Customer effort score

What it means

CES, customer effort score, measures how much effort a customer had to make to get an issue resolved, such as a complaint, an order change or a support question. After the interaction the customer answers how easy it was to get things done.

The measure rests on the finding that loyalty depends more on not having to fight processes than on delight. Customers who must call several times, fill in needless forms or repeat their problem leave even when the price is good.

CES is used alongside NPS, which measures willingness to recommend, and CSAT, which measures satisfaction with a specific experience. Each answers a different question.

How it works in practice

CES is most often measured after a helpdesk contact, after an order is completed or after onboarding. Results show which steps of the customer journey are needlessly complicated.

In an accounting firm, high effort might mean a cumbersome document handover or unclear requests for paperwork. Simplifying it, for example by uploading documents through an app, usually also reduces questions and errors.

What matters is acting on the answers: contacting customers who reported high effort, finding the cause and changing the process. Measurement without follow-up improves nothing.

What to watch out for

Surveying too often itself increases customer effort. The question should be single, short and shown right after the interaction, not in a long questionnaire a week later.

A good CES in one channel can mask a problem in another. If chat works well but callers wait a long time, the average will not show it, so results should be split by channel and topic.