Overview
SmartCustomer ratings are designed to provide consumers with an accurate and useful snapshot of customer experiences over time.
Rather than relying solely on a simple lifetime average, SmartCustomer uses a weighted rating model that considers both historical feedback and more recent customer experiences. This approach helps ratings better reflect how a business is performing today while still accounting for its longer-term track record.
Why Ratings Are Not Always Simple Averages
A simple average treats every review equally regardless of when it was written. However, businesses can change significantly over time. Customer service, product quality, ownership, staffing, policies, and operational practices may improve or decline.
A business with strong reviews from many years ago but consistently poor recent experiences may not accurately reflect its current performance through a simple lifetime average alone.
Likewise, a business that has recently improved should not be permanently defined by older negative experiences.
To help balance these factors, SmartCustomer’s rating model gives additional consideration to more recent reviews while still incorporating long-term review history.
The SmartCustomer Weighted Rating Model
SmartCustomer ratings are calculated using a weighted average made up of three components:
50% — Lifetime average Half of a business's rating comes from the average of all reviews submitted over its lifetime on SmartCustomer. This reflects the business's overall track record and ensures that a long history of performance, positive or negative, carries meaningful weight.
25% — Last 12 months A quarter of the rating comes from the average of reviews submitted in the past 12 months. This gives recent performance a stronger voice in the overall rating without allowing it to dominate entirely.
25% — Last 30 days The final quarter comes from the average of reviews submitted in the past 30 days. This makes the rating responsive to how a business is performing right now, so consumers aren't relying solely on experiences from years ago.
In some cases, a business may not receive reviews during certain time periods.
If there are no reviews within the last 12 months or last 1 month, that portion of the rating model is assigned a neutral average value rather than being excluded entirely. This helps reduce unintended volatility or distortion caused by limited recent review activity.
The model helps create a rating that reflects both historical consistency and recent customer sentiment.
What's Included in the Rating
All reviews that have passed our verification and moderation process contribute to a business's rating, whether they came in organically, through a business invitation, or through an automated collection method. Verified and unverified reviews are both included. Verified reviews receive a label, but verification status doesn't affect the weight a review carries in the calculation.
What Isn't Included in the Rating
Not all reviews contribute to a business's star rating.
Site Experience Reviews (previously Instant Feedback), which capture feedback about a consumer's experience on a business's website rather than a product or service, are counted separately and don't factor into the overall rating.
Reviews that have been removed or filtered following a moderation decision are excluded from the calculation entirely. A business's rating reflects only the reviews that have passed our integrity standards.
Considerations for Consumers
Businesses with larger numbers of reviews generally develop more stable rating trends over time because ratings are influenced by a broader set of customer experiences.
Businesses with smaller review volumes may experience greater short-term movement as new reviews are submitted.
Consumers are encouraged to consider:
- Overall rating
- Number of reviews
- Review recency
- Review content
- Business responses
- Long-term rating trends
Use these signals along with the overall SmartCustomer rating when evaluating a business.
Category Rankings & Comparisons
SmartCustomer ratings may also contribute to category rankings and comparisons across businesses.
These rankings are designed to help consumers identify businesses with stronger customer experience performance within similar industries or service categories.
Because ratings consider both historical and recent experiences, rankings may change over time as businesses improve, decline, or receive additional customer feedback.
Transparency & Review Integrity
SmartCustomer’s rating systems are intended to reflect authentic customer experiences as accurately as possible.
Businesses cannot pay to artificially improve their ratings or remove negative reviews from the platform.
Ratings are influenced by published reviews and may also be affected by moderation actions involving fraudulent, fake, or policy-violating reviews removed under SmartCustomer’s Review Integrity Guidelines.