What Is CES and How to Calculate It

CES, or Customer Effort Score, measures how much effort someone felt they needed to complete a task. It helps teams find friction in experiences such as getting support, setting up an account, buying something, or solving a problem.

This guide is part of the feedback and survey glossary.

How CES works

The survey presents a statement or question about one specific experience. A simple example is: “How easy was it to solve what you needed to solve?”

Responses can use a 1-to-5 or 1-to-7 scale, from very difficult to very easy. Explain the endpoints and keep the same format whenever you compare periods.

How to calculate CES

Add all valid scores and divide the total by the number of valid responses:

Average CES = total score ÷ number of valid responses

If 20 people give a combined score of 110 on a 1-to-7 scale, the average CES is 110 ÷ 20 = 5.5.

You can also track the percentage of positive responses. Define which scores count as low effort before you start and record that rule with the result.

When to use CES

Use CES after a clearly defined task or interaction:

• Completing onboarding.
• Finding a piece of information.
• Resolving a support request.
• Finishing a purchase or exchange.
• Configuring a feature.

The customer onboarding template and customer service satisfaction template show how to keep the question grounded in context.

CES, CSAT, and NPS

CES measures effort, CSAT measures satisfaction with an experience, and NPS measures recommendation intent. They answer different questions and can appear at different moments in the journey.

Use the NPS, CSAT, and CES comparison when you need to choose a metric without mixing them together.

How to interpret the result

Compare CES for the same task, with the same scale and at an equivalent moment. An isolated average does not tell you which step caused the friction.

Add one short open-ended question, such as “What made this experience harder?”. Then group comments by step and frequency. The score shows where to investigate; the words explain what to change.

Common mistakes

• Asking about effort without naming the task.
• Reversing the scale between surveys.
• Comparing different journeys as if they were equivalent.
• Treating ease as a synonym for satisfaction.
• Ignoring people who could not complete the task.

Next step

Choose one important journey step, keep the scale clear, and add an optional open-ended field. Repeat the measurement after improving the flow.

Create my effort survey