Beyond the Average: 3 Simple Ways to Analyze Customer Reviews for Business

Go Beyond the Average: Creating Charts with Insight

You can get far more value from your customer review data than a simple average. By changing how you visualize the numbers, you can find insights that directly relate to business decisions. Here are three methods you can start using today.

1. Start with a Histogram or Bar Chart

This is where a histogram or a bar chart comes in. A histogram shows the distribution of scores. 

Instead of just one number, you can see how many customers gave you a 1, a 2, a 3, and so on. 

This helps you see if your product is consistently good, consistently bad, or polarizing. This view gives you much better insight than a single average score.

2. Compare Reviews to Another Metric

You can plot review stars on the x-axis and hold time on the y-axis. You might see a clear trend: as a customer's hold time goes up, their review score goes down.

 And when the hold time goes down, the scores go up. This shows a correlation you can act on.

To solve the density problem, you can create a jitter chart. This chart combines the idea of a bar chart with a scatter plot. 

It spreads out the dots so you can see where the data points are most concentrated.

You can build a jitter chart by adding two new columns to your spreadsheet: 

• • • One for "review jitter"

    • One for "hold time jitter". 

Using a simple formula, you can add a small, random number to each review star and hold time value. This moves the points just enough to show their density without changing the actual data.

With a jitter chart, you can clearly see that a shorter hold time (under 4 seconds) dramatically increases the chance of a 5-star review. This is a clear, actionable insight you can take to your team.