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Customer Effort Score (CES) Calculator

Enter how many people picked each answer on your 1–7 effort question. You get all three numbers vendors report — the CES mean, the top-2-box percentage, and the high-effort segment worth interviewing first.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Customer Effort Score formula?

CES = Σ(score × number of responses) ÷ total responses, on a 1–7 scale where 7 means 'very easy'. Some teams instead report top-2-box: the percentage of people answering 6 or 7. This tool shows both so your numbers stay comparable.

What is a good CES score?

On the 1–7 scale, a mean of 5.5+ is solid and 6.0+ is excellent. Below 4.5 means most customers are hitting friction — that's a churn signal, not a survey artefact.

Should I use the 7-point scale or the old 5-point one?

Use the 7-point 'the company made it easy for me to handle my issue' agreement scale. It's the CEB/Gartner standard and the one every published benchmark uses.

CES vs CSAT vs NPS — which should I track?

CES predicts repeat purchase and churn better than CSAT for service interactions. CSAT measures whether one interaction met expectations. NPS measures overall advocacy. Track CES on support and onboarding flows, CSAT per interaction, NPS quarterly.

When should I send a CES survey?

Immediately after the interaction closes — within minutes for chat, within an hour for a ticket. Effort is remembered accurately for a very short window; a survey sent days later measures mood, not effort.

How many responses do I need?

Around 100 responses per segment makes CES directional; ~380 gives you a ±5-point margin of error at 95% confidence. Below 50, treat swings as noise.

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