Customer Effort Score (CES)

Customer Effort Score (CES) measures the effort a customer had to expend to get something done. The standard question is "How easy was it to [resolve your issue / complete your task / find what you needed], on a scale of 1 (very difficult) to 7 (very easy)?" CES was introduced by CEB (now Gartner) in 2010, based on the finding that effort is a stronger predictor of repurchase than satisfaction.

CES is calculated as the percentage of respondents choosing 5–7 on a 7-point scale (or 6–7 for a stricter version). Benchmarks: above 70% is good, above 85% is excellent. CES is most useful in support contexts (ticket resolution), onboarding flows (new-user activation), and self-service experiences (help-center search, knowledge base).

When to use CES instead of CSAT or NPS: when the customer's primary need is task completion rather than enjoyment — fixing a broken thing, finding an answer, completing setup. For experiential interactions (a meal, a stay, a service), CSAT and NPS are stronger.

Most reputation platforms support CES as a survey type, but it's the least common of the three. Don't run all three in parallel — pick one per touchpoint based on what you actually want to learn.