Definition
Customer Effort Score (CES)
Customer Effort Score (CES) is a survey metric that measures how much effort a customer had to expend to resolve their issue. Customers rate ease of resolution on a scale (typically 1–7 or 1–5), and the score reflects the friction involved in getting help. CES predicts loyalty better than CSAT for service interactions — customers who found it easy to get help are significantly less likely to churn.
How it works
CES is collected immediately after ticket resolution with a question like 'How easy was it to get your issue resolved?' Gartner research found that 96% of high-effort service interactions lead to disloyalty, compared to just 9% of low-effort interactions. Effort reduction is therefore a more powerful retention lever than delight.
Common sources of high customer effort include: having to repeat information across channels, being transferred between agents, getting an incomplete first response that required follow-up, and navigating a complex IVR or chatbot flow before reaching resolution.
CES differs from CSAT (how satisfied were you?) and NPS (how likely are you to recommend?). CSAT measures satisfaction with the outcome; CES measures friction in the process. Both are needed — a customer can be satisfied with the outcome (their return was processed) while experiencing high effort (it took three contacts to get there).
When you'll encounter it
CES appears alongside CSAT in enterprise support scorecards and in UX research on support experience quality. You'll encounter it in annual CX strategy reviews and when auditing escalation and re-contact rates.
How SupportSyndicate handles this
SupportSyndicate supports both CSAT and CES survey types. CES surveys can be configured to trigger on any ticket closure and are especially valuable for multi-turn conversations where high effort is most likely.
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