CES: Chronological Impact in Banking

We have just conducted a study to evaluate the Customer Effort Score (CES) for different French banks. We have placed particular emphasis on two factors that have an impact on this CES: the age of the contact and the processing time of the contact. Let’s see what these impacts are and the lessons to be learned from them. See also our article on cultural impact.

We carried out 1000 online interviews focusing on the last contact made by customers with their main bank. We measured their Net Promoter Score (even before mentioning the last contact), then the reason for the last contact, the Customer Effort Score, the seniority of this contact, its channel and finally the processing time necessary to obtain satisfaction following this contact.

We will focus here on two dimensions: the age of this contact and the processing time that was necessary.

Here is the scale used to measure the Customer Effort Score (we will focus on the first two favorable positions: 1&2):

The seniority of the contact has an impact on the measured CES.

Our results show that the older the contact evaluated, the greater the perceived effort, independently of the processing time that was necessary to process the reason for contact. Thus, the immediate memory of a contact is more positive than when this contact begins to date.

This is therefore a crucial point that must be mastered:

• If the CES is measured over time (continuously or during different waves), it is necessary to ensure that the age of the contact measured is controlled in order to avoid comparing contact ages which would make two waves of evaluation or two different geographical directions unstoppable.
• If the CES is the subject of external communication as proof of the quality of contact processing, it is preferable to measure actions really quickly (on D+2 at the latest if possible) because the results will quickly deteriorate over time (at a constant real processing time).

As expected, the processing time had an impact on the measured CES.

The longer the treatment time, the more the CES deteriorates. The effort is directly impacted by the processing time of a contact.Other lessons will be shared soon (reasons and contact channel).