Frequently Asked Questions

Why isn’t every brand rated?

Our surveys are designed to pick up as many providers as we can. We will miss some providers due to sample size – for example small local brands or niche brands where their market share is currently low. Brands must receive at least 30 responses to be included in the results.

Why don’t you do price comparisons?

We rate customer satisfaction with price. We’d suggest you put brands that rate well on your shopping list and get the details you need. We don’t compare individual plans.

Comments

Why hasn’t my comment been posted?

Things we won’t publish include comments which are obscene, offensive, factually incorrect or constitute advertising. They’re all covered off here in our Terms of Use.

General

What do you do?

Canstar Blue rates customer satisfaction with brands across a wide range of products and services. Our survey results reflect survey respondents' subjective opinions of the products or services under consideration.

What don't you do?

We're not a price comparison site. We don't collect data on individual products, models or plans. (Note that Canstar does compare individual finance products at www.canstar.com.au ).

How do you collect the information from consumers?

Surveys are developed and delivered by respected professional research firm Colmar Brunton. Only people who have used the product or service recently are able to answer the questions.

How many people did you survey?

We receive survey responses from 2,500 people across a broad cross section of the Australian population. We only include respondents who have used the product or service within a specified time frame.

How are the ratings developed?

• Respondents rate their satisfaction with products or services at a brand level (rather than being product, plan or model specific)
• The ratings are for criteria such as overall satisfaction, price, service, after-sale care and billing
• The winner in each category is the one that receives the highest ‘overall satisfaction’ score
• The other criteria are important but are not used to determine the winner
• Any brand that gets 60% or higher satisfaction receives at least three stars
• Brands that score lower than 60% satisfaction receive one or two stars
• We present survey results only for brands who get more than 30 responses from respondents
• Note: Overall satisfaction is an individual measure and not a combined total of all categories. This means that some brands may find that their overall satisfaction score is lower - or higher - than the scores they have received in individual categories.
• Where the gap between first and second place in the 'overall satisfaction' category is extremely narrow, we will look at the supporting categories to see if these indicate a clear leader of the two. If so, this information will be used to choose the overall winner. If after that process has been applied, a clear leader still does not emerge, joint winners will be declared.

How are you funded?

• We are not affiliated with any of the brands or products surveyed, and we don’t get paid to conduct the research
• Results are provided free of charge via our website for consumer reference
• For a fee, winners of the categories are able to licence the awards for use in their marketing.

Broadband - ADSL

Why have you only rated ADSL broadband?

We may rate other types of broadband in the future. For now we have started with the most common type of broadband in Australia (ADSL).

Electricity Providers

Why have you only provided ratings for Vic, NSW, Qld and SA?

In Western Australia, there is only one major provider so we decided not to announce a winner in a one horse race. The low populations in the ACT and NT make it hard to get a robust sample.


Further information about Canstar Blue.