TL;DR
Customer Effort Score (CES) measures how much effort a customer had to put in to complete a task (e.g., resolve a support ticket, complete onboarding) on a 1–7 scale. Originated in HBR (2010) research on customer-loyalty drivers, CES predicts retention better than NPS or CSAT for transactional and support interactions because effort drives churn more directly than satisfaction.
What is Customer Effort Score?
Customer Effort Score (CES) measures the perceived effort a customer had to expend to complete a specific action — most commonly resolving a support issue, completing onboarding, or accomplishing a self-serve workflow. The question is typically: "How much effort did you have to put in to [complete the task]?" on a 1–7 scale, where 1 is very low effort and 7 is very high effort. Scores can be reported as average effort or as % top-2 box (1–2 = low effort).
CES originated in research published by the Corporate Executive Board (now Gartner) in a 2010 Harvard Business Review article ("Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers"). The study found that customers who reported low effort were 94% more likely to repurchase than those reporting high effort — a stronger predictor of loyalty than satisfaction or recommendation likelihood.
CES is the right metric when the question is "did we make it easy?" — for support tickets, self-serve workflows, and onboarding. It is the wrong metric for overall relationship loyalty (use NPS) or interaction satisfaction (use CSAT).
Why CES matters
The HBR research established a counterintuitive finding: reducing customer effort drives loyalty more than delighting customers. A support interaction that resolves the issue in one ticket with no follow-up creates more loyalty than one that resolves it warmly across three touches. The mechanism is cognitive — high-effort interactions create memorable friction that erodes long-term goodwill.
For support teams, CES is the most operationally actionable loyalty metric. A high-effort score points directly to process fixes (better self-serve docs, fewer transfers, faster first-response, automated triage). A low-NPS or low-CSAT can mean many things; a high-CES almost always means specific friction that can be engineered away.
For PLG and self-serve products, CES is the dominant onboarding metric. A user who reports high effort to set up the product is materially more likely to churn in the first 30 days than one who reports low effort — and unlike usage signals, CES reveals the issue before churn happens.
CES formula
CES (average) = Sum of effort scores / Number of responses CES (% top-2 box) = (Responses scoring 1–2 / Total responses) × 100 Typical 7-point scale: 1 — Very low effort 2 — Low effort 3 — Slightly low effort 4 — Neutral 5 — Slightly high effort 6 — High effort 7 — Very high effort Example: 200 post-support-ticket responses - Average score: 2.3 (lower is better) - % top-2 box: 71% (higher is better) Note: Some implementations use a 5-point scale or reverse the direction (1 = very high effort, 5 = very low effort). Always document the scale and direction.
Benchmarks
| Use case | Best-in-class (top-2 box) | Median | Below average |
|---|---|---|---|
| Support interaction | 75–85% | 55–70% | <50% |
| Self-serve workflow | 70–85% | 50–65% | <45% |
| Onboarding completion | 65–80% | 45–60% | <40% |
| First-time setup | 55–75% | 35–50% | <30% |
| B2B SaaS average across surfaces | 65–80% | 50–62% | <45% |
Benchmarks compiled from Gartner CES Benchmark 2025, Zendesk CX Trends 2025, and Forrester Service Experience 2025.
Common mistakes
- Using CES for relationship loyalty. CES measures the effort of a specific task. Asking "how much effort to work with us overall?" loses signal — use NPS for relationship loyalty and CES for task-level effort.
- Inconsistent scale direction. Some teams score 1 as low effort (good); others score 1 as high effort. Inconsistency across surveys breaks comparability. Document the direction explicitly.
- Asking after the wrong moment. CES is most predictive within 24 hours of the task. Asking 7 days later collects stale, blurred memory.
- Not pairing with verbatims. A high-effort score tells you friction exists; the verbatim ("I had to explain the issue 3 times") tells you what to fix.
- Reporting CES without context. A 3.2 average effort means nothing without knowing the scale, direction, and benchmark range. Always report alongside the scale and the relevant benchmark.
Related metrics
CES is part of the loyalty-metric stack with NPS (relationship) and CSAT (satisfaction). For activation and engagement, pair with activation rate and engagement rate. Retention outcomes: churn rate.
At a glance
- Category
- Operations / Cash
- Related
- 4 terms
Frequently asked questions
What is a good Customer Effort Score?
On a 7-point scale (1 = low effort, 7 = high effort), best-in-class support averages 2.0–2.5 (or 75–85% reporting 1–2). Self-serve workflows: 2.3–2.8. Onboarding: 2.5–3.2. Always benchmark within the specific use case — onboarding CES is structurally higher-effort than a support interaction.
How is CES different from NPS and CSAT?
NPS measures relationship loyalty (likelihood to recommend). CSAT measures interaction satisfaction. CES measures task effort. The three are complementary, not interchangeable — best-in-class CS orgs use all three for different decisions. CES is the strongest predictor of retention for transactional and support contexts.
When should you measure CES?
Immediately after task completion — within 24 hours, ideally within the hour. Post-support-resolution, post-onboarding-completion, post-key-workflow. Memory of effort decays sharply after 48 hours; later surveys collect blurred signal.
What's the CES question wording?
Standard wording: "How much effort did you have to put in to [complete the task]?" with a 1–7 scale (1 = very low effort, 7 = very high effort). An alternative version asks: "The company made it easy for me to handle my issue" with strongly disagree → strongly agree. Both are valid; pick one and stay consistent.
Does CES predict retention better than NPS?
For transactional and support contexts, yes — the original 2010 HBR research found CES had a stronger correlation with repurchase intent than NPS. For B2B SaaS relationship loyalty, NPS remains the better high-level signal. The strongest predictor of retention is a composite customer health score that includes both.
Sources
- Matthew Dixon, Karen Freeman, Nicholas Toman. Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers, Harvard Business Review, 2010. hbr.org
- Gartner. Customer Effort Score Benchmark 2025, 2025. gartner.com
- Zendesk. CX Trends 2025, 2025. zendesk.com
Fairview tracks CES alongside CSAT, NPS, and product usage in one customer health composite — see the operating intelligence overview for the broader category.
Definitions and benchmarks reviewed by Siddharth Gangal, Founder, Fairview.
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