We analysed 10,000 reviews | Which trade won?
Published 11/16/2022
We analysed over 10,000 reviews that customers wrote about tradespeople they’d hired. We used advanced text analysis to gauge and measure the sentiment of phrases for twelve different trades.
The traits customers talk about most when they leave a review are professionalism (42%), quality of work (34%), and punctuality (13%).
- Tree surgeons are perceived as the tidiest.
- Plumbers are the best at returning calls or messages.
- Tilers are the most likely to be recommended.
See the full results below for more insights.
Which traits are most important to customers?
So what do customers talk about most when they write a review? Well, it’s professionalism and the quality of work that take the lion’s share.
Top traits – which trades came out best?
We dug deeper into the five traits that people really care about; professionalism, quality of work, punctuality, tidiness and perceived value.
| Professionalism | ||
|---|---|---|
| # | Trade | Net Sentiment Score |
| 1 | Painters | 1,647 |
| 2 | Tilers | 1,590 |
| 3 | Handymen | 1,508 |
| 4 | Gardeners | 1,504 |
| 5 | Heating engineers | 1,486 |
| Quality of work | ||
|---|---|---|
| # | Trade | Net Sentiment Score |
| 1 | Builders | 1,567 |
| 2 | Painters | 1,410 |
| 3 | Carpenters | 1,395 |
| 4 | Tilers | 1,285 |
| 5 | Plasterers | 1,082 |
| Punctuality | ||
|---|---|---|
| # | Trade | Net Sentiment Score |
| 1 | Heating engineers | 654 |
| 2 | Handymen | 590 |
| 3 | Painters | 488 |
| 4 | Plumbers | 478 |
| 5 | Electricians | 458 |
| Tidiness | ||
|---|---|---|
| # | Trade | Net Sentiment Score |
| 1 | Tree surgeons | 414 |
| 2 | Plasterers | 336 |
| 3 | Painters | 252 |
| 4 | Heating engineers | 229 |
| 5 | Gardeners | 211 |
| Perceived value | ||
|---|---|---|
| # | Trade | Net Sentiment Score |
| 1 | Electricians | 178 |
| 2 | Plasterers | 151 |
| 3 | Plumbers | 143 |
| 4 | Roofers | 126 |
| 5 | Heating engineers | 107 |
* Net Sentiment Score is the number of positive instances of a phrase relating to a trait minus the number of negative instances. For example if a trade has 100 positive instances of a trait and 10 negative instances, their Net Sentiment Score is 90.
Trades most likely to be recommended
All experienced tradespeople know that the best way to keep a steady stream of customers queuing is to get recommended by previous customers.
So how likely is each trade to be recommended?
Here are the top five…
| Most likely to be recommended | ||
|---|---|---|
| # | Trade | % of customers who’d recommend their trade |
| 1 | Tilers | 57% |
| 2 | Painters | 56% |
| 3 | Plasterers | 53% |
| 4 | Handymen | 49% |
| 5 | Heating engineers | 49% |
Which trade is best at returning calls and messages?
A common grumble amongst customers or potential customers is ‘they never got back to me’.
So which trades are the best at getting back to customers?
| Best at returning messages | ||
|---|---|---|
| # | Trade | Net Sentiment Score |
| 1 | Plumbers | 122 |
| 2 | Heating engineers | 106 |
| 3 | Electricians | 57 |
| 4 | Tree surgeons | 56 |
| 5 | Builders | 39 |
Which trade is best at returning calls and messages?
A common grumble amongst customers or potential customers is ‘they never got back to me’.
So which trades are the best at getting back to customers?
| Best at returning messages | ||
|---|---|---|
| # | Trade | Net Sentiment Score |
| 1 | Plumbers | 122 |
| 2 | Heating engineers | 106 |
| 3 | Electricians | 57 |
| 4 | Tree surgeons | 56 |
| 5 | Builders | 39 |
Which words do customers use most?
To help visualise the kind of language customers use when they write a review we’ve created this word cloud with the most popular phrases used.
Watch this space for more insights from our analysis of 10,000 reviews.