Customer Effort Score (CES) Calculator

How to use this CES calculator

To calculate your CES, you must first administer a survey asking your customers to rate their experience with your company. This can either be on a scale of 1 (very easy) to 5 (very difficult) or 1 (very easy) to 10 (very difficult).

Once you have your survey results, enter the total number of responses that you received for each number on your scale. The tool will instantly calculate your CES score, providing insights into your customer’s overall experience with your business.

CES formula

CES = (Sum of Customer Effort Ratings / Total Number of Responses)

Customer Response Rating = Number of Respondents Who Gave that Score x Value Attributed to the Score

Understanding the CES result

Your CES result reflects how easy or difficult it is for customers to interact with your business:

• A low CES score (closer to 1) means customers find it easy to engage with your company, which generally leads to higher satisfaction and loyalty.

• A high CES score (closer to 5) indicates that customers may face significant barriers or frustration while interacting with your business. This can lead to decreased satisfaction and retention, indicating that you need to detect and rectify the issue that your users are facing.

When to calculate CES

Here are some key situations where you should administer a CES survey:

• After a customer has completed a purchase or transaction

• After customer support interactions, such as resolving a ticket or query

• During product onboarding to gauge the ease of use for new customers

• After key product updates to measure the impact on customer experience

You should then calculate your CES during monthly or annual reviews and after major changes in your product or customer service.

How to calculate CES (with example)

Imagine that you surveyed 100 customers after they interacted with your support team. On a scale of 1 to 5, 30 customers rated the experience 1 (very easy), 20 customers gave a rating of 2, 40 customers gave a score of 3, 8 people chose 4, and 2 people found the experience very difficult and rated it 5 (very difficult). Your CES score will be calculated as follows:

CES = (Sum of Customer Effort Ratings / Total Number of Responses)

Sum of Customer Effort Ratings = (30 x1) + (20 x 2) + (40 x 3) + (8 x 4) + (2 x 5) = 232

CES = (232 / 100) = 2.32

In this example, your CES score is 2.32, indicating that customers generally find it relatively easy to interact with your support team.

How to improve your CES

• Simplify processes that customers commonly interact with, such as checkout or support ticket submission

• Provide clear and concise instructions to reduce confusion and effort

• Use self-service options like FAQs or chatbots to allow customers to solve issues quickly on their own

• Train customer service representatives to resolve issues efficiently and reduce back-and-forth communication

• Regularly review customer feedback and make improvements to remove pain points in the customer journey