What is a verbatim?
A verbatim is a customer's exact words, quoted as they wrote or said them. In feedback reports, verbatims sit beside the numbers to show what a score means in the customer's own voice.
The customer's own words
In survey research, a verbatim is an answer to an open question kept word for word, without editing or summarizing. “I gave up after the third password reset” is a verbatim. “Customers report login problems” is a summary of many verbatims.
Verbatims make findings concrete. A chart can show that complaints about login doubled, while two or three quotes show what the problem feels like to the customer, and they often move a team to act faster than the chart alone.
They are also the raw material for analysis. Themes, categories and sentiment are all read from verbatims, so keeping the original words lets anyone check a finding against the words customers wrote.
- Means
- Word for word, from Latin
- Comes from
- Open survey answers, interviews, support chats and reviews
- Used for
- Reports, roadmaps, team updates and checking a theme
- Also called
- Verbatim comment, open-ended response, customer quote
Verbatim examples
Here are verbatims from a delivery survey, each beside the score the customer gave and the theme it belongs to. Read together, they show what sits behind the numbers.
Notice that the 4 out of 5 still holds a problem worth fixing. Scores alone would have hidden it.
| Score | Verbatim | Theme |
|---|---|---|
| 2 of 5 | “The tracking link said delivered, but nothing was at my door” | Tracking |
| 3 of 5 | “Arrived fine, but the box was crushed” | Packaging |
| 4 of 5 | “Good, though I had to ask twice for a delivery slot” | Scheduling |
| 5 of 5 | “Two days early and the driver called ahead” | Delivery speed |
How to choose verbatims fairly
A quote persuades, so choose quotes that match the counts. Say 300 customers left a comment and your report has room for 10 quotes. If 40% of the comments are about tracking, 4 of the 10 quotes should be too.
Within each theme, pick quotes that are clear on their own, typical of the theme and recent. Avoid picking only the funniest or the harshest, and give the theme's count beside the quote so readers can weigh it.
- Tracking, 120 comments
- 40%, so 4 quotes
- Packaging, 90 comments
- 30%, so 3 quotes
- Delivery speed, 90 comments
- 30%, so 3 quotes
- Quotes in the report
- 4 + 3 + 3 = 10
How to use verbatims in reports
A useful report pairs each number with what it means and a customer saying it in their own words. Put the quotes where the decision is made, next to the chart or the theme they explain.
- Put one or two quotes under each theme, beside its count
- Keep the customer's wording, and mark any cut with an ellipsis
- Add context such as the score, the date and the channel, and leave out the name
- Link each quote to the full response, so readers can check it
- Send fresh quotes to the team that can fix the issue
Verbatims and privacy
Customers sometimes write names, email addresses, order numbers or health details in an open answer. Remove them before a quote leaves the team that collected it.
Inside your company, share quotes without names or contact details. Before a quote appears in public, such as on your website or in a case study, ask the customer for permission.
How Usertick keeps verbatims
The inbox holds every response from every survey and channel, with each answer in the person's words and the time beside it. Next to it are what Usertick's AI read from it, its owner and status, and the notes your team adds, so a quote never loses its context.
Search finds the words people wrote, and filters narrow responses by sentiment, theme, category, score group, country or page. On Results, a text question's card lists the answers with their sentiment and theme, and a dashboard's Latest comments card shows the newest open answers, each opening its response.
On every plan, a workflow can post an answer word for word to Slack or Microsoft Teams, or add each response as a row in Google Sheets, so the team that can act reads the customer's own words.
Mistakes to avoid with verbatims
Small choices that keep the results useful.
- 01
Quoting only the extremes
The harshest and the warmest comments stick, but they may be rare. Choose quotes in proportion to the themes they stand for.
- 02
Editing a customer's words
Tidying a quote can change its meaning and its weight. Keep the original wording and mark any cut.
- 03
Sharing personal details
Names, emails and order numbers sometimes appear in answers. Remove them before a quote goes into a report.
- 04
Quotes without numbers
A single quote can't show how common a problem is. Give the theme's count beside it.
Frequently asked questions
A verbatim is one customer's exact words. A summary describes what many customers said, such as “Most complaints are about tracking”. Reports use both, the summary for the pattern and a verbatim to show it.
Leave the spelling as written in internal reports. For a public quote, fix only obvious typos, mark any cut with an ellipsis and keep the meaning intact.
One or two per theme is usually enough. Choose them in proportion to the counts, so the quotes show what most customers said.
Yes. The same sentence reads differently from a customer who gave 2 out of 5 and from one who gave 5, and the date shows whether the problem is still current. Add the channel too when it matters.
On every plan, a workflow can add each response to a Google Sheet, kept up to date as readings and statuses change, and the inbox exports one response as a PDF or PNG. On Pro and Business, the REST API returns every response with its answers.
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