CES Survey Questions
20 CES Survey Questions to Measure Customer Effort Score
Measure friction - the leading predictor of churn
Customer Effort Score (CES) measures how much effort a user has to put in to get something done. High effort = high churn risk. Use these CES survey questions to identify where your product creates friction.
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When to send
Send CES surveys immediately after a user completes (or fails to complete) a task: first setup, a specific workflow, a support interaction, or a payment process. CES is the best indicator of churn in transactional moments.
19 CES survey questions
Organized by purpose - use the ones that fit your goal, or use them all.
Core CES question
[Product] made it easy for me to [complete task / resolve issue].
Agreement Scale (1–7: Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree)
How much effort did you personally have to put in to handle your request?
Single Choice
- • Very low effort
- • Low effort
- • Moderate effort
- • High effort
- • Very high effort
Task completion
Were you able to complete what you were trying to do?
Single Choice
- • Yes, completely
- • Partially
- • No
How many steps did it take to accomplish your goal?
Single Choice
- • Fewer than expected
- • About what I expected
- • More than expected
- • Far too many
Did you have to contact support to complete this task?
Single Choice
- • Yes
- • No
How long did it take to complete this task?
Single Choice
- • Less than a minute
- • 1–5 minutes
- • 5–15 minutes
- • More than 15 minutes
Friction identification
What was the most frustrating part of this process?
Open Text
Did you get stuck or confused at any point?
Single Choice
- • Yes, multiple times
- • Once
- • No
What would have made this task easier?
Open Text
Was any information missing that you needed to complete this?
Single Choice
- • Yes - please describe
- • No, I had everything I needed
Support effort questions
How easy was it to find the help or documentation you needed?
Rating Scale (1–5)
Did the support response resolve your issue on the first contact?
Single Choice
- • Yes
- • No - needed follow-up
- • Still unresolved
How many times did you have to reach out to resolve this?
Single Choice
- • Once
- • Twice
- • 3 or more times
Onboarding effort questions
How easy was it to get started with [Product]?
Rating Scale (1–5)
How long did it take before you got value from [Product]?
Single Choice
- • Same day
- • 2–3 days
- • About a week
- • 2–4 weeks
- • More than a month
What slowed down your initial setup?
Open Text
Did you need outside help (support, docs, YouTube) to get set up?
Single Choice
- • No, it was intuitive
- • Yes - docs were enough
- • Yes - needed to contact support
- • Yes - still struggling
Overall ease
How does the effort required to use [Product] compare to similar tools?
Single Choice
- • Much easier
- • Easier
- • About the same
- • Harder
- • Much harder
Is there anything else we can do to make [Product] easier to use?
Open Text
Tips for running CES surveys
CES is the best predictor of churn - high effort correlates strongly with cancellations.
Send immediately after a task or interaction. The moment passes quickly.
The standard CES question uses a 1–7 agreement scale, not a 1–5 satisfaction scale.
Track CES by workflow or feature to find your highest-friction areas.
Pair CES with CSAT: CES tells you where friction is, CSAT tells you how bad it feels.
Run your first CES survey in minutes
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Frequently asked questions
What is Customer Effort Score (CES)?
CES measures how much effort a customer has to put in to get something done - complete a task, resolve an issue, or use a feature. It is expressed as agreement with the statement "[Product] made it easy to..." on a 1–7 scale.
What is a good CES score?
Higher agreement (scores toward 7 on a 1–7 scale) is better. A mean above 5.5 is typically considered strong. The key metric is the percentage of users giving "high effort" responses - that is your at-risk segment.
When should I use CES vs CSAT?
Use CES after a specific task or workflow to measure friction. Use CSAT to measure overall satisfaction with an interaction. CES is better at predicting churn; CSAT is better at measuring delight.
What is the CES question format?
The standard format is: "[Product] made it easy for me to [handle/complete X]." Users respond on a 1–7 scale from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree.
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