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The most important metric: Customer Effort Score

Stephane Gonthier explains why CSAT plateaus and how Customer Effort Score gives support leaders an actionable signal directly tied to retention and revenue.

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with Stephane Gonthier, Former Global Head of Support at Acquia

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49:41

Introduction

Most support teams sit at 90%+ CSAT and have no idea what to do next — the metric has flattered them into a dead end. After 24 years in support, Stephane Gonthier found his way out with Customer Effort Score.

He details the exact question his team asked, the follow-up prompts that multiplied written feedback, and how bucketing responses into themes — resolution time, communication, product gaps, tooling — turned a survey into a prioritised improvement roadmap. Best of all, effort correlates with renewal and expansion, which makes it the rare support metric executives lean into.

What you will learn in this episode

  • Why CSAT stops being actionable once you pass 90%

  • How to phrase the CES question and its follow-ups for maximum signal

  • Turning free-text responses into a themed improvement backlog

  • Connecting effort scores to retention, expansion and executive buy-in

  • Benchmarks: useful as a starting point, dangerous as a finish line

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