For small businesses, reviews are key assets—positive feedback builds trust, while negative reviews offer valuable insights for improvement. The food and drink sector, for instance, sees over 40% of negative reviews. But how does it stack up against other industries?
To find out, Capital on Tap used AI to analyse over 14,000 Google reviews from 15 industries across the UK. They also shared expert insights on the impact of reviews and provided practical advice for businesses on managing negative feedback.
Revealed: The food and drink sector sees the largest volume of negative reviews
Rank | Category | % Negative Reviews |
1 | Women’s Clothing Store | 53.80% |
2 | Fast Food Restaurant | 34.30% |
3 | Cafe | 30.24% |
4 | Delivery Service | 21.76% |
5 | Restaurant | 14.14% |
6 | Bar | 12.93% |
7 | Plumber | 9.52% |
8 | Nail Salon | 7.82% |
9 | Health Consultant | 6.97% |
10 | Doctor | 6.87% |
The food and drink sector sees the largest volume of negative reviews, with fast food restaurants (34.3%), cafes (30.2%), and restaurants (14.1%) ranking among the top five most criticized industries.
“Food” is consistently a highly mentioned term in negative feedback across various cities, ranking as the most common complaint in seven cities.
In London, fast-food establishments receive the lowest average review rating in the country, scoring just 2.5 out of 5. This highlights a significant issue in the food sector, with the city scoring poorly for food-related customer experiences.
Further insights:
Moving and storage services receive overwhelmingly positive feedback, ranking number one, with an impressive 95.3% of reviews expressing positive sentiment.
Women’s clothing stores have the highest share of negative reviews, with over 53.8% of customer feedback being disapproving.
