Key Findings

As part of Qualtrics XM Institute’s 2023 Global Consumer Study, we asked more than 28,000 consumers if and how they shared their experience following a good or bad interaction with an organization. To understand how consumers’ preferred feedback channels have changed since 2021, we compared these results to our findings from the Q1 2021 Global Consumer Study. From our analysis, we found that:

  • Consumers today are less likely to give companies feedback directly. After a good experience, 33% of consumers shared feedback directly with a company, a 5.1 percentage-points drop from 2021. The percentage of consumers who shared direct feedback following a poor experience dropped even more, dipping 7.2 percentage points.
  • People most frequently share feedback with friends and family. Consumers were most likely to tell friends and family about both a very good (45%) and a very bad (50%) experience, while they are least likely not to tell anyone about the interaction after a good experience (17%).
  • Consumers share negative feedback through websites and email. Of the consumers who shared feedback directly with a company after a bad experience, they were most likely to do so by sending an email to the company (45%) followed by submitting feedback on the company’s website (43%).
  • Website surveys skew positive, while emails skew negative. Consumers are 12 percentage points more likely to submit a survey on the company’s website after having a very good experience than they are after a very bad one. Conversely, if they have a bad experience, they are 12 percentage points more likely to send the company an email than after a good experience.

Figures

Here are the figures in this Data Snapshot:

  1. Feedback After a Good Experience (see Figure 1)
  2. Feedback After a Bad Experience (see Figure 2)
  3. Positive and Negative Feedback Sent Directly to Companies (Part 1) (see Figure 3)
  4. Positive and Negative Feedback Sent Directly to Companies (Part 2) (see Figure 4)
  5. Feedback After Good Experiences: Americas (see Figure 5)
  6. Feedback After Good Experiences: EMEA (see Figure 6)
  7. Feedback After Good Experiences: APJ (see Figure 7)
  8. After a Good Experience: Change from 2021 (see Figure 8)
  9. After a Good Experience: Change from 2021 by Country (see Figure 9)
  10. After a Good Experience: Direct Feedback Channels, Americas (see Figure 10)
  11. After a Good Experience: Direct Feedback Channels, EMEA (see Figure 11)
  12. After a Good Experience: Direct Feedback Channels, APJ (see Figure 12)
  13. Feedback After Bad Experiences: Americas (see Figure 13)
  14. Feedback After Bad Experiences: EMEA (see Figure 14)
  15. Feedback After Bad Experiences: APJ (see Figure 15)
  16. After a Bad Experience: Change from 2021 (see Figure 16)
  17. After a Bad Experience: Change from 2021 (see Figure 17)
  18. After a Bad Experience: Direct Feedback Channels, Americas (see Figure 18)
  19. After a Bad Experience: Direct Feedback Channels, EMEA (see Figure 19)
  20. After a Bad Experience, Direct Feedback Channels, APJ (see Figure 20)
  21. Channels Used for Direct Feedback to Companies (see Figure 21)
  22. Methodology (see Figure 22)