How to Measure Customer Effort Score (CES) and Reduce Friction

In 2010, the Harvard Business Review published a landmark finding: the strongest predictor of customer loyalty isn't satisfaction or delight. It's effort. Customers who have low-effort interactions are 94% more likely to repurchase and 88% more likely to increase spending. Conversely, 96% of customers who have high-effort experiences become disloyal.

Customer Effort Score (CES) measures how easy or difficult it was for a customer to accomplish a specific task. It's the most actionable CX metric because it points directly at friction, and friction is fixable.

What Is CES?

The standard CES question: "To what extent do you agree with the following statement: [Company] made it easy for me to handle my issue."

Measured on a 1-7 Likert scale:

• 1 = Strongly disagree
• 7 = Strongly agree

CES = Average score across all responses

Above 5.5 is generally good. Below 5.0 indicates significant friction.

When to Use CES

CES is a transactional metric, not a relationship metric. Use it after specific interactions:

• After a support ticket is resolved
• After completing a purchase
• After using self-service documentation
• After onboarding steps
• After account changes (upgrade, downgrade, cancellation)
• After any process that requires multiple steps

Building CES Studies with Koji

Post-Support CES Study

Q1: Effort Score (Scale, 1-7) "How easy was it to get your issue resolved?"

• Labels: 1 = "Very difficult", 7 = "Very easy"
• Anchor probing enabled

Q2: Friction Points (Open-ended) "Walk me through what you had to do to get this resolved."

• Probing depth: 3
• AI instruction: "Map the complete customer journey for this interaction. How many contacts, transfers, and steps did it take? Where did they have to repeat information?"

Q3: Channel Experience (Single Choice) "Which channels did you use to resolve your issue?"

• Options: Chat / Email / Phone / Self-service / Social media / Multiple channels
• Probing: "Did you have to switch between channels? Why?"

Q4: First Contact Resolution (Yes/No) "Was your issue resolved in your first contact?"

• Probing on "No": "How many contacts did it take? What went wrong with earlier attempts?"

Q5: Self-Service Attempt (Yes/No) "Did you try to resolve this yourself before contacting support?"

• Probing on "Yes": "What did you try? Where did self-service fall short?"

Q6: Improvement (Open-ended) "What would have made this experience easier?"

• Probing depth: 2

Post-Purchase CES Study

Q1: Purchase Effort (Scale, 1-7) "How easy was the purchasing process?"

• Anchor probing on all scores

Q2: Decision Process (Open-ended) "Walk me through the steps you took to complete your purchase."

• Probing depth: 2
• Identifies friction in checkout, pricing pages, comparison

Q3: Barriers (Open-ended) "Was there anything that almost prevented you from completing the purchase?"

• Probing depth: 3
• Captures near-abandonment moments

Q4: Information Finding (Scale, 1-5) "How easy was it to find the information you needed to make your decision?"

• Probing: "What information was hard to find?"

CES Analysis and Action

What Koji Reports Generate

• Effort score distribution with trend tracking
• Friction point map ranked by frequency and severity
• Channel analysis showing which support channels create the most effort
• First contact resolution rate with root causes for escalations
• Self-service gap analysis identifying where documentation/tools fall short
• Journey mapping showing the actual steps customers take vs. the intended flow

The Effort Reduction Playbook

1. Eliminate channel switching. If customers contact via chat, get transferred to email, then call, that's three contacts for one issue. Fix routing.
2. Improve self-service. When customers try to help themselves and fail, the subsequent support interaction feels even more effortful. Invest in documentation that actually answers questions.
3. Reduce repetition. If customers have to re-explain their issue at each contact, your systems aren't sharing context. Fix information flow.
4. Streamline processes. If a simple account change requires 4 steps and a confirmation email, simplify it to 1 step.
5. Track effort by journey stage. Some stages (purchase) may be low-effort while others (cancellation) are high-effort. Address the highest-effort stages first.

CES Best Practices

Measure immediately after the interaction

CES is most accurate when collected within hours of the experience. The longer you wait, the more effort perception is colored by subsequent experiences.

Combine CES with CSAT

CES tells you how easy it was. CSAT tells you how satisfying it was. An interaction can be easy but unsatisfying (quick resolution, wrong answer) or difficult but satisfying (long process, great outcome). You need both.

Focus on reducing negatives, not creating positives

The CES research is clear: reducing effort matters more than adding delight. Fix the friction before investing in wow moments.

Benchmark against yourself

CES varies wildly by industry and interaction type. Your support CES will differ from your purchase CES. Track each touchpoint independently over time.

Why Koji Is the Best CES Tool

Traditional CES tools send a one-question survey after support tickets close. Koji sends a conversational interview that:

• Maps the complete journey from initial problem to resolution, identifying every friction point
• Probes channel switching to understand why customers escalate
• Captures self-service attempts that reveal documentation and tooling gaps
• Identifies near-abandonment moments in purchase flows
• Quantifies effort AND explains it by combining the CES score with detailed qualitative probing
• Generates journey maps automatically showing actual vs. intended customer paths

Reducing customer effort is the highest-ROI CX investment. Koji gives you the detailed friction data to do it systematically.