Your Voice Matters: How Consumer Choices Can Make the Difference

Have you ever felt like companies don’t care about their customers? While some companies certainly seem to behave this way, most companies genuinely care about customer experience and opinions.

How customers perceive various companies and brands has a tremendous impact on their bottom line. Your feedback matters, and companies work hard to cultivate loyal customers.

If customers like and value a brand, they recommend the company to others and come back for more purchases. If a customer has a bad experience with a brand, they warn others away, creating lasting damage.

How customers make – and reward – purchasing decisions

There are several factors that go into our buying decisions. What problem do we need to solve? What item or service might resolve that issue? Is there time to shop around and compare values?

Sometimes we are faced with an emergency purchase, but many of our purchases are more tied to the customer experience. It feels good to buy a little treat when you catch a good sale. You feel satisfied when you unload the groceries in the house, knowing you’re all set for the week.

When things go well, we often provide feedback to companies using surveys or reviews. We promote the brands on social media. We follow their accounts, recommend them to friends, and engage with the company with our repeated business. This positive feedback results in easily identifiable consumer choices.

When hard work and positive reviews come together

When things go poorly with a company, we leave a negative review. Sometimes nothing comes of the review, but some companies lean into the negative reviews to create something more positive. They help customers resolve a negative experience to make a positive one.

Companies that publicly care about their customers’ experiences and legitimately want to do better often win a consumers choice award from publications like Newsweek or Forbes. They wind up spotlighted by trade publications and business publications.

For example, one standout in the Consumers Choice Award was a pet company, Support Pets, that had earned a 5-star rating on the platform. Perfect ratings are hard to come by, even among the other winners in 2025, but when you look closely at the Support Pets reviews, it’s clear that the company is seeking engagement with customers.

Among the hundreds of Support Pets customer reviews, almost all have a response from the company offering gratitude, answering questions, or taking note of customer feedback. This is a company that takes customer feedback and consumer choice very seriously.

How your feedback creates award-winning companies and services

Some brands are simply too large to be able to reply to every comment on a review platform like PissedConsumer.com. For example, many of the top brands listed in the Newsweek consumers choice list are multinational corporations like 3M, Campbell’s, and Dove.

These consumer favorites have a broader reach with more customer interaction than other customer favorites like the software company HighLevel or the furniture brand Emma Mason. But what these brands all have in common is that they treat the customer experience as a critical element of their business model.

Companies focused on customer experience will look to you for feedback in the following ways:

• Reviews left on review platforms that offer real experiences and feedback.
• Comments left on the website or through surveys sent to email.
• Increased purchases during special events or promotions.
• Signing up for emails, coupons, or the company’s app.
• Using a rewards program for the company.
• Making an account with the company to use it repeatedly.
• Mentions, tags, and follows on social media accounts.

It’s easy to reward a company for serving its customers well. Typically, it can be as simple as liking and following a page, signing up for their website, downloading the app, and using the coupons the company rewards you with. That makes a nice reciprocal arrangement.

But remember that your negative feedback matters just as much. When you’re dealing with a responsive company, making a complaint on social media or on a public review platform can generate a quick response and solution. These companies likely also have dedicated customer service options through their apps and websites.

Never feel like your voice as a consumer doesn’t matter. Your money certainly speaks to companies, but your words – reviews, customer service interactions, social media posts – can matter just as much. After all, your words can spread, impacting far more than just your next purchase.