When to send it
Buying and returning are the two moments in an online store where effort hurts most. A clumsy checkout loses the sale; a returns process full of hoops loses the one after. This survey asks a single effort question straight after either task, while the customer can still remember which step slowed them down.
Add it as a website embed on your order confirmation page and on the page customers see after starting a return. The code is on the Embed page. On Pro, a popup or slide-in on those pages works too and is harder to miss. Keep it to those pages: asking about effort on a product page or the home page collects answers from people who haven't tried to do anything yet.
Why these questions
The first question asks what the customer just did: placed an order, started a return or exchange, or both. That one answer lets you split every score by task, so a smooth checkout doesn't hide a painful returns flow inside the average.
The effort question is a seven-point agreement scale: "This store made it easy to do what I came to do." Agreement wording keeps the direction obvious, with higher meaning easier. Customers who pick 4 or lower get one open question about what got in the way. Expect answers about forced account creation, delivery costs that appear late, failed payments, return labels and refund timing.
Three questions is deliberate. People on a confirmation page are about to leave, and anything longer loses most of them.
Why there's no coupon
Nobody needs a reward to answer one quick question at the end of a task. A coupon on a returns page would also send an odd message, in effect paying people for sending things back. Leaving it out keeps the answers honest and the survey light.
What to do with the answers
Look at checkout and returns scores separately, every week or two. Hearsay reports the average out of 7 and the share who agree it was easy; read the individual responses next to their task answer to see where the low scores come from. For checkout, read low-score comments next to your store analytics: when customers mention a step and your funnel shows drop-off at that step, you've found the first fix. For returns, compare the comments with your returns policy as written. Customers often describe a process harder than the one you think you run, because of a confusing label, a form that asks for the order number twice, or a refund that takes longer than promised.
Make one change at a time and leave the survey running, so you can see whether the score moves after each fix. Effort research has mostly looked at service interactions, so use these scores to find friction in your own store rather than to compare with other shops.
For support conversations, use customer effort: support. The cart abandonment survey asks people who left without buying, and return and exchange reasons covers why items come back.