When to send it
Customer effort score asks one thing: how easy was it to get what you needed. After a support conversation, that often says more than satisfaction does, because a customer can like a friendly agent and still be annoyed that it took three emails to sort out. Paste the link into the closing reply of each resolved conversation, with one line asking how easy it was. If your help desk shows a ticket number, append it with ?ref= and every answer arrives tied to the right ticket.
How the score works
The main question is a statement rated on a seven-point scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree: "The team made it easy to get my issue resolved." This agreement style comes from the second version of the customer effort score, which replaced an earlier question asking how much effort the customer personally had to put in. Agreement wording is easier to read, and a higher number always means a better experience. Swap "the team" for your company name if you prefer.
In analytics, Hearsay shows the average out of 7 and the share of customers who agree it was easy, meaning a 5, 6 or 7. Pick one of those to report and stick with it, because the trend is what you'll act on. Published research has linked lower effort with customers staying loyal, but treat the score as one useful signal, not a prediction about any single customer.
Why these questions
Anyone who answers 4 or below sees a follow-up asking what made it harder than it should have been. Those answers point at specific friction: being passed between people, repeating details, waiting for replies, or a help article that didn't help.
The last question asks how many times the customer contacted you about this issue. Repeat contacts are one of the plainest signs of effort, and comparing them with the score shows whether problems are being solved the first time.
Why there's no coupon
A discount at the end of a support conversation can look like an attempt to buy a better score, especially when the customer was unhappy. The survey is short and the experience is fresh, which is reason enough for most people to answer.
What to do with the answers
Each week, read every low-score comment and group them by cause. Fixes tend to land in three places: help content, handovers inside the team, and policies that make customers do extra steps. Share the worst examples with the people who answer tickets, not to assign blame but to show where the process makes their work harder too.
For satisfaction with the support itself, use support satisfaction (CSAT). To measure effort when buying and returning, see customer effort: checkout and returns, and for a broader loyalty read, the Net Promoter Score template.