Definition
Customer Effort Score (CES) measures how easy it was for someone to get a task done.
A CES survey asks a question like "How easy was it to solve your problem today?" People answer on a scale from very hard to very easy. Scales vary, such as 1 to 5 or 1 to 7. Teams often report the average, or the percent who said it was easy.
CES is a good fit for support, onboarding, setup and cancelling. These are the moments where effort is easy to feel.
Why it matters
When a task feels hard, people may give up on it, or on you. A low effort score points to the steps that need to be simpler. Pair it with an open question, like "What made this hard?"
Example
After setup, you ask "How easy was it to connect your account?" Most people say easy, but people who use one bank say hard. That tells you exactly where to look.
Related terms
- CSAT (customer satisfaction score) CSAT, or customer satisfaction score, measures how happy people were with one thing, like a support chat.
- Net Promoter Score (NPS) Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures loyalty by asking how likely people are to recommend you, on a 0 to 10 scale.
- Churn rate Churn rate is the percent of customers who stop paying or stop using a product during a set time, such as a month.
Learn more
- NPS vs CSAT: which survey should you use? 6 min read
- How to reduce churn with customer feedback 6 min read
Updated by the Synthiya team. See all terms.