In short
Customer Effort Score (CES) measures how easy it was for a customer to get what they needed. You ask a single effort question — usually agreement with "the company made it easy to handle my issue" — and average the scores. Low effort is one of the strongest predictors of loyalty, which is why CES is the go-to metric for service and support.
What is Customer Effort Score?
Customer Effort Score (CES) is a metric that measures the ease of a customer interaction. The premise, backed by research, is simple: customers stay loyal to companies that make things easy and leave ones that make things hard. CES is especially useful for support, onboarding, returns, and self-service — anywhere effort, rather than delight, drives the outcome.
The CES question and scale
The modern CES question asks respondents to rate their agreement with a statement like: "[Company] made it easy for me to handle my issue." Responses run on a Likert agreement scale (e.g. 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree). Higher agreement = lower effort.
How to calculate Customer Effort Score
CES is the average of all responses:
CES = sum of all effort scores ÷ number of responses
The result is a single average on your chosen scale (e.g. 5.6 out of 7). Track the trend rather than fixating on the absolute number.
What is a good Customer Effort Score?
There's no universal benchmark — it depends on your scale and industry. What matters is the direction: a rising CES means interactions are getting easier. Segment it by channel and touchpoint to find where effort is highest.
CES vs CSAT vs NPS
| Metric | Measures | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| CES | Ease / effort of an interaction | Support, process, self-service |
| CSAT | Satisfaction with a touchpoint | Any specific experience |
| NPS | Overall loyalty | The long-term relationship |
How to improve your CES
Remove steps, reduce wait times, fix confusing instructions, and let customers resolve things in one channel without repeating themselves. Capture CES right after the interaction, pair it with a "what made it hard?" open question, and act on the friction it reveals. See the full set in customer satisfaction metrics.
Questions
Frequently asked
What is Customer Effort Score (CES)?
CES measures how easy it was for a customer to get what they needed, usually by rating agreement with a statement like 'the company made it easy to handle my issue.' Low effort strongly predicts loyalty, so CES is popular for support and self-service.
How do you calculate Customer Effort Score?
CES is the average of all effort-question responses: sum of scores ÷ number of responses. The result is a single average on your chosen scale (for example 5.6 out of 7). Track the trend over time rather than the absolute number.
What's the difference between CES, CSAT and NPS?
CES measures the effort of an interaction, CSAT measures satisfaction with a specific touchpoint, and NPS measures overall loyalty. Use CES for service and process friction, CSAT for in-the-moment satisfaction, and NPS for the long-term relationship.
Find where effort is costing you
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