What Is Customer Effort Score?

For years, businesses focused on delighting customers, going above and beyond to exceed expectations. But research into customer service suggested something different: what customers often value most isn't being delighted, but simply having their problem solved easily. That idea led to a metric called Customer Effort Score, or CES.

The Definition

Customer Effort Score is a measure of how easy or difficult it was for a customer to get what they needed from a business, such as resolving an issue, getting an answer, or completing a task.

It's usually measured with a short survey after an interaction, asking customers to rate how much effort was involved.

Where It Came From

Customer Effort Score was introduced in a 2010 Harvard Business Review article titled "Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers," written by Matthew Dixon, Karen Freeman, and Nicholas Toman of the Corporate Executive Board (CEB). Their research, based on a large study of customer service interactions, suggested that reducing customer effort was more strongly linked to customer loyalty than trying to exceed expectations. The ideas were later developed further in the book The Effortless Experience.

How CES Is Measured

The question

The original version asked customers something like:

"How much effort did you personally have to put forth to handle your request?"

Customers answered on a scale, typically from very low effort to very high effort.

A later version, sometimes called CES 2.0, turned the question into a statement customers rate their agreement with, such as:

"The company made it easy for me to handle my issue."

Customers respond on a scale, often from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree," commonly using seven points.

Calculating the score

Businesses calculate CES in different ways, including:

• Average score, adding all ratings and dividing by the number of responses.
• Percentage who agree, such as the share of customers who agreed or strongly agreed that it was easy.

Because methods vary, it's important to use one consistently and be clear about which method is used when comparing results.

What Makes Things Difficult for Customers

CES helps highlight the parts of an experience that create unnecessary effort. Common sources of effort include:

• Having to contact the business more than once about the same issue.
• Being transferred between people or departments.
• Repeating information already given.
• Switching channels, such as being told to call after trying chat.
• Long waits on hold or in queues.
• Confusing phone menus or websites.
• Unclear instructions or next steps.
• Having to chase the business for updates.

Why CES Matters

It's linked to loyalty

Customers who find it easy to resolve issues are generally more likely to stay and less likely to speak negatively about a business. High-effort experiences tend to drive customers away.

It's actionable

Because CES focuses on specific interactions, it often points directly to problems that can be fixed, such as a confusing process or a transfer that shouldn't happen.

It reflects the customer's view

It measures how the experience felt to the customer, not just how long it took or whether internal targets were met.

CES Compared With Other Measures

Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) asks how satisfied customers were with an interaction. It reflects overall feelings, which can be influenced by many factors.

Net Promoter Score (NPS) asks how likely customers are to recommend the business. It reflects overall loyalty and relationship, not a single interaction.

Customer Effort Score (CES) asks how easy an interaction was. It focuses specifically on effort.

Each measures something different, and many businesses use all three together for a fuller picture.

Limitations of CES

It doesn't capture everything. An interaction might be easy but still leave a customer unhappy, for example if the answer wasn't what they wanted.

Wording matters. Different question wording and scales can produce different results.

Survey response bias. Customers who respond to surveys may not represent all customers.

Effort isn't always bad. Some tasks, such as security checks, require effort for good reasons. The goal is to remove unnecessary effort, not all effort.

Reducing Customer Effort

Businesses that use CES to improve typically focus on:

• Resolving issues on the first contact.
• Routing customers to the right person the first time.
• Sharing information across channels, so customers don't repeat themselves.
• Offering callbacks instead of long waits.
• Simplifying processes and removing unnecessary steps.
• Giving clear next steps at the end of every interaction.
• Anticipating follow-up questions, answering them before the customer needs to ask.
• Making self-service genuinely easy, with a simple route to a person when needed.

The Value of Easy

Customer Effort Score is built on a simple insight: customers mostly want their problems solved with as little hassle as possible. By measuring how easy interactions feel, and focusing on removing the friction that frustrates customers, businesses can improve both customer experience and loyalty. Sometimes, the best thing a business can do isn't to impress its customers, but simply to make things easy.

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