Customer friction is more than an annoyance; it's a map to untapped premium revenue opportunities. For portfolio company CEOs, understanding where customers struggle most intensely is the first step to building offerings they will gladly pay more for. We use Customer Effort Scores (CES) not just as a metric, but as a strategic lens to identify these high-value areas, enabling our portfolio companies to innovate, differentiate, and drive significant equity growth. This article explores how high CES uncovers pathways to premium pricing by solving acute customer problems.

Table of Contents

• What are Customer Effort Scores (CES)?
• Why High CES Signals Premium Revenue Opportunities
• Using CES to Pinpoint Where Customers Will Pay More
• Our Jobs to be Done (JTBD) Approach
• Identifying Specific Job Steps with High Effort
• Translating High CES into Product Innovation
• Examples: CES Driving Premium Offerings
• Streamlining Complex Enterprise Workflows
• Automating Critical Data Analysis
• Our Advantage: Accelerating Growth with CES-Driven Strategy
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
• Conclusion: Transform Customer Effort into Equity Value

What are Customer Effort Scores (CES)?

Customer Effort Score (CES) is a critical metric within our proprietary and patented Jobs to be Done (JTBD) methodology. It quantifies the difficulty customers experience when trying to execute a specific step in their job. CES is measured by the percentage of customers who report significant difficulty based on three core criteria:

• Effort required: The amount of exertion needed
• Speed of execution: The time it takes to complete the job step
• Accuracy of execution: The likelihood of completing the job step correctly without errors
  
  

A high CES indicates a substantial unmet customer need. These are not minor inconveniences; they are points of significant struggle where customers are actively seeking better ways to get their job done. Understanding these Customer Effort Scores is fundamental to finding areas ripe for innovation and value creation.

Why High CES Signals Premium Revenue Opportunities

When customers face high effort in getting a job done, their willingness to pay for a superior solution increases dramatically. This is the core principle behind using CES to find premium revenue opportunities.

• Significant Pain Points: High CES pinpoints areas where customers are truly struggling. The greater the struggle, the more value they place on a solution that alleviates it
• Willingness to Pay: Customers are often prepared to pay a premium for products or services that demonstrably reduce their effort, save them time, or improve their accuracy in critical tasks. This willingness creates margin expansion opportunities
• Differentiation: Solutions targeting high-CES job steps inherently differentiate themselves. They aren't just incremental improvements; they are substantial problem-solvers
• Equity Value Creation: For our portfolio companies, addressing high-CES needs translates directly into accelerated growth, stronger market positioning, and ultimately, increased company valuations
  
  

Focusing on high CES allows businesses to move beyond competing on price and instead compete on tangible value delivered through effort reduction.

Using CES to Pinpoint Where Customers Will Pay More

Identifying premium revenue opportunities through CES is a systematic process within our JTBD framework.

Our Jobs to be Done (JTBD) Approach

Our approach begins with a deep understanding of the customer's "Job to be Done"—the overarching goal they are trying to achieve. We then break this job down into discrete steps. For each step, we collect CES data to measure:

• Determine the required inputs
• Execute the core process
• Verify the output accuracy
  
  

This granular analysis reveals precisely where customers experience the most friction. Our JTBD methodology provides the structured framework for this investigation.

Identifying Specific Job Steps with High Effort

Once the job is mapped, CES data pinpoints the exact steps causing the most difficulty. A high CES in a particular step, such as "calculate risk exposure" or "integrate data sources," signals a prime candidate for innovation. These are the areas where customers are losing time, making errors, or expending excessive mental and physical energy.

Translating High CES into Product Innovation

With high-CES job steps identified, our product teams within portfolio companies can focus their innovation efforts. The goal is to develop solutions that directly and significantly reduce the effort associated with these struggling points. This might involve:

• Automating manual processes
• Providing clearer guidance or information
• Improving the user interface for speed and accuracy
• Developing new features that directly address the unmet need
  
  

This targeted innovation, guided by Customer Effort Scores, ensures that new product development is aligned with areas of high customer value and willingness to pay.

Examples: CES Driving Premium Offerings

While we use these examples to illustrate the principle, our implementation with portfolio companies follows this logic to achieve substantial growth.

Streamlining Complex Enterprise Workflows

Consider enterprise software where users must configure integration parameters across multiple systems. If CES data reveals this step is exceptionally difficult and error-prone:

• Problem: High effort, significant time consumption, risk of incorrect setup leading to system failures
• Premium Solution: An AI-powered module that automates parameter configuration, uses pre-built templates for common integrations, or provides intelligent suggestions to ensure system compatibility
• Value & Pricing: Companies would pay a premium for this module because it drastically reduces setup time, minimizes errors, and frees up skilled IT personnel
  
  

Automating Critical Data Analysis

Imagine a financial analyst whose job requires them to consolidate disparate financial reports monthly. This task might have a high CES due to manual data entry, complex spreadsheet manipulations, and the need to identify data anomalies.

• Problem: Tedious, time-consuming, high risk of inaccuracies affecting strategic decisions
• Premium Solution: A specialized feature or standalone tool that automatically ingests data from various sources, performs pre-defined transformations, and flags potential inconsistencies, allowing the analyst to interpret financial trends rather than data wrangling
• Value & Pricing: The significant time savings, improved accuracy, and faster decision-making justify a premium price for such a solution
  
  

These examples show how understanding and acting on high Customer Effort Scores can lead to the creation of high-value, premium-priced offerings.

Our Advantage: Accelerating Growth with CES-Driven Strategy

We don't just identify high CES; we implement our methodology with our portfolio companies to act on these insights rapidly and effectively. Our proprietary JTBD methodology and AI-powered platform enable teams to:

• Quickly identify unmet needs: Our process significantly accelerates the identification of high-CES job steps
• Quantify the opportunity: CES data provides a clear, quantitative basis for prioritizing product development
• Develop targeted solutions: We implement our method with product teams to build features that directly reduce customer effort where it matters most
• Reduce risk: Innovating based on proven customer struggle is less risky than speculative development
• Drive willingness to pay: By solving significant pain points, our portfolio companies create offerings that command premium prices
  
  

This systematic approach to leveraging Customer Effort Scores is a cornerstone of how we accelerate growth and create equity value for our portfolio companies. Our AI-powered platform supports this process by enabling teams to analyze customer data and identify high-CES areas in hours rather than weeks.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q1: How do Customer Effort Scores relate directly to premium pricing strategies?

A1: High Customer Effort Scores indicate significant customer pain or difficulty in getting a job done. Customers are generally willing to pay more for solutions that effectively reduce this effort, improve their speed, or increase their accuracy. By targeting these high-CES areas, companies can develop premium offerings that deliver substantial value, justifying a higher price point.

Q2: What level of CES typically indicates a significant premium revenue opportunity?

A2: While there's no universal threshold, a CES indicating that a notable percentage of customers (e.g., 30%, 40% or higher, depending on the market and job) find a specific job step "difficult" or "very difficult" signals a strong potential for a premium offering. The key is identifying where the struggle is most acute and where a solution can provide a dramatic improvement in effort reduction.

Q3: How do you specifically help portfolio companies use CES to drive revenue growth?

A3: We implement our proprietary Jobs to be Done methodology and platform within portfolio companies. This involves meticulously mapping customer jobs, collecting CES data for each step, and identifying the specific areas of highest effort. We then work with product, marketing, and sales teams to develop and position solutions that directly address these high-CES needs, leading to offerings that customers value more and are willing to pay a premium for.

Q4: Can CES be used to segment markets for premium offerings?

A4: Absolutely. CES data can reveal segments of customers who experience particularly high effort with certain job steps. These segments are often prime targets for premium solutions because their pain is greater, and thus their willingness to pay for relief is higher. This allows for targeted marketing and product development for those most likely to adopt a premium offering.

Conclusion: Transform Customer Effort into Equity Value

High Customer Effort Scores are not just problems to be solved; they are clear signposts to premium revenue opportunities. By systematically identifying where customers struggle most, and by innovating to alleviate that struggle, companies can create offerings that command higher prices and build deeper customer loyalty.

Our JTBD methodology, powered by our unique insights into Customer Effort Scores, enables our portfolio companies to tap into these opportunities, accelerating growth and creating significant equity value.

Discover how our approach to product innovation can unlock premium revenue streams for your business. Explore our JTBD platform and see how we help companies transform customer effort into market leadership.