Why measuring Customer Effort is more important than CSAT

Those who work, or have worked in customer service will no doubt have used Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) scoring as a measure of customer success. The CSAT score measures happiness with a product, service, or customer support interaction through a customer satisfaction survey. The scoring is usually on a five-point scale, from 1 (very unsatisfied), to 5 (very satisfied).

We can date the original customer satisfaction score back to the beginnings of mass production in the early 1900s. But CSAT as we know it today came to prominence in 1994 when the University of Michigan established the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). It was the first measurement implemented to identify the value of goods and services from the perspective of the customer.

However, after many years of working with organisations (of varying size, sector, and service) on Customer Experience improvement, we have begun to wonder if CSAT is as valuable a metric as we all think, and if there might be a better measure? Here’s why.

Measures a single moment in time

CSAT surveys are usually sent at the point of interaction – for example, immediately following a purchase, or after a service centre engagement. This provides you with a satisfaction score at that specific moment in time, but it doesn’t give you a barometer for how the customer is feeling over the longer-term.

The added challenge is that the results will be skewed depending on the situation: When a purchase has been made, it can often evoke feelings of excitement and anticipation, which can often be mistaken for satisfaction (is the customer genuinely satisfied, or are they just pleased they made the purchase?). And if a service interaction is required, it’s usually because something has gone wrong – so your agents had better do the best job ever, or you’re getting a CSAT score of one (1). Human nature also means you are probably more likely to get a CSAT score when you get something wrong, than when you get it right.

Low completion rates

Ask yourself, when was the last time you completed a CSAT survey, or left a positive review for an organisation? Do you do it every single time, or are you selective?

In our experience response rates to CSAT surveys are typically very low, meaning your sample size is too small to place any real value on the metric. And it’s very difficult to make business and operational decisions based on small sample data. There are of course ways to improve response rates – more accessible channels, more proactive agents, AI-driven methods – but, in the main, customers tend to avoid them, unless there’s a problem. When you’re in the thrust of day-to-day business life, it’s often easy to forget that you too are a consumer. So, it’s important to think about CX from your own perspective, and regularly assess whether the experiences that you’re providing would work for you.

Does not predict loyalty

One of the most interesting findings about CSAT is it is not a reliable barometer for loyalty. And businesses crave loyalty, because loyalty drives the outcomes that matter the most – retention, repeat, and reputation. More on this later.

May just be a vanity metric

Like the old saying goes: Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity. Could the saying also be: CSAT is vanity, loyalty is sanity?

Why Measure Customer Effort?

In this digital era of rapid commoditisation and empowered consumers, organisations have been attempting to differentiate their brands with exceptional customer service, rooted in the belief that if they can exceed customer expectations, they will boost loyalty exponentially.

Gartner conducted a quantitative research study involving hundreds of businesses and 97,000 customers. One of the objectives was to understand to what extent customer service matters in driving customer loyalty. And the results uncovered some unexpected findings…

Delight doesn’t pay

There was virtually no difference between the loyalty of customers whose expectations were exceeded, and those whose expectations were simply met. In fact, the data showed that customers had a clear preference for organisations to simply solve their problem. Exceeding expectations, or delighting customers, may create a short-term “feel good” moment, but it has low impact on loyalty or repeat business.

Furthermore, 80% of senior leaders surveyed said their customer delight strategy was costing 10-20% more in operational costs.

Service interactions drive disloyalty

The Gartner research showed that a customer who requires a service interaction is four times more likely to drive disloyalty than to drive loyalty. In fact, 45% of the people who had something positive to say about a company told fewer than three other people. However, 48% of people who had a negative experience told more than ten people. To put it another way, you only need to get it wrong once per day to drive negative sentiment in 4,000+ people every year. Add in the ubiquity and reach of online review sites and social media, and you can add at least another couple of zeroes to that end of that number.

The key to mitigating disloyalty is to reduce customer effort

“The majority of customers, notably 96%, who had high-effort experiences reported being disloyal, compared to only 9% of customers with low-effort experience”.

96%! That’s a scary number. So how did customers describe their perception of high-effort customer service experiences? Here are some examples:

Having to repeat information

How many times have you called through to a business, gone through the automated ID&V check (account number, surname, postcode, telephone password, inside leg measurement), and then had to repeat the information all over again once you reach a human agent? It’s very frustrating, and it happens primarily due to lack of integration – whether that is the integration of customer data into the agent/contact centre experience; or integration between contact centre and back-office functions.

The need to contact a company more than once

How many times have you contacted a service centre, only to find that the person you are speaking to doesn’t have the answers, or can only partially solve the problem? Customers expect to be valued, and not just at the financial level, they want you to value their time, too. Focusing on First Contact Resolution (FCR) has therefore become critical to reducing the customer’s perceived effort – whether that is via simple and performant self-service, or by making sure your customer service agents have the right tools and information available to them to resolve contact personally, effectively, and efficiently.

Being treated “like a number”

Whilst there are several contradicting schools of thought on the impact (and indeed the viability) of complete personalisation, customers do expect your service centre to at least know who they are, and value their history. Through modern CCaaS platforms, system integration, and the continued march of AI, personalisation is certainly much more straightforward to achieve in a customer service setting. In addition to providing the right technology to empower service agents with customer information, CX leaders also need to focus more on rewarding quality over efficiency.

Find out how we work with Zoom Contact Center to remove the friction, and build relationships that last.

Find out more

In Summary

CSAT scoring isn’t all bad, and we’re not saying you shouldn’t continue to track it. But be careful how much value you place on the results. CSAT can be a useful acquisition metric – providing social proof and confidence, and a good differentiator - if you are high-performing. But the research clearly shows that CSAT does not predict loyalty.

Put simply, customer loyalty rides on how easy you make it for your customers to do business with you. At Acceleraate, we integrate CX & EX to build relationships that last. We focus on removing friction and reducing effort from your customer and employee experiences, driving up satisfaction and loyalty, simultaneously.