CES

CES asks how easy it was to get something done, on a scale of one to seven. It is the instrument aimed squarely at friction, which makes it the natural partner to conversion work: a checkout that scores badly on effort is telling you exactly where to look.

It measures something different from satisfaction. Somebody can be satisfied with an outcome they found exhausting to reach, and that gap is precisely what you want to find on a funnel. Effort predicts whether they will do it again more reliably than sentiment does.

The seven-point scale is wider than CSAT deliberately: effort is a judgement people make with more gradation than satisfaction, and compressing it to five loses the distinction between mildly annoying and genuinely difficult.

It belongs immediately after a task that has an outcome, a completed checkout or a self-service action, where the effort involved is fresh and specific rather than remembered.