Customer Effort is a measurement of how easy a business is for consumers to engage with.

The latest issue of the Customer Effort Index has landed.

Now in its third wave, we’re beginning to see some fascinating long-term trends as we visualise nine months of measuring Customer Effort across Telecommunications, Financial Services and Technology Retail in the UK, US and Australia.

We’re seeing clear, consistent frontrunners, and our congratulations go out to T-Mobile, US Bank, Amazon, EE, Nationwide, Argos, Vodafone, Bendigo and Office Works, which have maintained their positions at the top of the charts wave on wave. 

The Customer Effort Index, which measures how straightforward brands are to do business with, is calculated on a self-referential scale. This means that scores are calculated each wave relative to the other brands in the index. What’s fascinating about this wave is how much convergence there has been on each of the pillars. It indicates that Customer Effort is becoming increasingly more competitive as brands invest in the technology and solutions they need to deliver an excellent experience.

We’re also seeing some great indications that Customer Effort predicts NPS scores. While it’s too early to draw any conclusions, we’re very excited about the potential for Effort to predict more well-known industry metrics.

So dive into our tables above and as ever, do get in touch with your observations and thoughts.

The Customer Effort Index is based on interviews with 6,000 interviews a year with consumers across the UK, US and Australia. In-depth surveys ask respondents to rate their most recent interaction with a brand according to several dimensions e.g. “making me feel valued as a customer” and “having details explained clearly to you”.

These are then tallied to form our four pillars within Customer Effort: (1) Knowledge & Expertise (2) Style of Communication (3) Speed solving the problem (4) Valuing the Customer.

Responses are collected online.