What do you consider to be a good, bad or ugly rating for customer satisfaction? We conduct a lot of customer research and when it comes to reporting back the results, 9 times out of 10 we will be asked, 'is that a good satisfaction score?' So today I wanted to shed some light on what we, as researchers and analysts, believe to be a good score as well as what we consider to be best in class
Now the complication in all of this is that organisations do not universally use the same scale to rate satisfaction, recommendation or other key indices. Some organisations use a 5-point scale and others a 10-point scale. Our preference is the 7-point scale. Why? I'll save that topic for another time. Whatever the scale used, we apply a simple calculation that creates an index score out of 100. We are than able use this index to compare results across all organisations.
So back to my original question. What is a good score?
From analysing all the data across our studies we have found the following:
- For satisfaction the average rating index in Australia is 68/100. This equates to a mean score of roughly 5.0 based on a 7-point satisfaction rating scale or a mean score of 3.7 based on a 5-point scale.
- We would consider 85/100 and above to be 'Best in Class' performance. At the other end of the scale we would consider scores of 60/100 or less to be very poor indeed.
- Based on Global benchmarks the highest average satisfaction rating is recorded in Canada, with an average index rating of 74/100 followed by New Zealand where the average satisfaction rating is 73/100. The average satisfaction rating is lowest in Brazil at 65/100.
These results are based purely on satisfaction ratings. So what about other measures?
In many of the studies we conduct, we also often ask customers to rate the performance of the agent who handled their enquiry, across a range of attributes often linked to the organisation's Service Charter. This typically includes performance ratings on attributes such as 'Agent knowledge', 'Agent responsiveness', 'Agent politeness' and so on. Again it is worth knowing what a 'good, bad or ugly' score is to help interpret your results. Looking back over the studies we have conducted we would consider an indexed attribute performance score of 72/100 as 'Average'. Again 85/100 and above is considered 'Best in Class' performance.
So there you have it, 'Il Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo'.
