans? The answer is deceptively simple. Reduce customer effort.
As everyone knows, delighting customers is crucial for the long-term success of any business. Not only does it ensure loyalty and positive word-of-mouth; it has been proven numerous times that keeping an old customer is better than acquiring a new one. Briefly,
- 81% companies now mostly compete on the basis on Customer Experience. (SOURCE- Gartner)
- It cost 5 times more to acquire a new customer than keep an existing one. (SOURCE- Invespcro)
- Probability of selling to an existing customer is 60-70% whereas it is only 5-20% to a new customer. (SOURCE- Invespcro)
So, we know that happy customers are a pre-requisite for Profits and Growth. This begs the question- what is the best way to make your customers happy? The answer, of course is Reduced Customer Effort.
WHY IS CUSTOMER EFFORT IMPORTANT?
In 2010, Harvard Business Review published a study called ‘Stop trying to delight your customers’. It found a strong connection customer loyalty and the ease of an interaction. It discovered that,
The lesser the effort it took for a customer to get a problem solved, the more likely they were to be loyal.
So, if it’s easy for a customer to solve a problem, they have a higher chance of being loyal to your company.
As per the study,
And, so it concluded that
Loyalty has a lot more to do with how well companies deliver on their basic, even plain-vanilla promises than on how dazzling the service experience might be. Yet most companies have failed to realize this and pay dearly in terms of wasted investments and lost customers.
Moreover, “94% of customers reporting low effort said they would repurchase, while 88% said they would increase their spending.” This is a consequential finding.
To sum up, reducing customer efforts improves
- Customer service
- Decreases Customer Service Cost, and
- Reduces Churn
Also Read- How to predict and prevent customer churn
Now that we have covered the importance of reducing customer effort, the next step is to measure it. (Remember the cliché- what gets measured gets managed)
We, at Numr, measure Customer Effort using a metric called the ‘Net Easy Score’.
WHAT IS THE NET EASY SCORE?
To put it bluntly, Net Easy Score measures how Easy a transaction between a company and its customer was.
Measured on a 7-point scale, it asks the customer to rate the interaction from ‘Extremely Easy’ to ‘Extremely Difficult’. The score is then calculated by subtracting the percentage of people who rated 1, 2 or 3 from the percentage of people who rated 6 or 7.
NET EASY SCORE VS NET PROMOTER SCORE®
Both, NES and NPS® are customer experience metrics. Broadly, they measure how happy and satisfied your customers are. They are also strong predictors of Loyalty.
The major difference between NES and NPS® is when they are used. Numr uses NES for Transactional Surveys. Meaning, we use it for measuring how easy resolving a problem was. On the other hand, NPS® is mainly used to assess the ongoing relationship of a customer with a company. Overall, NPS® is a brilliant predictor of Financials and Growth.
In short, NPS® measures the overall satisfaction and predicts the future Revenue. Whereas, NES measures satisfaction after a transaction and finds out drivers that have the strongest impact.
Also Read- How to use Drivers Analysis to improve NPS
WHEN SHOULD YOU USE THE NES?
As a good rule of thumb, you should use NES immediately–
- After an interaction with Customer Support/Service
“How easy was it to resolve the problem with (Client’s name)?”
One should use NES immediately after an important touch-point. It was great for collecting real-time feedback.
- Post-Purchase of a Product/Service
“How easy was it to complete the purchase?”
Streamlining your purchase process using real, human data will massively reduce the number of customers who start the process but drop off mid-way.
QUICK WRAP-UP
Understanding and measure customer effort is imperative for long-term growth. Using NES, you can easily repair every important touchpoint in customer journey. Think from your customer’s point of view. Everybody wants a quick and hassle-free experience.
In fact, in a study,
94% of customers reporting low effort said they would repurchase, while 88% said they would increase their spending
Therefore, capitalising on NES and reducing customer effort will not only improve your revenue but also inspire Customer Loyalty.
