What is a good customer effort score?

Less effort is the goal, so on the seven-point agree scale you want most customers near the top, agreeing that the task was easy. Benchmarks shift by industry and by touchpoint, which is why a single target number means less than your own trend. Track the score over time and split it by channel, since a checkout and a support case rarely set the same bar. The customer effort survey software page shows how teams read effort across touchpoints.

How do I calculate a customer effort score?

Average the responses: add the ratings and divide by the number of replies. SurveyMonkey scores it for you and shows the trend in a dashboard, so you do not work it out by hand. Filter by segment to compare effort across customers or channels, and pair the number with the open-ended follow-up to learn what drove it. The calculation matters less than reading it consistently the same way each time.

Should I use customer effort score or Net Promoter Score (NPS)?

Match the metric to the decision. Use a customer effort score to rate one specific interaction, like a support case or a checkout, asked right after it happens. Use Net Promoter Score (NPS) for overall loyalty, on a 0 to 10 "how likely to recommend" scale. Effort predicts whether a customer returns to that flow; loyalty predicts the whole relationship. Both are built-in question types, so you can run them side by side without extra setup.

When should I send a customer effort score survey?

Send it right after the interaction you want to measure, since asking in the moment captures the real effort before memory fades. The two strongest moments are just after a support case closes and right after checkout. One or two questions is enough. Trigger it by email, web link, or embedded form, so it reaches customers in the channel they just used rather than days later in a separate inbox.

How do I get more customers to finish my customer effort score survey?

Keep it short. Surveys of 1-10 questions finish at 97.8% here, against 76.5% past 21, so ask the effort question first and hold the follow-ups to one. Send reminders to lift response rates. The built-in survey score predicts completion before you launch and suggests fixes, and AI response-quality filtering removes gibberish, profanity, and speeders so your data stays clean.

Customer Effort Score Survey Templates (8 Surveys)

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Customer effort score survey templates

Measure how easy or difficult a particular task was compared to a customer’s expectations with a Customer Effort Score (CES) survey.

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Customer effort score survey templates

Website Feedback Survey Template

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Customer Feedback Survey (Business To Business) Template

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Customer Experience Survey Template

Use our expert-approved survey template to understand if your product/service is meeting customers’ needs, pinpoint how responsive customers think your team is, and more! You can also edit/add questions to make our customer experience survey your own.

Customer effort score survey templates at a glance

Stat	Figure
Total customer effort score templates	8
Most-used template	Website feedback survey
Short survey completion rate (1-10 questions)	97.8%
Medium survey completion rate (11-20 questions)	92.6%
Long survey completion rate (21+ questions)	76.5%
Overall completion rate	95.9%
Average question count	9.1

What are customer effort score surveys?

A customer who fights your checkout or repeats themselves three times to support rarely comes back, no matter how good the product is. A customer effort score (CES) survey catches that friction while you can still fix it. A customer effort score survey measures how hard a customer worked to get something done with you, so you can find the friction that quietly drives churn and remove it. These eight templates give you a tested starting point across support, checkout, and website tasks.

The core question asks customers to rate a statement like "the company made it easy to handle my issue" on a seven-point scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree. You trigger it at the moment of the interaction, usually right after a support case closes or a checkout completes, when the effort is still fresh. A built-in survey score predicts completion before you launch and flags questions worth cutting.

You survey your own customers in the channel where the interaction happened, by email, web link, or embedded form. Templates in this category complete at a 95.9% average rate across about nine questions, and completion runs 97.8% at 1-10 questions before dropping to 76.5% past 21. The open-ended follow-up is where the "why" lives: sentiment analysis tags each comment, and dashboards track the score by touchpoint so you can see which steps cost customers the most.

For the full method and good-score thresholds, see our customer effort score (CES)customer effort score (CES) guide.

How to create a customer effort score survey

Start from one of the eight templates here, or open the website feedback survey template as a base.
Add the core effort question and ask how easy it was to get the task done on the seven-point agree scale.
Add one follow-up, a multiple-choice or open-ended question, to learn what made it easy or hard.
Apply your branding and colors so the survey reads as part of the experience.
Set the trigger. Fire the survey right after a support call, a checkout, or a key in-product task, by email, web link, or embedded form.
Launch, then review results with sentiment analysis on the open-ended replies and dashboards that track the score over time and by segment.

When to use customer effort score surveys

After a support interaction: Measure how easy it was to resolve the issue, and catch friction before it turns into churn.
After checkout: Ask how easy the purchase was while the steps are still fresh in mind.
For self-service and help center deflection: Find out whether customers solved the problem on their own or gave up partway.
For website and app tasks: See where users get stuck completing a key flow, including on mobile.
Across the journey: Track effort touchpoint by touchpoint, so you know which step is the hardest for your customers rather than guessing.

Who runs customer effort score surveys

Customer experience managers: They own friction across the journey and work to lower effort at each touchpoint while tracking the trend.
Customer service and support leads: They measure how easily support resolves issues and use the open-ended answers to coach their teams on what to fix.
Product managers: They reduce effort in onboarding, checkout, and other core flows so customers finish what they start.
Small teams: They want a ready-made template they can field without building a CES survey from scratch.

Tips for creating a customer effort score survey

Keep it to one or two questions: Surveys of 1-10 questions complete at 97.8% here, against 76.5% past 21, and CES is a short metric by design, so ask the effort question and stop.
Trigger it in the moment: Fire the survey right after the interaction, before memory of the effort fades and the rating drifts.
Pair the score with a "why": Add one open-ended follow-up so the number points to the exact friction rather than just a trend line.
Check the survey score before you launch: It predicts your completion rate and flags fixes, and reminders lift response rates on email sends.

Frequently asked questions about customer effort score surveys

What is a good customer effort score?
Less effort is the goal, so on the seven-point agree scale you want most customers near the top, agreeing that the task was easy. Benchmarks shift by industry and by touchpoint, which is why a single target number means less than your own trend. Track the score over time and split it by channel, since a checkout and a support case rarely set the same bar. The customer effort survey software page shows how teams read effort across touchpoints.
How do I calculate a customer effort score?
Should I use customer effort score or Net Promoter Score (NPS)?
Match the metric to the decision. Use a customer effort score to rate one specific interaction, like a support case or a checkout, asked right after it happens. Use Net Promoter Score (NPS) for overall loyalty, on a 0 to 10 "how likely to recommend" scale. Effort predicts whether a customer returns to that flow; loyalty predicts the whole relationship. Both are built-in question types, so you can run them side by side without extra setup.
When should I send a customer effort score survey?
How do I get more customers to finish my customer effort score survey?

Related categories

Customer satisfaction surveys · Net Promoter Score surveys · Customer service feedback surveys · Customer feedback surveys · Voice of the customer surveys

NPS, Net Promoter & Net Promoter Score are registered trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company and Fred Reichheld.