Free Calculator

Customer Effort Score Calculator

Measure how easy it is for customers to get help

Converge Converge Team
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Survey Results (1=Easy, 7=Difficult)

1 — Very Easy
2 — Easy
3 — Somewhat Easy
4 — Neutral
5 — Somewhat Hard
6 — Difficult
7 — Very Difficult

Results

Customer Effort Score
2.7
Good — low effort experience
Total Responses
100
Low Effort (1-3)
75%

Customer Effort Score (CES) measures how easy or difficult it is for customers to interact with your business. Unlike satisfaction metrics like CSAT that ask "how happy are you?", CES asks the more predictive question: "how much work did you have to do?" The lower the effort, the higher the loyalty.

The concept was introduced by Matthew Dixon, Nick Toman, and Rick DeLisi in their influential Harvard Business Review article "Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers" (2010). Their research, based on analysis of 75,000 customer interactions, revealed a surprising finding: loyalty is driven more by reducing effort than by exceeding expectations.

According to Gartner (which acquired CEB, the original researchers), 96% of customers who report high-effort service experiences become disloyal, compared to only 9% of those with low-effort experiences. Furthermore, high-effort interactions are 4x more likely to drive disloyalty than low-effort interactions are to drive loyalty.

For support teams, CES pinpoints exactly where friction lives. If customers rate "finding the right contact method" as high effort, you need better self-service. If "explaining my issue" scores high, your agents need better context-passing tools. CES turns qualitative frustration into quantifiable, actionable data.

How to Use This Calculator

  1. Enter responses: Input the number of respondents for each score on the 1-7 scale (1 = very easy, 7 = very difficult).
  2. Review your CES: The average score is calculated automatically. Lower scores indicate less customer effort.
  3. Check the distribution: See what percentage of customers rated their experience as low, medium, or high effort.
  4. Benchmark: Compare your CES against industry standards shown in the results panel.

Pro Tips

  • Survey right after interaction: CES is most accurate when measured immediately after a specific touchpoint, not as a periodic survey.
  • Focus on reducing high-effort scores: Moving a customer from 6 to 4 has more impact than moving one from 3 to 2. Attack the biggest friction points first.
  • Combine with open-text feedback: "What could we have done to make this easier?" reveals specific improvements no quantitative score can.
  • Track by journey stage: Onboarding, troubleshooting, and billing each have different effort profiles. Measure and improve them independently.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Customer Effort Score (CES)?
CES measures how much effort a customer has to put in to get an issue resolved, a question answered, or a product used. Typically measured on a 1-7 scale where 1 is 'very low effort' and 7 is 'very high effort.' Research from Gartner (formerly CEB) found that reducing customer effort is the strongest predictor of future loyalty.
How is CES calculated?
CES is the average of all survey responses. Sum all scores and divide by the number of responses. On a 7-point scale, a CES below 3 is excellent (low effort), 3-4 is average, and above 5 indicates friction. Some organizations invert the scale so higher = better. This calculator uses the standard where lower is better.
What is a good CES score?
On a 1-7 scale (lower = easier), a CES of 2 or below is excellent. Between 2-3 is good. Above 4 indicates significant friction. According to Gartner, 96% of customers who report high-effort experiences become disloyal, compared to only 9% of those with low-effort experiences.
When should you send a CES survey?
Send CES surveys immediately after specific interactions: after a support ticket is resolved, after a purchase, or after onboarding. The question is typically: 'On a scale of 1-7, how easy was it to [specific action]?' CES is interaction-specific, unlike NPS which measures overall relationship.
CES vs NPS vs CSAT — which should I use?
Use all three for different purposes. CSAT measures satisfaction with a specific interaction. NPS measures overall loyalty and likelihood to recommend. CES measures ease of experience. Research from Dixon, Toman, and DeLisi shows CES is the best predictor of repurchase behavior, while NPS is better for referral prediction.
How do you reduce customer effort?
The biggest effort drivers are: having to contact support multiple times, being transferred between agents, repeating information, and switching channels. Reduce effort by: improving first-contact resolution, providing self-service options, using unified platforms that preserve context, and proactively resolving issues before customers notice.

Related Free Tools

NPS Calculator →Response Time Calculator →CSAT Calculator →

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