A client recently reached out with a thoughtful question: Why doesn’t your platform require clients to explain their reasoning when they give a low score in a feedback survey? Some of their team members were concerned that clients might be reacting emotionally or impulsively—especially if a recent event hadn’t gone well—rather than providing a thoughtful reflection on the entire project or relationship. They wondered if prompting or even requiring an explanation might help capture more context and lead to better insights.
It’s a fair point—and one we hear from time to time. After all, when we see a low score come through with no explanation, it can feel like a missed opportunity. Why wouldn’t we want to know more?
But there are important, evidence-based reasons why Client Savvy doesn’t require comments for low scores—and why we recommend firms resist the temptation to do so.
1. Optional Comments Preserve Honest Feedback
Let’s start with a simple truth: most clients are busy—very busy. They’re juggling their own priorities, deadlines, and meetings—often while working with multiple service providers at once. So when they open a feedback survey, they’re likely to give it a quick but genuine read and respond based on their overall feeling at that moment.
We already provide an open comment field for every score. If a client wants to explain their answer, they can. However, when a survey forces them to comment in order to submit, the dynamic changes. Now they’re being asked to do extra work—and that creates friction.
In our experience (and across millions of responses), here’s what typically happens when a mandatory comment box appears for lower scores: many clients simply change their score. Not because their experience was better than they originally felt, but because they don’t want to take the time—or feel comfortable—writing out an explanation. They move a 4 up to a 6, or a 5 to a 7, just to bypass the extra step.
The result? We get artificially inflated scores that don’t reflect how the client truly feels. And that’s a much bigger problem than an unexplained low score.
Optional comments remove this pressure. They preserve the client’s ability to be candid—offering us their true sentiment without requiring justification. And more importantly, it keeps the door open for a meaningful follow-up, where we can connect directly and ask for more context in a personal, thoughtful way.
2. Scores Are a Snapshot, Not a Verdict
It’s easy to assume that every score a client provides should be a fully reasoned, perfectly rational assessment of the entire project lifecycle. But that’s not how human emotion—or client experience—works.
People respond in the moment. Their mood, the most recent interaction, or a single unresolved issue can influence their feedback. That’s not a flaw—it’s reality.
And it’s valuable. Client feedback surveys are meant to provide a pulse on how the client is feeling at a particular point in time. Just like taking someone’s temperature, it gives you a quick read on whether something might be wrong—or going particularly well. It doesn’t tell you everything, but it tells you enough to know whether to dig deeper.
A low score without a comment doesn’t mean the feedback is invalid. It simply means the client chose not to elaborate right then and there. That’s okay. The number itself is just a signal, not a sentence. The true value lies in what we do with that signal—how we respond, follow up, and engage with the client afterward.
Sometimes, a low score might reflect a momentary frustration that’s easily resolved. Other times, it might be the tip of a deeper issue that only a conversation can uncover. Either way, forcing a comment doesn’t solve the problem. Listening and responding does.
3. Surveys Should Lead to Conversations, Not Replace Them
It’s tempting to think that the survey itself should provide all the answers. After all, we ask, they respond, and we move on—right? Not quite.
Client feedback surveys are tools for direction, not diagnosis. Their primary purpose is to highlight where we should be paying closer attention. They are the beginning of a conversation, not the end of one.
A low score without a comment is an invitation. It gives your team a reason to reach out and ask questions, to listen actively, and to learn more about what the client is experiencing. Often, these follow-up conversations are where the most meaningful, transformative insights emerge.
Clients are far more likely to open up in a personal conversation than they are in a comment box. A one-on-one dialogue creates space for empathy, curiosity, and connection. It also gives your team the chance to explain, apologize, or make things right in real time—something a typed comment alone can never accomplish.
Requiring a comment puts the burden on the client. Following up with care and curiosity puts the responsibility where it belongs: on us.
The Bottom Line: Less Friction, More Trust
At Client Savvy, we’ve seen the data. Requiring comments for low scores consistently leads to lower response rates, fewer authentic insights, and missed opportunities to truly understand your clients. It also subtly sends the message: If you're going to tell us something we don’t want to hear, you’d better justify it. That’s not the kind of experience that builds trust.
Instead, we focus on making feedback as easy and accessible as possible. We want clients to feel comfortable being honest, knowing that their input—whether brief or detailed—will lead to thoughtful action. We want to reduce friction, not add to it.
By keeping comment fields optional, we preserve authenticity. We allow clients to speak freely when they choose to—and we empower our teams to follow up when it matters most.
The real value of client feedback isn’t in a perfectly filled-out survey. It’s in how we respond, how we learn, and how we grow. So when you see that low score with no comment, don’t see it as a dead end. See it as your starting point.
Pick up the phone. Send a thoughtful email. Ask a curious question. That’s where the real insight lives—not in a required comment box but in a real human connection.
