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How motivational bias affects your customer ratings

How motivational bias affects your customer ratings

How motivational bias affects your customer ratings

Customer ratings play an important role in how we judge a business, product or service.

While review platforms like Trustpilot make it easy to leave feedback on almost anything – from holidays to TVs to gym memberships – reasons for leaving reviews can vary too. If one person gives your business a one-star rating because of a bad experience, while three satisfied customers don’t leave a review at all, this undeserved low score, or motivational bias, will affect your customer ratings. 

Why are customer ratings important?

A large majority of consumers use reviews to guide their purchase decisions. So before potential customers choose your product, they are likely to check your rating on a platform such as Trustpilot, Facebook or Google, and base their decision on what they find there. Customer ratings also influence your search ranking on these review sites, and can be powerful marketing tools that strengthen – or weaken – your brand. 

Put simply, star ratings matter. Whatever your product, a row of five stars will draw customers to your business before a competitor’s with a single one. But if your ratings are low, then potential clients will run in the other direction. 

What is motivational bias?

Studies show that people are more likely to rate a business if they have strong feelings about a service or product than if they are just regular, happy customers. More specifically, if your customers have strong negative feelings they are more likely to review your business than if they are extremely happy with the service. This explains why it’s common to see reviews by customers who are so disappointed with their experience that they leave the lowest score possible. 

How can my business combat motivational bias?

With such high stakes, it’s important your business has processes in place to improve the quality of your customer ratings. One way of doing this is to proactively ask more of your regular, happy customers to leave reviews to even up the scores. People are more likely to leave reviews when the process is simple, or they are familiar with it, which is where a phone call customer satisfaction score (CSAT) survey can help. CSAT feedback rates customer satisfaction with your your products, services, and even customer service agents. They are simple and easy for your customers to complete, and can be integrated with Trustpilot. 

Another way to combat motivational bias affecting your customer ratings is to remind customers that their opinion will help others. Studies have found that people are more likely to leave online reviews when they know their recommendations will inspire other people. 

If you would like to know more about improving your customer ratings by integrating post-call CSAT surveys to Trustpilot, give our team a call on 0800 692 7000, or email new@08uk.co.uk and we’ll call you back.