Frequently Asked Questions
About our ratings
Canstar Blue rates customer satisfaction across a wide range of products and services to help shoppers make better buying decisions. Our star rating results come from the opinions of surveyed consumers who have recently used and/or purchased the products and services.
These independent results are available free of charge via our website.
How do you collect the information from consumers?
We partner with a respected professional market research fieldwork company, Your Source, who undertake research on our behalf with New Zealand consumers. Your Source are experts in gathering quality data and a member of AMSRS, the peak body for the market research industry.
The sample is broadly representative of the New Zealand population in terms of gender, age and location and is based on the New Zealand population figures. Only people who have used the product or service recently are able to answer the questions and be included in the survey results.
For example, only people who had used a multivitamin in the previous twelve months were included in our multivitamins results. The timeframe specified for consumption or usage depends on the specific product or service category that is being researched.
How many people do you survey?
We receive survey responses from 2,500 people across a broad cross section of the New Zealand population. We only include results from the respondents from this group who have used the product or service within the specified time frame.
How are the ratings developed?
The survey:
- The New Zealand fieldwork is managed by Your Source, using the Research Now panel which has a strong international online panel worldwide. Their panel in New Zealand consists of more than 38,000 active members.
- The surveys are administered online, and a sample size of n=2,5000 is achieved per wave, with quotas by gender, age and location.
- Respondents rate their satisfaction with products or services at a brand level on a zero to ten scale, where zero is low satisfaction and ten is high satisfaction.
- The ratings are for criteria such as overall satisfaction, price, service, after-sale care and billing. These vary depending on the category.
- The winner in each category is the one that receives the highest ‘overall satisfaction’ rating.
- Overall satisfaction is asked as a specific question. This means the overall satisfaction criteria represents an individual measure rather than a combined total of all criteria. As a result, some brands may find their overall satisfaction score is lower - or higher - than the scores they have received for other criteria.
- When we cannot determine a clear winner from the criteria for the 'overall satisfaction’ rating, we will look at the supporting criteria to see if these indicate a clear leader of the two. If so, this information will be used to choose the overall winner.
- If a clear leader still cannot be determined, joint winners will be declared (such as our winners for travel bookings or televisions).
- Any brand that receives 6 out of 10 or higher receives at least three stars.
- Brands that score lower than 6 out of 10 receive one or two stars.
How are you funded?
For a fee, winners of the categories are able to licence the award for use in their marketing, however there is no requirement to do so.
We:
- Are a privately held company and are not affiliated with any of the brands or products surveyed
- Don’t get paid to conduct the research (we pay for the research ourselves)
- Don’t accept any advertising on our website.
- Approximately every 12 months we re-survey product and service categories. For these types of annual surveys we can be researching a brand category winner who we have sold a license to in the past. The survey is independent and undertaken by a third party fieldwork company, Your Source. The previous year’s winner has no bearing or influence on the current research.
Why isn’t every brand rated?
Our surveys are designed to pick up as many providers as we can, but we will miss some providers due to low sample size – for example small local or niche brands where their market share is currently low. Brands must receive a minimum of 30 responses to be included in the ratings.
Why don’t you do price comparisons?
We're not a price comparison site, nor do we collect data on individual products, models or plans. We do not offer consumer advice, but rather report the survey results and present our findings in the form of ratings.
We suggest you put brands that rate well in our results on your shopping list and then choose the product that best suits your needs.
(Note that CANSTAR does compare individual finance products at www.canstar.co.nz).
Why won’t you disclose the whole research report?
We release a detailed overview of the results. Our research is valuable and we are looking at expanding our business model which could see us sell our research reports in the future.
Comments
Why hasn’t my comment been posted?We will not publish comments which are obscene, offensive, and factually incorrect or constitute advertising. A complete list of what constitutes inappropriate commenting is covered in our Terms of Use.
Alternatively, your comment may be pending moderation from the Canstar Blue New Zealand team.
We don’t screen for negative winner comments on our website or Facebook page. We encourage people to speak about their experiences, positive or negative, and we pass any negative feedback or questions to the winning brands to respond to.
How can I keep up to date with Canstar Blue?
We have a Facebook page and a Twitter account that are updated regularly. We also have a mailing list you can join if you’d like to be notified whenever we release new content to our website.
Who can I contact for media enquiries?
Brenda Newth, JML Communications021 655 534
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Further information about Canstar Blue.
