![\"\u2192](\"https:\/\/no-cache.hubspot.com\/cta\/default\/53\/e24dc302-9dc2-466f-a5ca-ab4e08633c0f.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nCompanies can track CES across pre-sales, onboarding, and support by implementing unified CES surveys through Service Hub<\/a>. HubSpot connects all touchpoints, which provides a complete effort view and lets teams solve problems wherever they appear in the customer journey. Customer experience teams can then to see patterns and measure the impact of improvements.<\/p>\n Keep reading to see how.<\/p>\n Table of Contents<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n Customer Effort Score measures how easy it is for customers to interact with a business. Typically collected via a short survey, CES questions ask customers to rate the effort required, such as:<\/p>\n Ratings are usually on a numeric scale (e.g., 1\u20137, where 1 = Very Difficult and 7 = Very Easy). Lower effort scores indicate areas of potential friction.<\/p>\n While Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)<\/strong> reflects how customers feel about an interaction, Customer Effort Score<\/strong> focuses on how much work they had to put in. Customers may feel satisfied overall, but they still believe the process was harder than it needed to be.<\/p>\n By measuring effort, companies uncover hidden friction points that satisfaction metrics alone might miss.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n Customer Effort Score is more than a metric. It offers insight that goes far deeper than basic satisfaction scores. The following sections illustrate the practical reasons CES matters most for teams committed to reducing friction and driving retention.<\/p>\n Customers don\u2019t just share their points of friction. Service teams need to find these sticking points. Data from the Qualtrics 2026 Consumer Experience Trends report<\/a> shows that only three in 10 customers will directly share what went wrong after a poor experience, and 30% stay completely silent.<\/p>\n With over a decade in customer support management for B2B SaaS and B2C, I have learned that friction is rarely obvious until you measure effort directly.<\/p>\n At Skybound Entertainment and several startups I\u2019ve worked at, CSAT reviews missed many small pain points, such as delayed account setups or unclear demo scheduling. When I introduced CES surveys, I immediately saw patterns of negative feedback in places CSAT could not reach.<\/p>\n High effort predicts churn where proactive improvement is needed. Often, users stop responding after facing multiple hurdles, even if support agents work hard.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve found that customers who rated onboarding as \u201cdifficult\u201d were much more likely to request refunds or ignore renewal reminders. Automating CES surveys following journey milestones has helped me spot patterns, such as repeat escalations or complicated transaction queries.<\/p>\n Accelerating ticket resolution and reducing effort directly lowers churn rates. Service leaders who focused on ticket reduction in 2023 saw measurable drop in churn and rise in CSAT<\/a>, proving that reducing effort pays off fast.<\/p>\n One practical tactic: Set up automated alerts for accounts showing multiple low CES scores. This allowed my team to flag at-risk accounts before cancellation requests arrived. Account managers then reached out with personal follow-ups, leading to a reduction in churn rates of 10-15% over roughly six months.<\/p>\n Unifying CES data in real time drives exponential improvement. With HubSpot, service teams can consolidate all CES scores and feedback into one dashboard, breaking down journey silos and accelerating targeted fixes.<\/p>\n The payoff is real. 53% of CRM leaders<\/a> using HubSpot have reduced churn, and 75% have increased retention by centralizing feedback and speeding up resolution.<\/p>\n When CES feedback is shared cross-functionally, product teams update roadmaps, sales refine demo messaging, and support builds smarter self-service tools. Teams stop chasing tasks and start driving results.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n Customer effort varies by journey stage, which needs unified tracking. Breaking CES down by each stage of the customer journey is the key to moving past generic feedback and into precise, actionable insights. Remember: Measuring customer effort isn\u2019t just about finding out if <\/em>something is hard. It\u2019s about understanding where, why,<\/em> and for whom<\/em> struggles emerge.<\/p>\n Here are some of the impactful benefits I\u2019ve seen from this targeted approach.<\/p>\n Innovative, stage-specific solutions are born through granularity. Without this level of detail, teams may deploy resources too broadly and miss micro-frictions that create the biggest pain.<\/p>\n In fact, I\u2019ve found that surface-level scores only tell part of the story. By breaking CES out across the journey stage, I\u2019ve been able to identify not just where customers get stuck, but why<\/em> the same type of problem feels easier for onboarding versus ongoing users.<\/p>\n By mapping effort stage by stage, support teams are ready to solve problems specific to where customers actually get frustrated. This direct approach keeps teams responsive and customers satisfied at every campaign milestone.<\/p>\n In my role at Skybound, I use CES data from each Kickstarter phase to adjust my team\u2019s training and strategy. If effort is high in pre-sales, I revisit how we answer backer questions about project details or payments.<\/p>\n During campaign fulfillment, common support requests (i.e. tracking updates or survey issues) tell me where to update scripts and which workflows need more attention.<\/p>\n In every leadership role, I\u2019ve been responsible for demonstrating ROI from CX initiatives. Measuring CES by stage has turned abstract \u201cimprovement\u201d goals into targeted priorities that the whole organization can support.<\/p>\n For example, at Skybound, I tracked CES throughout a Kickstarter campaign. Drops in backer effort during fulfillment correlated with higher campaign loyalty and fewer post-delivery complaints. This gave me a clear case for investing resources into more proactive communications and better logistics support.<\/p>\n Using Customer Effort Score this way, I can speak the language of the business, justify resources, and keep every team focused on changes that actually move the needle.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n Timing CES surveys is critical. The most actionable insights always come from surveying at stages where real-life friction is likely to impact conversions, activation, or retention.<\/p>\n Here is how I break down the timing and approach for each key step.<\/p>\n Pre-sale effort usually predicts conversion rates better than almost any other metric. When surveys are triggered just after demos or trial sign-ups, teams can catch pain points early. The sales or product teams can then make necessary adjustments to close.<\/p>\n The surveys I oversee always include a question about the ease of getting started and an open field for blockers, such as unclear pricing.<\/p>\n At Trendy Butler, for instance, follow-up surveys triggered right after a customer explored their first box or onboarding quiz helped us spot where onboarding friction was killing sign-ups. Acting on those insights raised first-to-second-box conversions by providing custom welcome guidance and better chat support.<\/p>\n Learn more about mapping pre-sales friction in HubSpot\u2019s customer journey blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n New user onboarding is the most vulnerable stage because early frustration leads directly to drop-offs. In fact, 82% of onboarding users expect their problems to be fixed without escalation<\/a>. Measuring and acting on friction in those first moments ensures customers stay, rather than churn.<\/p>\n In my SaaS roles, we sent CES surveys immediately after training, tutorial completion, or a first-order activation step. Our focus: Ensuring clear setup, smooth account access, and easy-to-navigate resources. I always included a prompt for users to share any blockers or struggles in their own words.<\/p>\n One specific example: while I was working at Yahoo, onboarding surveys exposed repeated confusion with our API documentation. That led to the launch of step-by-step integration guides and recorded walkthroughs, which quickly cut negative onboarding feedback.<\/p>\n With consistent support efforts, teams can see process gaps and make adjustments. Looking at support CES data helps support organizations see what really drove repeat contact, escalations, and low NPS from existing customers.<\/p>\n The result: targeted canned response updates and improvements to internal escalation playbooks. The data backs this up. Of leaders using a CRM, 75% see higher retention from better workflow tracking<\/a>. Surveys at this step show exactly where to focus investments for the most ROI.<\/p>\n At Skybound, every finished ticket generated a survey asking about effort, speed, and whether the user needed to escalate to a manager. For Trendy Butler, surveys sent after live chat or return processing gave visibility into pain points like repetitive requests, unclear return labels, or tracking delays.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n\n
What is Customer Effort Score (CES)?<\/h2>\n
\n
![\"customer](\"http:\/\/buywyo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/customer20effort20score2c20how20easy20was20it20to20resolve20your20issue20today3F.webp\")
<\/p>\nEffort vs. Satisfaction<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Why CES Matters<\/h2>\n
![\"why](\"http:\/\/buywyo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/automated-knowledge-base-suggestions-3-20251009-2608883.jpg\")
<\/p>\nCES pinpoints hidden friction.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
High effort predicts churn and lost revenue.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Unified CES workflows accelerate improvement cycles.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Why Teams Should Measure CES by Journey Stage<\/h2>\n
![\"why](\"http:\/\/buywyo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/automated-knowledge-base-suggestions-4-20251009-3579511.jpg\")
<\/p>\nUnlocking granular insights drives innovation.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Stage-level tracking fuels proactive coaching and support.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Data-driven prioritization that aligns to the bottom line.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
When to Measure CES<\/h2>\n
Measuring CES Before You Make a Sale<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Measuring CES During Onboarding<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Measuring CES During Support Efforts<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Comparison Table: CES Tracking Methods by Journey Stage<\/h2>\n
![\"customer](\"http:\/\/buywyo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/automated-knowledge-base-suggestions-5-20251009-7128909.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/track.hubspot.com\/__ptq.gif?a=53&k=14&r=https%3A%2F%2Fblog.hubspot.com%2Fservice%2Fcustomer-effort-score-tracking&bu=https%253A%252F%252Fblog.hubspot.com%252Fservice&bvt=rss\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"