--- title: "How do you analyse customer feedback? A simple method for small businesses" url: https://reviewnudge.app/guides/analyse-customer-feedback/ published: 2026-10-30 updated: 2026-10-30 author: "Jack Stovell" author_profile: https://i.hilyt.it/jack publisher: "Adapt Progress Evolve Limited" summary: "Put every review, text and comment in one spreadsheet, tag each with a topic and a good, bad or mixed note, count the tags once a month, then fix the most common problem. Count every comment you receive, including the critical ones, or the totals will be wrong." language: en-GB --- # How do you analyse customer feedback? A simple method for small businesses > Put every review, text and comment in one spreadsheet, tag each with a topic and a good, bad or mixed note, count the tags once a month, then fix the most common problem. Count every comment you receive, including the critical ones, or the totals will be wrong. ## The short answer: tally what customers mention, then change one thing For a cafe, salon, trade business or clinic, analysing feedback means counting what people keep mentioning and dealing with the most common thing. You don't need dashboards, sentiment software or a data person. You need a spreadsheet or notebook, the comments you already get from reviews, texts, emails and the till, and a regular slot each month. Half an hour is a sensible amount to set aside to start with. The routine has five steps. You collect, tag, mark, count and change. Next month you check whether the repeats went down. ## Step 1: Put all your feedback in one place Feedback comes in from all over the place: a Google review here, a text from a regular there, and a remark at the counter you scribbled on the back of a receipt. Put it all into one spreadsheet, with one row per comment. Add columns for the date, where it came from and what the customer actually said. Copy their words exactly. If you tidy them up, you lose the detail that tells you what went wrong. If you need help finding your reviews to copy across, [how to see your Google reviews](/guides/how-to-see-your-google-reviews/) walks through it. A notebook works just as well. Some owners do this on paper and do it better than anyone with a subscription. What matters is that every comment ends up in the same spot. ## Step 2: Pick five to eight topics and tag each comment Read each comment and give it a topic. Keep the list to five to eight topics, or you will get lost in your own labels. - **Salon:** wait time, price, stylist, cleanliness, booking, result - **Cafe:** food, speed, staff, prices, seating, noise - **Trades:** turning up on time, quality of work, tidiness, communication, clear quotes Use topics that match how your customers actually talk. If three people mention parking, add parking. If nobody ever mentions it, leave it out. Some comments cover two topics. Tag both and move on. It's easy to spend ten minutes deciding on one comment, and that time is better spent on the next. ## Step 3: Mark each comment good, bad or mixed Next to each topic, write good, bad or mixed. "Waited forty minutes and nobody said sorry" is bad on wait time. "Brilliant, so friendly" is good on staff. "Lovely cut but I waited ages" is mixed, or good on result and bad on wait time if you tag both topics. People tend to skip mixed comments, yet they are often the most useful. A mixed comment usually shows you something that is almost right. If you can't decide between two labels, pick one and carry on. What matters is the pattern across dozens of comments. Getting one label exactly right makes little difference. ## Step 4: Count monthly and look for repeats Once a month, count how many comments each topic got and how many were good, bad or mixed. A basic pivot table does the job, and so do tally marks on paper. Then look for repeats. If one person complains about the music, that's one person's taste. If six people mention wait time, that's a pattern. Act on the repeated complaints. Note the repeated praise as well, because it tells you what to protect. If everyone loves your stylists, don't change whatever is making that happen. If you'd like more feedback than turns up on its own, a short survey can feed the same spreadsheet. The [customer feedback survey for small business](/guides/customer-feedback-survey-for-small-business/) guide explains how to run one without breaking review rules. ## Step 5: Choose one or two changes and note the result Pick one or two fixes, at most. If you change everything at once you won't know what worked, and you'll be worn out by the second week. Write down what you changed and when. Next month, count the same topic again. Did the bad and mixed tags go down? Did something new appear? Sometimes nothing changes, and that tells you something too. Maybe the fix was wrong, or maybe it needs longer. Write it down and try something else. ## Why you need to include every comment, not just the pleasant ones Analyse all of your feedback, never a selection. Leaving out the comments that sting makes the numbers look better, but a sheet full of compliments gives you nothing to fix. You also miss whatever is quietly losing you customers. The same applies to how you collect reviews. Ask every customer the same way and don't offer anything in return. Google's policy for Maps reviews says businesses must not "selectively solicit positive reviews from customers" or offer incentives such as payment, discounts or free goods in exchange for reviews. [Asking for Google reviews: the rules](/guides/asking-for-google-reviews-rules/) explains what is allowed, including the UK rules on fake reviews. If you only ask the people you think enjoyed it, your figures are skewed before you even start counting. Tag the awkward, unfair and critical comments the same way as every other comment. ## Worked example: a salon's month of feedback This salon is imaginary, and **the figures below are made up for illustration**. They are not real statistics. The owner gathers one month of comments from Google reviews, texts and social media, 40 in total, and tags them under six topics: | Topic | Good | Bad | Mixed | |---|---|---|---| | Stylist | 14 | 1 | 1 | | Result | 11 | 1 | 2 | | Wait time | 1 | 6 | 5 | | Cleanliness | 4 | 0 | 0 | | Booking | 3 | 2 | 0 | | Price | 2 | 1 | 1 | The stylists and results are mostly praised. Wait time has eleven bad or mixed tags, and most of them say something like "great cut, but I sat around for ages first". So wait time becomes the one change. The salon starts texting clients when the previous appointment is running late and leaves a little more time between Saturday bookings. Next month the owner counts wait time again and writes down whether the bad tags went down. The owner didn't redo the price list or repaint the salon. They picked the biggest repeat complaint and dealt with that. ## When a spreadsheet stops being enough A spreadsheet will see most small businesses a long way. Signs you are outgrowing it: - Copying comments across takes far longer than the time you set aside each month. - You run several locations and want to compare them. - Several people log feedback and the tags no longer mean the same thing to everyone. At that point, look at software built for the job. Do it by hand for a few months first, though, so you know exactly what you need a tool to do. ## Using your findings in review replies Your tally also makes your replies better. If wait time keeps coming up, you can answer a mixed review honestly: thank the customer, say you have changed how you handle running late, and leave it there. Telling people about a real change does more than a generic apology. For harder replies, [how to respond to negative Google reviews](/guides/respond-to-negative-google-reviews/) covers tone and what to leave out. If you'd like a first draft to edit, the free [review reply generator](/tools/review-reply-generator/) writes one for you. If you run a cafe or restaurant, [what diners mention in Google reviews](/blog/restaurant-google-reviews-what-diners-mention/) shows how to sort restaurant reviews by what diners talk about, such as food, waiting times, service and the room, which gives you a starting point for your tags. ## Questions people ask ### How do you analyse customer feedback? Gather every comment into one place and tag each one with a topic and a good, bad or mixed note. Count the tags once a month, then choose one or two things to change. The following month, check the same counts to see whether the change worked. ### How do you analyse customer feedback without software? Use a plain spreadsheet or a notebook. Give each comment its own row, with columns for the date, the source, the comment, the topic and good, bad or mixed. Then add up the tags each month. For a small business, that is all you need. ### What are some examples of customer feedback analysis? A salon notices that wait time keeps getting bad and mixed tags, so it starts texting clients when appointments are running late. A cafe sees speed come up again and again on weekday mornings and changes its morning rota. Both come from counting tags. Neither needs special software. ### How often should a small business review customer feedback? Monthly suits most small businesses. It is often enough to spot patterns while they are still small, and it doesn't take over your week. Half an hour is a sensible amount to set aside at first; adjust it to how much feedback you get. Urgent complaints still need a reply on the day. ### Should I only analyse reviews and not other feedback? No. Include reviews, texts, emails, social media comments and anything said in person that you wrote down. Many customers never leave a review, so if you skip other channels, or the unpleasant comments, you get a skewed picture. ## Sources - [Google Maps user contributed content policy (fake engagement and rating manipulation)](https://support.google.com/contributionpolicy/answer/7400114) - [Google Business Profile Help: tips to get more reviews](https://support.google.com/business/answer/3474122) - [GOV.UK / CMA: Fake reviews guidance (CMA208)](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fake-reviews-cma208)