Cultural response bias warps survey responses. How can brands overcome the issue?

"Response bias can take the form of customers' tendency to consistently select a certain rating when presented with a survey, regardless of the question. The study, which examined Ipsos survey data from between 2020 and 2025, found significant discrepancies between countries. For instance, nearly 90% of consumers in Uruguay rate their satisfaction as a nine or 10 out of 10 in CX surveys, compared to about 50% of consumers in Belgium."

"In a nutshell, cultural response bias makes it very difficult to gauge whether disparities are the result of true differences in the performance measured or simply in cultural response styles, Fiona Moss, head of the CX Global Analytics Team at Ipsos, said in the report. Companies can work to minimize the impact of cultural response biases at the point of data collection to properly interpret their findings later."

"The best practices for addressing cultural response bias differ based on whether a company has competitors in the region that it can use as a point of comparison. Companies without competitors in the market can include a question in their surveys that rates the customer experience on whether it is better, in line with or worse than expectations, according to the report. Consumers' responses to this question can be used to recalibrate the scale used for the study."

Survey data from 2020–2025 show wide cross-country discrepancies in CX ratings: nearly 90% of consumers in Uruguay rate satisfaction nine or 10, compared with about 50% in Belgium. Cultural response bias makes it difficult to determine whether score differences reflect true performance differences or differing cultural response styles. Response bias includes customers habitually selecting certain ratings regardless of question. Companies can minimize bias at the point of data collection and choose different cross-country assessment approaches: firms without local competitors can add a question comparing experience to expectations to recalibrate scales, while firms with competitors can benchmark KPIs against relevant regional brands.

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