An insight into customer ratings in remittances
Many companies take pride in their customer-centric approach, but do good ratings indicate a successful remittances business, and how much do they matter? This week we take a look at the Trustpilot ratings and App Store scores of a selection of consumer cross-border payment companies to highlight the range of ratings shown.
While there is no clear correlation, some of the smaller companies do have higher ratings and may be spending more time and resources managing their customer ratings. Remitly, worth $1.5bn, has the joint highest average App Store score of 4.8 and a Trustpilot rating of 4.5. TransferWise and Revolut also score high – unsurprising given their ‘mobile-first’ approach to their products. Their company valuations stand at $5bn and $5.5bn respectively.
Out of the companies we investigated, the largest one (by market value and customer count) is the lowest rated on Trustpilot. Western Union is worth $9bn and has c.150 million customers, but is rated by Trustpilot at 2.9. Notably, this is also the oldest company in our study, having been founded in 1851.
With regards to mobile apps, user scores are generally higher than Trustpilot reviews, with all except Ria scoring 4.1 or higher out of 5 (who recently relaunched some of their mobile products).
But do ratings tell us anything about company performance or size? Some companies may rely on these ratings to help promote messaging to new customers, but both PayPal (lower rating but a broader client base) and Western Union have added millions of digital customers over the same period. This suggests a great rating is neither necessary nor sufficient. It seems for now, whilst great online ratings can be a helpful growth lever, they are no substitute for overall brand awareness.
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