Zendesk Customer Effort Score Report: Track and Reduce Friction

Last updated: April 12, 2026

Zendesk Customer Effort Score report: track and reduce friction

Customer Effort Score (CES) measures how easy it is for customers to get help. It is one of the strongest predictors of loyalty: 96% of customers who have a high-effort experience become disloyal, compared to only 9% of those with low-effort interactions. Yet most Zendesk teams track CSAT and ignore effort entirely.

This guide walks through what a CES report should contain, how to build one using Zendesk data, where Explore falls short, and how to connect effort data to the operational metrics you already track on your support metrics dashboard.

What CES tells you that CSAT does not

CSAT asks “Were you satisfied?” after a single interaction. CES asks “Was it easy?” — and that distinction matters.

A customer can be satisfied with a polite agent but still frustrated because they had to contact support three times, repeat their issue, and wait two days for resolution. CSAT captures the final interaction; CES captures the entire journey.

Signal CSAT sees it CES sees it
Polite agent, slow resolution ✓ (often positive) ✓ (high effort)
Multiple contacts for one issue ✗ ✓
Channel switching (chat → email → phone) ✗ ✓
Self-service failure leading to ticket ✗ ✓
Fast first reply, slow follow-up ✗ ✓

CES is the metric that catches the problems hiding behind a “good” CSAT score. For more on how these metrics relate, see Customer Effort Score vs CSAT.

The metrics that drive CES in Zendesk

You do not need a survey to start tracking effort. Zendesk already captures operational signals that correlate strongly with customer effort:

1. Touches per ticket

Touches per ticket counts how many replies (customer + agent) a ticket requires before resolution. More touches = more effort. One-touch resolutions are low effort by definition. Five-touch tickets usually mean the customer had to explain the same problem multiple times.

2. Reopen rate

Reopen rate tracks tickets that were closed and then reopened because the issue was not actually resolved. Every reopen is a moment of peak customer frustration — they thought it was done, and it was not.

3. Reassignment rate

Reassignment rate and group reassignment rate measure how often tickets bounce between agents or teams. Each handoff risks context loss and forces the customer to re-explain.

4. Requester wait time

Requester wait time measures the total time the customer spends waiting for your team. Long waits are inherently high-effort — the customer is stuck.

5. Channel switches

If a customer starts on chat, gets told to email, then calls — that is three channels for one issue. Track tickets where the channel field changes or where the same requester opens tickets on multiple channels within a short window.

6. Reply time after first response

Reply time on follow-up messages matters more for effort than first response time alone. A fast first reply followed by two-day gaps between follow-ups creates a drawn-out, high-effort experience. See Zendesk reply time report.

How to build a CES report in Zendesk Explore

Step 1: Create a survey-based CES metric

If you collect CES survey responses (via a post-resolution survey or a third-party tool like Nicereply or Klaus), store the score as a custom ticket field in Zendesk. Then in Explore:

  1. Go to Explore → Reports → New report.
  2. Select the Support: Tickets dataset.
  3. Add your CES custom field as a metric (average).
  4. Add dimensions: Ticket created - Date (weekly), Assignee name, Ticket group, Ticket channel.
  5. Filter to tickets where the CES field is not null.

Step 2: Build a proxy effort score from operational data

If you do not collect CES surveys, build a proxy effort score from the metrics above:

High-effort ticket flags (create calculated attributes in Explore):

  • Touches per ticket > 4
  • Ticket was reopened at least once
  • Ticket was reassigned to a different group
  • Requester wait time > 24 business hours
  • Resolution required more than 3 agent replies

Create a calculated attribute that counts how many of these flags a ticket hits (0–5). A ticket with 3+ flags is a high-effort ticket. Track the percentage of high-effort tickets over time.

Step 3: Segment by the dimensions that matter

The overall CES number is useful for trending, but the segments tell you where to act:

  • By channel: Which channels produce the most high-effort tickets? Chat might be fast but low-resolution; email might be thorough but slow.
  • By topic/tag: Which issue types require the most customer effort? See Zendesk tags analysis for tag-based segmentation.
  • By agent/group: Are certain teams generating more high-effort interactions? This is a coaching signal, not a punishment metric.
  • By customer tier: Are your highest-value customers having the easiest or hardest experience?

Limitations of Explore for CES reporting

  • No native CES metric. Explore tracks CSAT natively but not CES. You need a custom field or a proxy.
  • Cross-ticket effort is invisible. If a customer contacts you three times about the same issue on three separate tickets, Explore treats each as independent. True effort requires linking tickets by requester and topic.
  • Channel switching is hard to detect. Explore does not natively track when a customer moves from one channel to another within the same issue.

What to do when CES spikes

When your effort score rises (or your high-effort ticket percentage increases), follow this triage:

  1. Check reopen rate. If reopens are up, agents are closing tickets prematurely. Fix the root cause: incomplete answers, unclear next steps, or agents under pressure to close quickly. See how to lower ticket reopens.

  2. Check reassignment rate. If tickets are bouncing between groups, your routing rules or triage process may be broken. See Zendesk routing and assignment metrics.

  3. Check reply time on follow-ups. If first reply is fast but follow-up replies are slow, agents may be prioritizing new tickets over existing conversations. Adjust workflow to balance inflow with in-progress work.

  4. Check touches per ticket by tag. If certain topics consistently require 5+ touches, the issue may be systemic: a confusing product feature, a missing knowledge base article, or a process that requires back-and-forth.

  5. Talk to agents. The agents working high-effort tickets know exactly why those tickets are hard. Ask them.

Connecting CES to your dashboard

CES does not replace your existing ops metrics — it adds a layer of interpretation. Add an effort section to your support dashboard template:

Metric Source Review cadence
CES survey average (if available) Custom field Weekly
% high-effort tickets (proxy) Calculated attribute Weekly
Touches per ticket (median) Explore Weekly
Reopen rate Explore Weekly
Reassignment rate Explore Monthly

When CES and CSAT diverge — CSAT is stable but CES is worsening — you have a problem that surveys alone would miss. The experience is getting harder even though customers are still rating individual interactions positively.

Common mistakes

  • Treating CES as a standalone metric. CES is most powerful when paired with operational metrics. A CES score of 5.2 means nothing without knowing which tickets, channels, or topics drive it.

  • Surveying too late. If your CES survey goes out days after resolution, customers forget the effort. Survey within hours, ideally in the same interaction flow.

  • Averaging across all tickets. Averaging CES across all tickets hides the distribution. A team might average 5.5, but if 20% of tickets score below 3, those customers are at churn risk. Track the distribution, not just the mean.

  • Ignoring non-respondents. Customers who had the worst experience are the least likely to respond to a survey. Use the proxy effort score alongside surveys to capture effort for the silent majority.

  • Using CES for agent performance reviews. CES is influenced by product complexity, documentation quality, and process design — factors outside an agent’s control. Use it for system improvement, not individual evaluation.

FAQ

What CES score should we target? On a 1–7 scale, aim for 6 or above. But your own trend matters more than an absolute number. If you move from 4.8 to 5.4 in a quarter, that is meaningful progress. See the CES glossary entry for benchmarks.

Can we track CES without a survey tool? Yes. The proxy effort score (using touches, reopens, reassignments, and wait time) captures 80% of the signal. Start with operational proxies and add a survey when you have bandwidth.

How does CES relate to NPS? CES predicts short-term loyalty (will they come back?). NPS predicts long-term advocacy (will they recommend you?). Low CES erodes NPS over time. Track both for a complete picture.

Should we measure CES per ticket or per customer? Both. Per-ticket CES tells you which interactions are high-effort. Per-customer CES (averaged across their recent tickets) tells you which accounts are accumulating friction and may churn.

What about self-service effort? CES should extend beyond the ticket queue. If customers search your help center, fail to find an answer, and then submit a ticket, that is a high-effort journey. See Zendesk help center analytics for measuring self-service gaps.

See which tickets create the most friction — start free