In 2010, the Harvard Business Review (HBR) published a now-famous article titled “Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers.” In that article, HBR conducted a study on customer satisfaction and introduced us to the concept of customer effort. Customer Effort Score (CES) measures customer perceptions on how difficult (or easy) it is to do business with a company. How can companies use CES? Companies can measure CES in a few different ways. The most common way is a simple survey question asking customers to rate the ease of solving their issue on a scale of very difficult to very easy, like...
The 2016 presidential election was significant for many reasons. Many feel it may be the most important election of our lifetime. The incredible inaccuracy of the polls stands out as one noteworthy aspect of the election. The political news reporters were shocked and embarrassed by how they blew the prediction of the election outcome. This is a clear demonstration of how decisions can be based on erroneous information. Some of the inherent flaws in polls are similar to problems with surveys. Poll predictions use several factors that are supposed to be representative of the population. Like polls, surveys are the...
A few weeks ago, I was traveling for business and stayed at one of my favorite hotels. They provided the excellent service I’ve come to expect–staff was friendly and helpful, my room was clean, and my towels were soft. Unfortunately, I would give the hotel a low rating on this visit because one important amenity was not provided. I had a critical report to finish and continuously lost the internet connection. The front desk was unable to solve the problem. I was very frustrated and didn’t get the report done. As a business traveler, an internet connection is as much...
