What is the Low Effort Score?

The Low Effort Score is a free assessment that measures how much avoidable effort a service creates for its customers and staff. Fifteen questions, about five minutes, a score out of 100 and five readings that show where the effort comes from, so you can see what to fix first.

What do the fifteen questions cover?

They ask how work actually moves through your service: whether cases stay closed, whether customers have to chase, and whether your staff can finish what they start. You answer them yourself, about your own operation.

What are the five readings?

Each reading asks one question about how work moves through the service. These are the readings for housing repairs; the voids and allocations scores ask the same questions of the empty home and of the waiting list.

Knowing DemandWhether you know what tenants ask for, by type and by how often, and understand each request when it arrives.

Failure DemandHow much of your demand is failure demand — chasing, repeat reports and follow-on visits that a finished repair would not have created.

CapacityWhether trades, appointment slots and parts are set against what arrives, or against the rota and the budget.

FlowWhether a repair goes through in one piece — finished by the person at the door, and still one repair when a second trade or a contractor is involved.

The End-to-End ClockWhether you measure the time from the report to a home that is right, and count the chasing — or only the percentage inside target.

In the allocations score the third reading has a different name.

Honest SupplyWhether applicants get a true picture of the homes you can let — at the start and along the way, without having to phone.

The pensions and claims scores use five levers in place of these readings: Next Issue Avoidance, Channel & Journey Stickiness, Frontline Control, Experience Engineering and Effort Measurement.

How is it different from a Customer Effort Score or NPS?

	Customer Effort Score	Net Promoter Score	Low Effort Score
Who answers	Customers	Customers	The people who run the service
What it asks	How easy was it to get your issue resolved?	How likely are you to recommend us?	Fifteen questions on how work flows
What it tells you	That effort is high	That loyalty is low	Where the effort comes from and what to change first

What happens after you take it?

You see your score and the five readings straight away and receive the result by email. If you want to go further, bring the problem behind the score to Stuart: 30 minutes on what is happening, what might be causing it and where he would start looking. The score is yours either way.

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