Do your customers find it easy to interact with your business, or are they facing unnecessary obstacles that lead to frustration? If you’re unsure, the best step is to measure customer effort score (CES). The right CES software helps businesses track and analyze customer effort, ensuring seamless interactions.
Read this blog to learn about:
- What is customer effort score
- What is a customer effort score platform
- Top 10 best customer effort score software
What is customer effort score?
Customer Effort Score (CES) is one of the most widely used metrics for measuring customer experience. This metric evaluates how much effort a customer has to put in while interacting with a product, service, or company. It essentially measures ease of use and helps businesses identify friction points in the customer journey.
A customer effort score survey typically consists of straightforward questions where customers rate their experience on a scale. A higher score indicates a smoother, more satisfying customer experience, while a low score suggests that improvements are needed.
Businesses often use CES surveys to measure customer effort score. Why is CES important for businesses?
- Helps businesses identify customer pain points
- Improves customer satisfaction and retention
- Provides actionable insights to enhance user experience
- Helps companies optimize their processes to reduce customer effort
Examples of CES questions
Here are a few examples of CES questions:
- How easy was it to use our product?
- Very Difficult
- Difficult
- Neutral
- Easy
- Very Easy
- On a scale of 1 to 7, how much effort did you put into navigating our website?
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
High Effort Low Effort
- ParamInfo support team made it easy for me to handle my technical issue.
- 1 – Strongly Disagree
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7 – Strongly Agree
What is customer effort score platform?
Customer effort score software, also known as the CES survey platform, is a software that allows people to create and send surveys. With the help of this software, you can create and distribute CES surveys across different channels, measure customer effort score, and understand in-depth customer feedback.
Key features of a CES survey platform:
- Survey Creation – Users can create customized CES surveys tailored to their business needs.
- Multichannel Distribution – Surveys can be sent via email, SMS, website pop-ups, mobile apps, WhatsApp, and more.
- Real-time Analytics – Businesses can view instant feedback and analyze customer sentiment.
- Integration Capabilities – CES platforms often integrate with CRM systems, help desks, analytics tools, and more.
- Automated Reporting – Get AI-powered sentiment insights and reports to track trends and measure performance.
At present, there are plenty of CES survey platforms in the market (some of which are free, while others offer paid subscription plans). The right software is based on your business size, industry needs, budget, and other custom requirements.
10 Best customer effort score software
Here is a quick look at the top 10 best customer effort score software in 2025:
- piHappiness
- Delighted
- SurveyMonkey
- Zonka Feedback
- Qualtrics
- Refiner
- SurveySparrow
- Survicate
- Qualaroo
- Userpilot
piHappiness
piHappiness is one of the leading customer effort score software known for its advanced features. You can easily create CES surveys and choose from different question types and answer formats.
They have industry-specific, pre-built CES templates that cover various topics. The best part is that you can customize the entire pre-built template, from design to questions, colors to brand logo, and more.
You can send the customer effort score survey to your customers via 8 different channels and access real-time response reports. Also, there is an AI-enabled response processing feature, which automatically analyzes customer feedback and gives you detailed insights into customers’ sentiments.
There is a centralized CEO dashboard, which allows you to see NPS, CSAT, CES, and hierarchy reports at a glance. In addition, with the reputation management feature, you can see how your company is doing (in terms of online ratings and reviews) across various online platforms.
Pros:
- Easy to use
- Multichannel survey distribution
- Centralized reports dashboard
- Automatic case and voucher management
- Numerous pricing options (customizable plans too)
Cons:
- Provides limited templates
Delighted
Delighted is an end-to-end CES survey platform that has been in the market for over a decade. The beginner-friendly survey builder makes it easy to build and customize the survey, including colors, button styles, background, and more.
You can send the CES surveys in more than 30 languages and gather customer feedback without language barriers. In addition, this platform offers mobile-optimized customer effort score surveys.
Pros:
- Beginner-friendly platform
- Easy to integrate with other applications
- Advanced analytics and reports
Cons:
- Very expensive
- Poor customer support
SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey was launched in 1999 and has been one of the primary choices for businesses to gather customer experience. They offer various survey templates and question types. With sentiment analysis, understand the sentiments behind the customer effort score. They also provide detailed reports along with data insights. You can conduct A/B tests as well.
Pros:
- Easy to navigate
- Different types of visual reports
- Customizable templates
- Offers a free plan
Cons:
- Some users feel that the process of adding and rearranging the questions could be smoother
- Limited survey designs
Zonka Feedback
Established in 2014, Zonka Feedback is another top-tier CES survey platform. You can easily measure customer effort exerted at every touchpoint. While creating surveys, you can set up triggers and notifications so you can track high-effort cases instantly.
With this platform, you can segment the customers into low-effort, medium-effort, and high-effort. The entire process, from survey creation to report analysis, is automated, making it easy for you to use. They provide a 14-day free trial, allowing you to see how it works before diving in fully.
Pros:
- Intuitive dashboard design
- Visually appealing survey builder
- Detailed CES reports
- Endless integrations (and seamless as well)
Cons:
- Some users feel that customization features are not beginner-friendly
- Customer support could be improved
Qualtrics
Qualtrics is best known for being the top experience management platform. From customer experience to employee experience, you can collect detailed feedback in simple steps. You can send surveys, collect feedback, and act on it directly from the platform.
It is a feature-rich CX platform with a highly customizable survey builder and offers seamless integration with many tools. The best part about Qualtrics is its advanced reports and analytics, which allow you to see the data in more than 30 different types of reports.
Pros:
- User-friendly interface
- Powerful customization options
- Multilingual support
Cons:
- Too expensive
- Some features have quite a learning curve, especially for beginners
Refiner
Refiner was established in 2018 and is the best micro-survey solution, primarily for SaaS companies. They provide 12+ different question types, such as CES, CSAT, NPS, and more. This platform offers simple, easy-to-use design settings, making it easy to change images, colors, borders, and more.
Pros:
- Perfect for beginners and small companies
- Simple integrations
- Offers a free trial
Cons:
- Limited customization options
SurveySparrow
If you are looking for a paid customer effort score survey platform at an affordable price, then SurveySparrow might be the right fit for you. This is an omnichannel survey platform that is best known for its mobile-friendly interface.
You can use advanced targeting options to directly reach a specific set of customers and get their feedback for CES surveys. Some of the advanced features of this software include white labeling, sentiment analysis, real-time reports, offline surveys, and more.
Pros:
- Has a mobile-first, conversational interface
- Seamless omnichannel feedback
- Offers a free plan
Cons:
- Reports and data analysis could be improved
- Limited number of font styles
Survicate
Survicate is an intuitive customer feedback platform that allows businesses to create CES surveys effortlessly. It provides a range of templates and allows integration with CRMs, email marketing tools, and customer support platforms. The real-time analytics dashboard helps businesses quickly analyze customer effort scores and act on feedback.
Pros:
- Easy setup and survey distribution
- Mobile responsive surveys
- Advanced reporting and analytics
Cons:
- Limited customization options for surveys
Qualaroo
Qualaroo is a customer feedback platform that is well-known for its targeted CES surveys. It offers AI-driven sentiment analysis and predictive data insights, allowing businesses to enhance customer experience effortlessly. You can embed surveys in your website, app, or product workflows to collect quick, contextual feedback.
Pros:
- AI-powered sentiment analysis
- Advanced targeting for customer surveys
- Website and app-based survey deployment
Cons:
- Slight learning curve for a few advanced features
- Pricing is a little on the higher side
Userpilot
Userpilot is primarily a product adoption and user experience platform that also supports CES surveys. It allows businesses to create in-app surveys to measure customer effort at various stages of product usage. With no-code survey customization, it is perfect for product teams looking to enhance user experience.
Pros:
- No-code CES survey builder
- In-app feedback collection
- Great for SaaS and product-led businesses
Cons:
- Not suitable for general customer feedback outside product usage
- Limited offline survey capabilities
Wrapping Up
That’s it for the top 10 customer effort score platforms. Measuring customer effort is quite important because it impacts overall customer experience, retention, and loyalty.
Make sure to select the customer effort score software that best fits your business needs. Consider your priorities—whether it’s automation, analytics, customization, or ease of use—and select a platform that aligns with your customer experience strategy.
If you would like to try piHappiness, kindly fill out this form to schedule a demo.
