A one-star improvement in your average rating is worth 5-9% more revenue
5 to 9%.
That is the increase in revenue associated with a one-star improvement in a business's average rating, according to research by Michael Luca at Harvard Business School. The study tracked restaurants but the principle has been replicated across service industries: a higher rating means more enquiries, and more enquiries, at the same conversion rate, means more revenue.
For a service business, the maths is worth running.
A cleaning company generating £22,000 per month at a 4.0 average rating. A sustained effort to improve that rating to 4.8 produces, at the conservative end of the research, a 5% revenue increase. That is £1,100 per month. Annually: £13,200. At the higher end of the range: £24,000.
The mechanism behind the improvement matters as much as the number.
A business's public rating is almost never an accurate reflection of its satisfied customer base. The customers who review unprompted are disproportionately those with a complaint. Satisfied customers are, as a group, quieter. Their satisfaction is real, but it does not convert to a review unless prompted.
A systematic review request, sent to every customer shortly after a completed job, corrects that imbalance. The businesses that ask consistently accumulate reviews that are representative of their actual quality. Those that rely on spontaneous reviews accumulate a skewed sample that under-represents the satisfied majority.
The practical gap between a business that asks for reviews and one that does not can be two full stars on a public platform, achieved from the same underlying quality of work. The rating is the output. The request process is the input.
Two businesses, identical service quality. One at 3.8 stars. One at 4.8. They are not competing for the same customer.
If your Google rating does not reflect the quality of work your customers are receiving, book a free discovery call with EveryCatch and we will set up an automated review request process that works on every job.
