Executive summary

• What’s Nationwide’s and First Direct’s secret in the ‘Knowledge & Expertise’ pillar? These two brands are +5 above the next nearest competitor. The next nine brands in the table are then within four points of each other. What are these two frontrunners doing to be so successful?

• We say

  ‘Knowledge and Expertise’ is hinged on how well agents communicate they understand the customer's problem and explain the details to them clearly. Nationwide and First Direct score above and beyond in these metrics, demonstrating that other brands should focus on these markers to keep competitive.

How to use the Customer Effort Index

Customer Effort Scores for the quarter are presented in the rankings, ordered by highest Overall Effort Score first, to show which brand scored highest with its customers for that period. Individual brand ratings against the four pillars take us underneath that Overall Effort Score, with brand-specific explanatory analysis from the CEI Editorial team.

You can use the display above to toggle between score, ranking and individual pillars. Clicking 'Performance Tracker'  enables you to analyse the performance over time.

The Customer Effort Index is calculated using a self-referential scale that is recomputed every wave based on what the minimum and maximum values are. This enables us to see how each brand is performing compared to the others within the data set. See About for more on the methodology.