Customer Effort Score (CES)
01 Definition
Customer Effort Score (CES) meaning: A measure of how much effort a customer needed to complete a task or resolve an issue.
Customer Effort Score asks how easy it was to get something done, such as solving a problem or making a purchase. Customers rate the ease, often on a scale from very difficult to very easy. Lower effort tends to link with stronger loyalty than delight alone.
Why it matters
How Customer Effort Score (CES) fits the work
CES focuses on removing friction, based on research suggesting that making things easy keeps customers more reliably than trying to exceed their expectations.
In context
After a return, a store asks customers to rate how easy the process was, and 85% choose easy or very easy.
Practical note
Scales and wording for CES vary between companies, so scores are hard to compare across sources; always note the exact question and range used.