Form questions

Customer effort score questions

Ask five to eight, sent the moment the ticket closes. Three never come out: the effort scale itself, whether it was finished on the first contact, and one open question naming the hardest step. Repeat contact is the single biggest driver of a bad effort score, which is why it is asked separately rather than inferred.

Effort is what a customer remembers about a support experience long after they have forgotten who helped them. These questions measure the whole journey from first message to fix, rather than rating the last person in the chain.

The questions

The effort score

  1. How much effort did you have to put in to get this sorted?Single choiceRequired

    Seven options, 1 very easy to 7 very hard, written out as single choice. Answer for the whole journey, not the final conversation.

  2. How easy was it to get this sorted?Single choice

    The reversed wording, 1 very hard to 5 very easy. Pick one direction and keep it forever, because a flipped scale makes every earlier wave unreadable.

  3. How does the effort compare with the last time you contacted us?Single choice

  4. How much effort did you expect before you started?Single choice

    Paired with the first question, this separates a hard problem from a badly run process.

What the effort was made of

  1. Was it finished the first time you got in touch?Single choice

    One contact, two, three or more, or not sure it is finished. Repeat contact is what most effort scores are actually measuring.

  2. Which of these did you have to do more than once?Multiple choice

    Explain the problem again, give the account number again, prove who you were again, send the same document again, chase for an update, switch channel.

  3. How easy was it to reach a person who could decide?Single choice

  4. How many different people did you deal with?Number

  5. Did you have to switch channel partway through?Single choice

  6. How long did the whole thing take from first message to fix?Dropdown

  7. How many days passed between your first message and the fix?Number

    A number field on a conversational form does not apply its minimum and maximum in the browser; the range is checked when the form is submitted.

  8. Rate the effort of each stepRating gridRequired

    A grid of steps against the same seven point scale: finding where to report it, explaining the problem, waiting for a reply, reaching the right person, understanding what happens next.

The channel and the fix

  1. Where did you start this one?DropdownRequired

    Phone, live chat, email, the help centre form, the app, a counter. Effort is channel specific and an average across channels hides the broken one.

  2. Did you try to solve it yourself first?Single choice

  3. If you looked in the help centre, what happened?Single choice

  4. Did the first answer you were given turn out to be right?Single choice

  5. Was the fix explained in a way you could follow?Single choice

  6. Has the problem stayed fixed?Single choice

    Worth sending a week later rather than at close, when the honest answer is not yet known.

Closing

  1. What was the hardest single step, and what happened at it?Long text

    The question that turns a score into a change. Naming a step rather than a person is what makes it usable.

  2. What would have saved you the most time?Long text

  3. How likely are you to keep buying from us after this?Single choice

  4. May the support lead call you about this ticket?Single choiceRequired

Which questions to make required

Four are required, the same four the built form requires: the effort scale, which is the measure; the channel, because effort differs so much between phone and chat that a combined average describes nobody; the step grid, which shows where the effort sat; and the call back question, because the support lead needs a clear yes or no before picking up the phone. The first contact question and the open questions stay optional, since a customer who found it easy has little to add and should still be counted.

The form built from these questions

A static copy of a form built from part of the bank, exactly as it renders.

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How much effort did you have to put in to get this sorted? *

One is very easy and seven is very hard. Answer for the whole thing from the first message to the moment it was fixed, not for the last person you spoke to.

↵Enter

Three ways to change this bank

For a field service business, replace the channel question with the visit: whether the technician arrived in the window, whether they had the parts, and whether a second visit was needed. Second visit is the field equivalent of repeat contact and belongs in the same place in the form. For a shorter version, send three questions in the closing email: the effort scale, was it finished first time, and what was the hardest step. That version is answered in under a minute and still supports the only two charts anybody builds from effort data. For a follow up wave, write a week after close to everybody who scored five or higher and ask two things: has it stayed fixed, and did anybody come back to you. Scores taken at close measure the conversation; scores taken a week later measure the fix.

Questions people ask

Is a seven point or a five point effort scale better?

Seven is the common form for effort and gives more room at the hard end, where the interesting responses sit. Five is easier to label in full and reads better on a phone. Either works. What does not work is changing between waves, since the two cannot be compared even after rescaling.

When should the survey be sent?

At ticket close, within an hour, while the sequence of events is still recallable. Wait a day and you get a rating of the outcome rather than the effort. The exception is the has it stayed fixed question, which is worth a separate send a week later to the people who scored badly.

Should the answers be linked to the ticket?

Yes. An effort survey is attached to a specific ticket and loses most of its value without that link, because the diagnosis comes from reading the score next to the ticket history. Put the ticket reference in the link or ask for it, and say plainly on the first screen that the answer is recorded against the ticket rather than implying an anonymity the form does not provide.

Which tickets should not get an effort survey?

Skip tickets closed as spam, duplicates merged into another ticket, and anything the customer did not open, such as a proactive outage notice. Skip a second survey to someone who answered one in the last month as well. Surveying those adds noise to the effort average and teaches customers to ignore the email, which costs you the responses that matter.

Why ask about repeat contact separately?

Because it is the mechanism, not the mood. A ticket resolved on the third contact almost always scores badly on effort, and knowing the score without knowing the contact count leaves you guessing at why. Collecting it in the survey also gives you a figure to check against what your helpdesk recorded.

Does the grid export cleanly?

A rating grid comes out as a single CSV column with each row and its answer joined together, not as one column per statement. That is fine for reading one response and awkward for averaging five steps across four hundred, so plan a parsing step or keep the steps as separate single choice questions if a spreadsheet is your reporting tool.

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Other question banks

Support ticket feedback questions

A ticket survey competes with the moment a customer finally gets their day back, so it earns about ninety seconds. These questions put the rating and the resolved check in the first two screens and treat everything after that as a bonus.

Customer onboarding survey questions

An onboarding survey is worth sending at the point where a customer either has the thing working or has quietly stopped trying. These questions separate what somebody signed up to do from what they have actually managed, because the gap between the two is the whole finding.

Loyalty program survey questions

A rewards program is usually reported on sign ups, which is the number that never falls. These questions measure redemption and friction instead, and they make members pick three rewards rather than approve all of them.

On writing the questions themselves, read How to write survey questions. For everything the builder can do, see the form maker. Step by step: Create a conversational form with AI, then View, export and manage your responses.

Sources

Written and checked by the OneCraft team. Last checked .