What is a Good Customer Effort Score (CES)? An In-Depth Guide

The less effort your customers put in, the more likely they are to come back. In customer experience, ease isn’t a nice-to-have — it’s the whole game. 

That’s where Customer Effort Score (CES) comes in. 

A good customer effort score (CES) tells you that it was easy for a customer to complete an action, whether that’s solving a problem, getting a refund, or navigating your website. 

Tools like Balto, which provide real-time agent guidance and coaching, help companies lower customer effort right when it counts: during live interactions.

And when it comes to effort, less is more: a good CES typically means a 4 or 5 on a 5-point scale, or 80 %+ agreement on a 7-point “ease of use” scale.

In this guide, we’ll explain exactly what CES measures, the customer effort score calculation, what “good” looks like in your industry, and most importantly, how to improve it.

What is Customer Effort Score (CES)?

Customer Effort Score (CES) is a metric that tells you how easy or difficult it was for a customer to complete a specific interaction with your company. 

It’s most commonly measured with a single survey question, like: “How easy was it to resolve your issue today?”

Depending on your survey design, customers respond on a 1–5, 1–7, or 0–100 scale — but the goal is always the same: to quantify effort. 

Unlike Net Promoter Score (NPS), which asks about recommendation likelihood, or Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), which asks how satisfied someone felt, CES cuts to the chase: Was this experience easy or hard?

Why does Customer Effort Score (CES) Matter?

Research shows that reducing customer effort is one of the best ways to increase loyalty. In fact, Gartner found that 96% of customers with a high-effort experience become less loyal to a given company, compared to just 9% who had a low-effort experience.

The Corporate Executive Board (CEB) study found 94% of customers with a high CES expressed intention to repurchase, and 88% said they would increase their spending. 

On the other hand, 81% of customers with a high-effort experience (low CES) planned to spread negative word of mouth. According to SurveyMonkey, 91% of customers with a low-effort experience planned to spread positive word of mouth. 
Think of CES as an early warning system. A low CES (i.e., a customer has to put in more effort) tells you something is wrong – your support process, product flow, or onboarding experience might be creating friction that pushes customers away.

Think of CES as an early warning system. A low CES (i.e., a customer has to put in more effort) tells you something is wrong — your support process, product flow, or onboarding experience might be creating friction that pushes customers away.

How can you measure Customer Effort Score (CES)?

Measuring CES is simple in structure, but powerful in impact. It typically involves asking a single question after a key customer interaction, like a support chat, phone call, purchase, or account change.

Most companies use a version of: “The company made it easy for me to handle my issue.”

Customers respond on a given scale, such as:

• 1 to 5 (1 = Strongly Disagree, 5 = Strongly Agree)
• 1 to 7 (1 = Strongly Disagree, 7 = Strongly Agree)
• 0 to 100% agreement or satisfaction (less common, but still used)

Some businesses flip the scale and ask directly about effort, such as: “How much effort did it take to get your issue resolved?” In this case, lower scores are better because they indicate less effort.

When should you ask for a Customer Effort Score (CES)?

Timing is everything. The most effective CES measurements are sent:

• Immediately after an interaction, while the experience is still fresh
• Via the same channel the interaction occurred on (e.g., in-app, email, chat)
• At key touchpoints in the customer journey, like during support tickets, returns, purchases, or onboarding flows

💡Pro Tip: Keep it short. CES is typically one question with an optional follow-up like, “Tell us why you gave that score.” This free-text insight can help pinpoint exactly what needs fixing.

How can you calculate your overall Customer Effort Score (CES)?

Once you’ve collected individual CES survey responses, calculating your overall CES is straightforward. You’re essentially averaging the scores to get a single, trackable number.

If you’re using a numeric scale (e.g., 1–5 or 1–7), your customer effort score (CES) formula is:

CES = Total sum of customer scores ÷ Number of responses

Example:

• If 10 customers responded on a 1–5 scale and their scores were: 4, 5, 4, 3, 5, 4, 4, 5, 3, 4
• The total = 41
• Divide by 10 responses = CES of 4.1

The above customer effort score (CES) formula would tell you that, on average, your customers are finding interactions relatively easy (which is good!).

Consistency is key. Pick a scale, stick with it, and track CES over time to see whether your customer experience is improving or slipping.

What is a good Customer Effort Score (CES)?

A good Customer Effort Score means your customers find it easy to do business with you — and that’s a strong predictor of loyalty, repeat purchases, and reduced churn.

But what’s “good” depends on how you ask the CES question and what scale you use:

• 1–5 scale: Aim for 4.0 or higher
• 1–7 scale: Aim for 5.5 or higher
• % agreement (“Strongly Agree” or “Agree”): Aim for 80 %+

If your CES drops below 3.5 on a 5-point scale, below 5.5 on a 7-point scale, or below 70% agreement, it’s time to investigate friction points.

Keep in mind that the ideal CES can vary:

• By industry: E-commerce often sees higher CES due to simpler tasks; B2B support may have more complex flows.
• By interaction type: Customers may expect more effort when resolving technical issues vs. reordering a product.
• By wording: If your CES question asks about “effort,” lower scores are better. If it asks about “ease,” higher scores are better.

What is a good Customer Effort Score (CES) by industry?

What qualifies as a “good” CES can vary by industry. 

Simpler experiences — like online retail purchases — naturally score higher than complex, high-touch services like insurance claims or B2B onboarding that might require more effort to solve a given problem. 

Below is a benchmark table to help you understand how your CES may compare:

💡Please note that these ranges can vary based on scale type, question phrasing, and customer expectations. Always benchmark against your own historical data for the clearest insights.

Want to beat your industry benchmark?

Tools like Balto’s platform of tools enable agents to reduce customer effort in every conversation, improving CES where it matters most.

How can you improve your Customer Effort Score (CES)?

If your CES is lower than you’d like — or trending in the wrong direction — don’t panic. High-effort experiences are usually fixable. 

Here are five proven strategies to reduce customer friction and raise your CES:

1. Streamline Your Support Processes

Simplify handoffs, eliminate redundant steps, and reduce time-to-resolution wherever possible. 

For example:

• Offer callback options instead of waiting on hold
• Eliminate the need to repeat information between agents
• Automatically route customers to the right department or skill set

2. Use Proactive Communication

Don’t make customers chase updates. 

Keep them in the loop with proactive status alerts, delivery updates, or confirmation emails — especially for longer processes like returns, account approvals, or troubleshooting.

3. Improve Self-Service Options

Customers often prefer to help themselves — but only if it’s actually helpful. 

Optimize your FAQs, knowledge bases, and chatbot flows to answer real questions clearly, without dead ends. Track where customers abandon self-service and follow up with CES surveys.

4. Coach Agents in Real Time

Customer frustration often comes from inconsistent or confusing support. 

Equip agents with coaching tools that surface the right answers as they speak, so they don’t have to guess or stall.

Teams using Balto’s Agent Assist to give agents the right support in the moment can expect to see improved resolution quality and CES scores in a matter of weeks. 

5. Follow Up with Open-Text Feedback

CES numbers are helpful, but the “why” matters just as much. 

Add an optional free-response field after your CES question to understand pain points in the customer’s own words. Then, use that insight to fine-tune your processes.

What are the pros and cons of using Customer Effort Score (CES)?

Customer Effort Score is one of the most useful metrics in your customer experience toolkit — but like any metric, it has limitations. Understanding both sides will help you use CES wisely and in context.

CES works because it gets to the heart of what customers want: ease. 

High CES scores consistently correlate with increased loyalty, higher repurchase rates, and stronger word-of-mouth, often more reliably than traditional satisfaction metrics. 

The simplicity of CES also makes it easy to implement across touchpoints, from support chats to checkout flows, and the results are usually clear and actionable.

You don’t need a massive data team to understand that a process requiring fewer steps and less frustration is good for business. 

By tracking CES over time, customer experience teams can catch friction early, coach agents in real time, and prioritize process changes that move the needle.

At the same time, CES is not a silver bullet. It doesn’t measure emotional tone, long-term loyalty, or brand sentiment — only perceived ease in a single moment. 

This makes it less useful for capturing big-picture customer experience trends or understanding complex, relationship-driven experiences. 

CES also loses value when organizations aren’t consistent in how they phrase the question or scale, or when they fail to follow up with context-gathering tools like open-text fields. A CES score of “3” can mean very different things depending on who’s responding. 

That’s why CES is most powerful when used in combination with qualitative insights, not in isolation.

Why does CES matter for loyalty and retention?

Customers remember how you made them feel — but just as importantly, they remember how easy (or hard) it was to get what they needed. 

CES goes beyond satisfaction scores by focusing on effort, which is one of the strongest predictors of future behavior. 

Reducing customer effort doesn’t just improve loyalty — it also lowers support costs, improves agent morale, and strengthens your brand reputation. 

Whether it’s resolving a billing issue, navigating your knowledge base, or interacting with an agent, ease builds trust. And trust drives retention.

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