Customer Effort Score (CES)

What is customer effort score (CES)

Customer Effort Score measures how easy or difficult it was for a customer to get their issue resolved. Rather than satisfaction or loyalty directly, it focuses on friction—how much effort the customer had to exert to get help, answers, or a resolution.

Impact of customer effort score (CES) in customer support

customer effort score (CES) is a strong predictor of customer loyalty and experience quality. When support is easy, customers feel valued and understood. High-effort experiences—like repeating information, getting transferred between departments, or navigating confusing help centers—can erode trust and increase churn. CES also helps identify hidden inefficiencies in tools, workflows, and processes that don’t always show up in other metrics.

Formula + Example/Use Case

Formula:
Average customer rating from effort-related surveys (typically on a 1–7 scale, where lower = easier)

Example:
After closing a support interaction, a customer is asked, “How easy was it to resolve your issue today?” If the average score across 200 responses is 2.3 (on a 1–7 scale), this is considered a strong CES. A customer who solves a billing query instantly via chatbot may rate it as “1” (very easy).

What affects customer effort score (CES)

• Ticket handovers or escalations: The more times a customer is transferred or their issue is re-assigned, the higher their perceived effort.
• Support channel experience: Confusing Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems or slow chat platforms make it harder for customers to get help.
• Availability of self-service tools: If customers can’t find answers on their own, they must contact support, increasing their effort.
• Response consistency: Contradictory answers from different agents confuse customers and raise their effort perception.

How to improve customer effort score (CES)

• Reduce steps to resolution: Streamline internal processes so agents can resolve issues without excessive routing, back-and-forth, or data gathering.
• Improve internal coordination: Ensure handoffs between teams are seamless and the customer doesn’t need to repeat themselves.
• Make self-service resources easier to use: Redesign help centers to be more searchable and add dynamic FAQs or AI search assistants.

Benefits

• Increases customer loyalty: Low-effort experiences make customers more likely to return and recommend the brand.
• Identifies frustrating workflows: CES highlights gaps in service design that may go unnoticed otherwise.
• Improves usability of support systems: Drives investment in simpler tools, smarter automation, and intuitive self-service flows.