Work out your Customer Effort Score
Enter how many responses landed on each step of the one-to-seven scale — the CES calculator returns the mean and the share of easy experiences.
How easy was it for you to get your issue resolved?
Calculate CES
Enter the number of responses on each point of the scale.
Responses in total
0
Your CES score
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CES = the sum of all ratings ÷ the number of responses. The mean sits between 1 and 7.
Collect the Customer Effort Score directly
The CES template from empirio.ai already carries the effort question on the one-to-seven scale, along with a follow-up for anyone who reports high effort. You watch the distribution across the steps in real time and work the score out here.
- A ready-made CES template on a 1–7 scale
- A follow-up question when effort is high
- Hosted in the EU
What is CES?
The Customer Effort Score — CES for short — measures how much work customers had to put in to get their issue resolved. Instead of asking about satisfaction it asks about perceived effort: “How easy was it for you to get your issue resolved?” Answers come on a scale from 1 (very difficult) to 7 (very easy). Low effort is one of the strongest drivers of loyalty there is — people tend to stay when nothing gets in their way.
How do you calculate CES?
CES = the sum of all ratings divided by the number of responses. The result is a mean between 1 and 7. The share of agreeing answers — steps 5 to 7 — is usually reported alongside it. The two belong together, because a mean on its own hides the extremes: a distribution where half answer 7 and half answer 3 produces the same mean as one where everybody answers 5, and describes a completely different experience.
What is a good CES?
On the one-to-seven scale, anything from 5.5 counts as good and anything from 6.0 as very good. Below 4.0 the effort you are asking of customers is clearly too high. Some studies use a five-point scale or reverse the polarity so that low values mean low effort — in which case these reference points do not apply. What matters most is keeping the scale constant across every measurement, otherwise you are comparing your own trend against yourself under different conditions.
CES ranges at a glance
| CES range | Rating |
|---|---|
| 6.0 to 7.0 | Very good |
| 5.5 to 5.9 | Good |
| 4.0 to 5.4 | Room to improve |
| 1.0 to 3.9 | Critical |
Common questions
How is CES calculated?
The Customer Effort Score is the mean of all responses on a scale from 1 (very difficult) to 7 (very easy). The share of responses at 5 to 7 is usually reported alongside it as a percentage.
What is a good CES?
On the one-to-seven scale, anything from 5.5 counts as good and anything from 6.0 as very good. Below 4.0 the effort you are asking of customers is clearly too high.
When should you measure CES?
Straight after an interaction — after a support conversation, a checkout, or an onboarding step. The shorter the gap, the more accurate the memory.
CES or CSAT?
CSAT measures satisfaction, CES measures perceived effort. For service and process questions, CES often says more about later loyalty than pure satisfaction scores do.