The customer experience is a critical priority for marketers, but it helps to know from consumers if they’re experiencing very good or bad ones. A recent report from Qualtrics XM Institute finds that 83% of consumers have shared a very good experience with a company, while 79% have shared a very poor experience. However, relatively few have shared that feedback directly with a company.
The results indicate that over a short-term period, consumers have become less likely to to share their experiences. That is, this latest global survey, conducted in 2023, finds a greater share of respondents not telling anyone after a good experience (+2.7% points) or a bad experience (+3.8% points) relative to 2021.
Interestingly, 5 years earlier, in 2018, research found that US consumers were more likely to share very bad than very good experiences. This has now reversed, with 73% of US respondents to the 2023 survey sharing a very good experience, versus 70% sharing a very bad experience.
The most common way that consumers around the world share a very good experience is to tell friends or family about it directly (50%). That’s followed by putting a comment or rating about the company on a 3rd party ratings site (34%) and sending feedback directly to the company (33%). These are also the leading ways in which respondents share very poor experiences with companies, at 45%, 34%, and 26%, respectively.
Within the US, consumers are as likely as the global average to tell friends or family about a very good experience, but are much less likely to post on a 3rd party site (21% vs. 34%) or to post on social media about it (17% vs. 24%). After a very bad experience, US consumers are slightly more likely than average to send feedback directly to a company (31% vs. 26%), much less likely to post on a 3rd party site (16% vs. 34%), and also less likely to post on social media (15% vs. 21%).
Globally, the biggest short-term change (from 2021) in how consumers share both a very good and a very bad experience is a decline in sending feedback directly to the company, indicating that a greater share of brands could be in the dark about their successes and failures.
When sending feedback directly to a company, the most popular way for US consumers to do so after a very good experience is by responding to a survey from the company (61% of those who sent direct feedback). However, when submitting direct feedback after a very bad experience, more US consumers sent an email to the company (43%) than responded to a survey from it (40%).
Previous research has found that taking surveys is the leading way by which people share their opinions with brands.
For more, check out the full survey results here.
About the Data: The results are based on a Q3 2023 survey or 28,400 consumers across 26 countries, including approximately 1,200 in the US.
