The Customer Experience Map · For customer experience consultants and agencies
Most bad reviews get no answer.
We read 6,560 low-rated and 32,349 five star Google reviews of UK local businesses to find what wins and loses customers, trade by trade, and where a firm most needs help.
Reviews to 30 October 2026 · One report · One-off payment · Instant access
★☆☆☆☆Staff attitude“The staff are consistently rude and dismissive.”
Vets
★☆☆☆☆Complaint handling“I asked for help as he said I had 3 months warranty and he has completely ignored me.”
Used car dealers
★☆☆☆☆Waiting on site“We waited at reception for 15 minutes without anyone checking on our dog.”
Vets
★☆☆☆☆Premises“Mould all over bathroom and something that looked like blood on the tiles.”
Wedding venues
The headline finding
Whether a bad review gets an answer depends on the firm.
Across the same trades, chains reply to about 70% of one star reviews and independent firms to 42%. 35% of firms with three or more bad reviews answered none of them. 47% of replies to bad reviews dispute the customer's account, and fewer than one in ten offer a specific remedy.
Who answers a one star review
Share of one star reviews with a public reply from the business, across the same trades. Vet chains are an exception at 26%. A firm may also have answered privately. The report gives bad reviews answered for all 18 trades.
A third have answered none
That share of the 808 firms with three or more bad reviews in our sample replied to none of them.
Used car dealers lead on complaint failures
Failures per 1,000 reviews, the highest of any trade, and well ahead of the rest.
Wedding venues draw many service complaints
Service failures per 1,000 reviews, against 29 across all other trades. Most of those reviews describe everyday visits, not weddings.
In the customer's own words
What customers blame is specific.
Customers write it in public, in their own words, and the next customer reads it.
“The response to my complaint felt defensive and did not adequately address my concerns.”Vets
“Despite being given a specific appointment time, we were left waiting for almost an hour because staff were dealing with other customers.”Used car dealers
“When I brought this to the practice's attention, their response was both disappointing and unprofessional.”Dentists
“Came here to enjoy a cold drink in this heatwave, but the shop is an absolute sauna.”Cafes
Word for word from public Google reviews of independent firms, with businesses and people left out.
What only shows when it goes wrong
Some things win customers, and others only get noticed when they fail.
Staff manner and the work itself drive both praise and blame. Price and honesty is the opposite: credited in 12% of five star reviews and blamed in 28% of bad ones.
Blamed in one and two star reviews
Share of 6,560 reviews of independent firms. A review can mention several things, so these overlap. Premises falls to 5% without wedding venues.
Inside the report
Eight sections, from the finding to your first line.
- Summary
The headline figures, and what they do not mean.
- What wins and what loses
What customers credit in five star reviews against what they blame in bad ones.
- Trade ranking
All 18 trades, with likely ranges, the largest failure and how often bad reviews are answered.
- The failures
Staff attitude, complaint handling, waiting and premises, each with quotes, what to offer and what to measure.
- Answering in public
How firms reply, what the replies do, and what replying does not show.
- The best firms and the rest
What separates the top and bottom quarter within a trade.
- Where to start
Three trades worked through, each with a first offer and an opening line to adapt.
- Method and limits
Where the figures come from, how the AI was tested, and what the report cannot tell you.
- Get the report
One of the three opening lines
Lead with their customers, not your framework.
Each trade in the Where to start section comes with a line like this, built on what its customers write most often.
An opening line to adapt
“Many of your bad reviews come from customers who came to you first. We set up who owns a complaint, how fast they answer, and what they can offer.”
Who it is for
- Customer experience consultants choosing which sector to sell to
- Trainers and mystery shopping firms that want a specific first conversation
- Anyone building a service for independent local businesses
What it is not
- A list of leads: it names no businesses
- A forecast of budgets: it measures what customers wrote, not intent to buy
- A figure for all UK businesses: it covers these 18 trades
Full report
The Customer Experience Map
£15
One-off payment · Instant access
Questions
Before you buy.
- Where does the data come from?AI read 6,560 one and two star reviews, 1,586 three star reviews and 33,220 positive reviews, all public Google reviews in English, comparing 5,906 independent firms. Replies are the owners' public replies on Google.
- How accurate is the AI reading?We tested it on 120 reviews that a second AI model also read: 99% precision and 77% recall for service failures, so the rates are minimums. Some labels are weaker, and the report says which. No person has audited the labels.
- Is this all of the UK?No. It covers the local markets collected so far, and Hotels, Cafes, Physio & chiro and Removals each come from one area. The report shows where each trade's figures come from, so you can judge how far they travel.
- Which trades does it cover?Used car dealers, estate agents, hotels, garages, removals, tyre shops, vets, wedding venues, accountants, dentists, restaurants and pubs, roofers, physios, aesthetics clinics, electricians, barbers and tattoo shops, cafes and driving schools.
- What does it leave out?Regional rankings, trends and market sizes in pounds. Solicitors, pharmacies, opticians, care homes and cleaners have no reviews here.