Customer Effort Score (CES)

Technical explanation

CES is usually collected immediately after a defined experience using an ease or agreement scale. Teams may report the mean rating or the percentage of favourable responses, but the question wording, scale direction, scoring method and touchpoint must remain consistent for comparisons.

Business relevance

CES helps identify friction that increases service cost, abandonment or repeat contact and supports prioritisation of process and experience improvements.

Implementation example

After resolving a support case, customers rate the statement ‘The company made it easy to resolve my issue’ on a seven-point scale; the team tracks the average by case type.

Limitations and common misconceptions

CES reflects respondents and the measured interaction, not the entire relationship. Low response rates, scale changes, cultural response patterns and reversed scoring can undermine comparisons; qualitative evidence is still needed to diagnose causes.

Topics

Sources