Five stars don't tell the whole story

Reviews can tell us a lot about customer experiences, but they don’t paint a holistic picture of customer trust. Reviews often reflect a single outburst of emotion, whether positive or negative. And what about the people who never leave a review?

When was the last time you left a review? Chances are, something specific prompted you to do it. Perhaps you had a brilliant, butterflies-in-your-belly experience. Or you felt so mistreated that you felt you had to warn others.

But what about all the experiences in between? The ones that were totally fine, slightly frustrating, helpful enough or left you wondering whether you had actually got what you needed, but just not in a ‘big’ way?

Most of us just get on with our day. And that's a problem if you're a business using reviews to understand how much your customers trust you.

Listening to the loudest voices rarely offers full truths

Reviews are, no doubt, valuable. They help businesses identify problems, recognise good service and understand how customers feel. They also have a big influence on the decisions other people make.

Research from Smart Money People found that 68% of UK consumers said positive reviews could persuade them to make a purchase, while 69% said negative reviews could change their mind.

But there’s a nuance to the reliability of reviews. That same research found that 72% of people tend to leave more positive than negative reviews, while 39% leave reviews simply because a business asks them to.

So who leaves a review, and why, isn't necessarily a reflection of how good or bad their experience was. Sometimes it's simply about whether they were asked, or if they feel compelled to share an experience. This leaves an interesting question for financial services: what about all the customers whose experiences never make it into a review or complaint?

Someone might complete a pension journey without really understanding their options. They might abandon a mortgage application because they don't know what to do next. Or they might feel uncomfortable asking a question and simply leave. No complaints or reviews involved, just silent and unnoticed friction. But that doesn't mean everything went well.

Equally, someone may have completed a journey to full satisfaction, or found a transaction easy to complete. But to them, it mightn’t be a highlight, but rather an expectation of how the systems should function. So again, no public display of affection, so to say.

Satisfaction isn't the whole story

The Financial Conduct Authority's 2024 Financial Lives survey offers an interesting view on satisfaction in relation to trust.

Most adults reported being satisfied with their financial services providers. Yet only 39% expressed confidence in the UK financial services industry, and just 36% believed most financial firms were honest and transparent. Of course, satisfaction with your own provider and confidence in the industry are different measures. But that difference is precisely the point.

A customer can be satisfied with a transaction without necessarily trusting the organisation behind it. They can complete a journey without understanding it. They can get the product they came for without feeling confident about their decision. And, they can keep using a service simply because switching feels like too much trouble.

If we only ask customers whether they were happy, or whether they'd recommend us, how much are we missing?

What about the quiet majority?

At Life Moments, we've been thinking about how to build and implement a more complete picture of customer trust.

That means looking beyond what people tell us in surveys and reviews, paying closer attention to what happens throughout their interactions with financial services, and finding ways to measure that.

Did someone become more confident with their money? Did they understand their options? Did they find the support relevant? Were we able to recognise when they might need more help? What happened when they didn't take the next step?

Someone choosing not to buy a product isn't necessarily a failure. Perhaps they've learned enough to realise it isn't right for them. Equally, someone completing a journey doesn't automatically mean we've delivered a good outcome. This is why we're developing a trust framework around a wide range of data points, rather than relying solely on a single score or self reported measure of satisfaction.

Reviews and recommendations still have a place. But so do customer behaviour, confidence, understanding, relevance and the ability to identify where support might be needed.

The aim is to build a picture of trust that reflects what customers actually experience, including those who never feel the need or comfort to tell us about it. Even the customers who say the least, will still have plenty to tell us.