I’ve been working in the online reputation field for 8 years, and this is one of the most interesting questions. The reason behind this lies in the importance of measuring results and the constant drive for improvement. But before diving into an answer, let’s delve a bit into the rationale behind the question.
Why would we want to know the average rating?
As we all know, what you don’t measure, you can’t improve, but sometimes measurement alone is not enough. Let’s imagine we’re the manager of a restaurant and notice that our restaurant has an average review rating of 4.5 stars online. Is that good or bad? It’s very hard to answer without more data.
For example, if we have a rating of 4.5 stars from a total of 2 reviews (one 5-star and one 4-star review), it’s not very good because we lack credibility; it seems like a new location where not many people have eaten yet. But if we have the same rating of 4.5 from 390 reviews, it might seem good, but if other restaurants around us have a similar volume of reviews and averages between 4.7 and 4.9, then it’s not so good. So, any measurement needs to be contextualized for proper interpretation.
That’s why we scanned the Internet and built a benchmark with the online reviews of businesses in the US.
What is the average rating of a restaurant?
We analyzed over 5 million restaurant reviews in the United States and obtained the following benchmark for business reviews. Thus, we can say that in the US, a restaurant has an average rating of 4.25 stars.
What is the average rating of a hotel?
Regarding hotels in the United States, we monitored over 1 million reviews. Based on these data we calculated that a hotel has an average review rating of 4.28 stars. Here you can access the hotel customer review benchmark.
In lieu of a conclusion
Considering the above data, it’s easier to evaluate a restaurant or a hotel when compared to these averages. For an even more relevant comparison, it’s necessary to look at the competition (nearby competing locations). Only then can we truly know if we’re doing well or poorly. Here you can find a benchmark with reviews for each state.
Methodology
We collected data from over 100 restaurants in each state in the US. Generally, the restaurants were from a major city representative of that state. Thus, we arrived at 5 million reviews for restaurants and over a million reviews for hotels. After collecting the data, we grouped the ratings of the locations by state, type of restaurant, and obtained the data presented in the benchmark.