Nobody is loyal because you delighted them. They stay because you did not waste their afternoon.
Customer Effort Score asks how hard somebody had to work to get what they needed. It is the best single predictor of whether a customer sticks around after a support contact, and it is more actionable than satisfaction because effort has a cause you can go and remove.
CES puts a statement in front of somebody and asks how strongly they agree: the company made it easy for me to handle my issue. Answers run from strongly disagree to strongly agree. Low effort predicts loyalty better than high satisfaction does, which is the whole reason the measure exists.
Report the percentage who agree or strongly agree, and show the full spread next to it. There is no single agreed formula, so whichever you pick, write it down and use the same one every time.
Immediately after a support interaction, a returns process, a sign-up, or anything else you suspect is harder than it should be.
The questions, in full
Every one of them is on this page before you sign up for anything. The line under each question says what it is for, and what it is deliberately not asking.
The chart that suits the question, and a paragraph under it.
Numbers get the widget built for them. Written answers get grouped into the things people kept saying, with a count on each and every original answer still readable underneath, word for word.
Everything a results page holdsWhat goes wrong with a ces survey
- Asking about effort long after the fact. Effort is remembered as a mood within a week and the detail goes.
- Running CES without the free text box. The score alone tells you there is friction and nothing about where.
- Treating a good CES as a reason to stop asking. Effort creeps back in every time a process changes.
- Using it to score an individual support agent. It measures the process they were working inside, and most of the effort is usually not theirs.
Is CES better than CSAT?
For support and service interactions it predicts whether somebody stays better than satisfaction does. For a purchase or an event, CSAT fits more naturally. They are worth running side by side for a quarter to see which one moves with your churn.
Should the scale be five points or seven?
Seven is the original and gives you more room at the ends. Five is easier on a phone. Either works as long as you keep it.
What counts as a bad score?
Anything where the disagree side is growing. The absolute number matters far less than the direction, because effort scores are extremely sensitive to how you worded the statement.
Often run alongside this one
CSAT survey
Customer Satisfaction Score measures one specific interaction rather than the whole relationship. It is the right tool immediately after a purchase, a support ticket or a delivery, and the wrong tool for a quarterly health check.
NPS survey
Net Promoter Score℠ is the most asked question in business, and the most wasted. The score tells you where you stand. The sentence after it tells you what to do. FreeSurvey gives you both on the same page.