Value Metric
Customer Effort Score (CES)
Customer Effort Score (CES) measures how easy or hard it was for a customer to accomplish something.
What is Customer Effort Score (CES)?
Customer Effort Score asks customers to rate the effort required to complete a task or resolve an issue, typically by agreeing or disagreeing with a statement like "The company made it easy for me to handle my issue" on a 5- or 7-point scale. It is reported as the average score or the share of low-effort responses.
CES rests on a simple insight: reducing friction is often a stronger driver of loyalty than delighting customers. Low effort predicts repeat business and retention better than many satisfaction measures.
How to calculate it
CES = Sum of Effort Ratings ÷ Number of Responses
- Effort Ratings
- Individual effort scores (e.g. 1–7, higher = easier)
- Number of Responses
- Total responses to the CES question
Worked example
On a 7-point "easy" scale, if 200 responses sum to 1,240, CES = 1,240 ÷ 200 = 6.2 (low effort / easy).
What good looks like
- Lower effort winsTrend the ease score
Exact scales differ, so absolute numbers vary. What matters is a high ease score (or low effort) and an improving trend for the tasks you measure.
Why it matters
Effort is a powerful, actionable predictor of loyalty: customers who struggle are far more likely to churn or switch, regardless of how much they otherwise like you. Because CES is tied to a specific task, it points straight at the friction to remove — often a faster path to retention than adding delight.
How to improve Customer Effort Score (CES)
Remove friction from high-effort tasks
Identify the tasks that score worst and redesign them to reduce steps, confusion, and waiting.
Fix root causes, not symptoms
Trace repeated high-effort moments back to their source in the product or process and eliminate them.
Frequently asked questions
When should you use CES instead of CSAT or NPS?
Use CES right after a customer completes a task or resolves an issue, when you want to know how easy the experience was. CSAT measures satisfaction with the moment and NPS measures overall loyalty; CES is the best fit for diagnosing and reducing friction.
Why is effort such a strong predictor of loyalty?
Research popularized in "The Effortless Experience" found that reducing customer effort is more effective at driving loyalty than exceeding expectations. High-effort experiences reliably push customers toward churn, so lowering effort protects retention.