Customer Effort Score (CES)

CES measures how much effort a customer has to exert to get an issue resolved, a product used, or a task completed — on the premise that reducing effort is a more reliable driver of loyalty than exceeding expectations or "delighting" customers. The lower the effort, the more likely the customer is to stay, buy again, and spend more.

Origin

CES was introduced by Matthew Dixon, Karen Freeman, and Nicholas Toman in a 2010 Harvard Business Review article titled "Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers," drawing on research across 75,000+ customer interactions (Formbricks, 2026-03-25). The original insight — that reducing effort outperforms exceeding expectations as a loyalty driver — is described as counterintuitive to the prevailing service philosophy of the time. The metric was subsequently developed into an enterprise framework by Gartner/CEB, which is now the primary source of large-sample CES research.

How it is measured

Survey question

CES 2.0 uses a statement format rather than a direct question: "[Company] made it easy for me to [complete task]," rated 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 7 (Strongly Agree). The statement format tests a hypothesis rather than asking customers to self-assess their effort, which Formbricks (2026-03-25) argues yields more accurate responses.

Some deployments still use the question form: "How easy was it to resolve your issue today?" or "How easy was it to complete your purchase?" (1–7 ease scale).

Calculation

Two methods are in use:

Average method: CES = Sum of all scores ÷ Number of responses. On a 7-point scale, anything above 5.0 is generally considered good (Formbricks, 2026-03-25).
Percentage method: CES% = (Number of responses scoring 6 or 7 out of 7) ÷ Total responses × 100. Ringly.io (2026-06-18) cites Gartner benchmarking in which above 80% is good; below 70% indicates a need for improvement; above 90% signals a strong, low-effort operation.

When to trigger

CES is transactional — it should be triggered immediately after specific interactions, not on a schedule (Survicate, YouTube, 2023-03-29; Formbricks, 2026-03-25):

After a support ticket closes
After a purchase completes
After a return or exchange is processed
After an account is created
After a new feature is used or a help article is read

Effort perception fades fast; delays of even hours reduce data quality.

Sample size

Statistical validity for CES surveys requires at least 30–50 responses; 100+ provides more reliable insights; for companies with thousands of monthly interactions, a response rate of 10–15% is recommended (Formbricks, 2026-03-25).

Benchmarks (as-of 2025–2026)

Industry benchmarks — 7-point scale (Formbricks 2026-03-25, aggregating Gartner/Qualtrics):

Industry	CES range (7-point scale)
E-commerce	5.4–5.8
Software / SaaS	5.2–5.6
Financial Services	4.8–5.3
Travel and Hospitality	5.0–5.5
Retail (brick-and-mortar)	5.3–5.7
Healthcare	4.5–5.0
Insurance	4.6–5.1
Telecom	4.2–4.8

Ecommerce sub-vertical benchmarks (Opensend 2025-04-27, citing Zendesk/SurveyMonkey):

Segment	CES (7-point scale)
E-commerce average	5.0–5.5
Fashion retail	5.4
Electronics retail	5.1
Top performers	5.8+

First-time buyers report 15% higher effort scores than loyal customers (as-of 2025-04-27, Opensend).

Percentage-method benchmarks (Ringly.io 2026-06-18, citing Gartner): ecommerce and retail 82–90%; B2B enterprise support 65–75%.

CES with vs without a dedicated CS function (StealthAgents 2026, citing HubSpot 2025 State of Customer Service): median CES 5.7 with a dedicated customer success function vs 5.1 without (as-of 2025, HubSpot).

Adoption (as-of 2026-01-26): Only 25% of companies track CES, vs 53% who track CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score) as their primary metric (Klaviyo 2026-01-26). 60% of service professionals now track CES (up from 44% in 2018) — Ringly.io 2026-06-18, citing Zendesk CX Trends, original 2018 figure unverified.

Loyalty impact

The foundational Gartner/CEB research — described as drawing from 97,000+ customer responses across 100+ companies — established the core ratios now cited across all CES literature:

96% of customers who experience a high-effort interaction become more disloyal, vs only 9% of those with a low-effort experience (Ringly.io 2026-06-18, citing Gartner/CEB; Klaviyo 2026-01-26)
94% of customers with a low-effort interaction intend to repurchase; only 4% of high-effort customers intend to return (Survicate, YouTube, 2023-03-29; Opensend 2025-04-27)
88% of customers in low-effort interactions intend to increase their spending (Ringly.io 2026-06-18, citing Gartner)
1% of low-effort customers say something negative about the brand to others, vs 81% of high-effort customers (Ringly.io 2026-06-18, citing CEB via HelpScout)
A low-effort interaction costs 37% less to deliver than a high-effort one — less escalation, hold time, and rework (Ringly.io 2026-06-18, citing Gartner)

CES as a predictor: Gartner research reports CES is 1.8× more predictive of customer loyalty than CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score) and 2× more predictive than Net Promoter Score (NPS) (Ringly.io 2026-06-18; StealthAgents 2026).

Ecommerce-specific impact (as-of 2025-04-27, Opensend, citing Retently and Second-to-None):

A 1-point CES improvement can boost retention by up to 8%
Reducing customer effort leads to a 12% increase in retention
Customers rating effort as low are 63% more likely to complete additional purchases within 30 days vs those reporting high effort

CES vs NPS vs CSAT

The three metrics serve distinct purposes and are best deployed in combination (IBM, YouTube, 2025-02-06; Formbricks, 2026-03-25; CustomerSure, YouTube, 2023-01-27):

Metric	What it measures	Scale	Type	Best cadence
Net Promoter Score (NPS)	Overall brand loyalty; likelihood to recommend	0–10	Relational	Quarterly/semi-annual
CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score)	Satisfaction with a specific interaction	1–5	Transactional	After interactions
CES	Ease of completing a specific task	1–7	Transactional	Immediately after task

CES focuses on processes and friction — how smooth are the systems, policies, and flows — while CSAT focuses on how a customer felt emotionally; CES does not tell you whether a customer loves you (NPS) or how they felt (CSAT) (CustomerSure, YouTube, 2023-01-27).

IBM (YouTube, 2025-02-06) illustrated the three metrics with a fashion case study: NPS was high (long-term brand loyalty), CSAT for a delayed delivery was low (point-in-time dissatisfaction), and CES depended on how the complaint was resolved — three metrics, three different answers about the same event.

A customer can rate their satisfaction as 4/5 (CSAT) and still churn if the process was painful — CES catches what CSAT misses (Formbricks, 2026-03-25, citing original CEB research).

Top causes of high effort (as-of 2026)

Channel switching and context loss (Ringly.io 2026-06-18):

62% of service channel switches are rated "high effort" (Gartner, via CX Today)
88% of journeys starting in self-service ultimately touch a live agent — the handoff is where most effort is created (8x8)
Only 7% of contact centres can transition customers between channels while preserving full context (CGS)
74% of customers find it frustrating to retell their story to different agents (Zendesk CX Trends, 11,000 consumers, 22 countries)
33% rank "repeating yourself to multiple reps" as their single biggest frustration (Statista)

Wait times and hold: 60% cite long holds and waits as most frustrating; 64% will avoid a brand if they waited on hold more than 30 minutes (HelpScout, via Ringly.io 2026-06-18).

Self-service gap (Ringly.io 2026-06-18, citing Tidio/Freshworks):

81% of buyers attempt self-service first; only 14% fully resolve without human assistance
77% say a poor self-service option is worse than no support at all (Freshworks)
60% of tickets could be resolved with self-service; only 36% currently are
Live support costs ~$8.01 per contact vs ~$0.10 for self-service — an 80× gap

Ecommerce-specific use

Key CES touchpoints (Formbricks 2026-03-25; Opensend 2025-04-27):

Touchpoint	Survey trigger	What CES reveals
Checkout	After purchase completes	Friction in payment flow, account creation, form complexity
Returns	After return/exchange processed	Whether customer will buy again despite a problem
Account creation	After sign-up	Friction from mandatory registration, password requirements
Order support	After ticket closes	Handoff quality, FCR, channel switching
Product search	After session (low CES trigger)	Search friction, findability failures

Ecommerce-specific CES pain points (Opensend 2025-04-27): checkout complexity 42%; product search functionality 31%; returns processes 27%; mobile usability 25%.

The returns process is named as the primary effort driver in the ecommerce CES benchmark range (Formbricks 2026-03-25). A post-return CES question is described as a strong predictor of whether a customer will buy again despite having had a problem.

Shopify (2026-06-09) identifies the key signals that effort is too high in ecommerce: abandoned shopping carts, declining conversion rates, increased support ticket volume around the same questions, low engagement after sign-up, negative reviews mentioning difficulty, and lower Retention.

Checkout Abandonment rates remain close to 70% in 2025–2026, with complicated checkout flows, forced account creation, and slow payment experiences as leading causes (various sources; see Checkout Abandonment). Baymard Institute (undated guide) benchmarks the average checkout at 19.9 form elements; an optimised flow can reach 12.

See also Post-Purchase Account Creation and Post-Purchase Email Sequences for adjacent touchpoints.

AI impact (as-of 2026)

91% of customer service leaders are under pressure to implement AI (Gartner survey 2026-02-18, via Ringly.io 2026-06-18). AI chatbots resolve 86% of questions without human intervention in mature deployments; most ecommerce stores land in the 50–70% range (Tidio, via Ringly.io 2026-06-18).

Measurement best practices

Formbricks (2026-03-25) synthesises the highest-impact CES practices from CEB/Gartner research:

Survey design: Send within minutes of task completion. Keep surveys to 1–3 questions maximum. Trigger automatically based on events, not on a periodic schedule. The most important follow-up question: "What made [task] easy or difficult for you?" paired with every CES rating. Also useful: "Is there anything that almost made you give up?" — which surfaces near-miss failures.

Analysis: Measure per-touchpoint rather than as a single company-wide score — aggregate scores mask high-effort pockets (e.g., checkout scoring 6.2 while returns scores 3.8). Use the average score method for trend tracking; the percentage method for stakeholder communication.

Action: Prioritise first-contact resolution (target 70%+ FCR for chat and phone). Eliminate channel switching. Build self-service that actually resolves issues. Communicate proactively to prevent contacts. Reduce wait times.

Limitations

CustomerGauge (2026-04-28) notes CES's main limitation: it works best when asked about specific interactions and does not identify the nuances of problems; follow-up open-ended questions are needed to make it actionable. CES does not capture overall brand sentiment, emotional satisfaction, or purchase intent.

Survicate (YouTube, 2023-03-29) notes there is no cross-industry CES benchmark because companies use different scales and the effort required varies by service type. A "perfect" CES score is suspicious — it likely means customers didn't engage honestly.

Key terms

Term	Meaning
CES 2.0	The statement-format version ("made it easy...") introduced after the original 1–5 direct-effort question
First-contact resolution (FCR)	Resolving a customer's issue on first interaction — the single biggest controllable CES driver
Low-effort experience	Resolved without channel switching, repeating information, or waiting; predicts repurchase and increased spend
High-effort experience	Involves channel switching, context loss, hold times, or multiple contacts; strongly correlated with disloyalty
Transactional survey	A survey triggered by a specific event, not sent on a calendar schedule — the correct deployment mode for CES