Every summer comes with a reading list.
For marketers, that often means trend reports, industry research, and whatever book everyone is recommending that year. We’re always looking for new ways to understand customers, spot what’s changing, and figure out what comes next.
This year, our reading list included 117 million social comments.
Not because we were looking for the next viral trend, but because we wanted to understand what customers are actually saying when they’re talking to brands. The result is Respondology’s latest Social Comments Benchmark Report, built from conversations across eight industries over the first half of 2026.
Some of what we found wasn’t surprising. Customers ask questions before they buy, share feedback when something doesn’t meet expectations, and recommend products they love to friends.
What stood out was that comments are one of the few places where customers decide what the conversation is about.
Nobody asks them if the product page answered their questions, they simply ask what’s missing.
Nobody prompts them to suggest a feature, they bring it up because it’s already on their mind.
Nobody sends a survey asking whether your latest campaign landed the way you hoped, they tell you in real time.
That’s what makes comments so valuable. Individually, they’re conversations. Collectively, they’re one of the richest sources of customer intelligence many brands already have.
1. The Questions Customers Keep Asking
One of the clearest patterns in the benchmark report was how many questions brands receive before a customer ever makes a purchase.
Questions about shipping, availability, pricing, sizing, integrations, or compatibility show up every day across industries. They’re easy to think of as customer support, but they’re also a window into the buying journey.
Across the 117 million comments we analyzed, 94% of customer questions went unanswered. Purchase-intent comments weren’t much better, with 93% receiving no response, despite responding to those comments resulting in an 11% conversion rate.
The conversion rate is compelling, but what interested us just as much was what those questions reveal. If customers keep asking the same thing, they’re pointing to friction somewhere else. Maybe a product page isn’t clear or pricing information is hard to find
These patterns are far more valuable than the individual comments.
2. The Feedback Customers Volunteer
Comments capture the things customers think are worth bringing up without anyone steering the conversation. That’s what makes them different from surveys or interviews. Instead of responding to a list of questions, customers decide what’s important enough to mention in the first place.
Over time, those conversations become incredibly useful. They highlight recurring frustrations, common requests, and opportunities to improve the customer experience long before they make their way into a formal research project.
3. The Communities Customers Build
One of the more interesting findings in the recent benchmark report was how often customers brought other people into the conversation.
Sports brands saw community-building comments make up 42.5% of conversations, while retail wasn’t far behind at 36.4%. Customers were tagging friends, answering each other’s questions, and recommending products without being prompted.
Those conversations are a signal that customers see enough value in a brand to invite someone else into the conversation. That’s the kind of behavior every marketing team hopes to create but it’s already happening in the comments.
4. Finding Patterns Through the Noise
Of course, not every comment is useful. Spam alone accounted for 45.5% of all hidden comments in the benchmark report, and roughly one in every 14 comments fell into that category.
That’s one of the reasons comments can feel overwhelming and result in being unaddressed. Valuable customer feedback often sits beside irrelevant conversations, making it harder to recognize the patterns that matter.
Before brands can learn from comments, they often have to make those conversations easier to see.
5. What Happens When You Read the Whole Story
Looking at one comment rarely changes a business but looking at hundreds or thousands can.
That’s really the shift we hope marketers take away from this year’s benchmark report.
Read enough comments and patterns begin to emerge. Customers tell you where they’re getting stuck, what they love, and even show you products they are willing to advocate for.
These come from reading the conversation over time.
That’s why we think comment sections deserve a place alongside surveys, interviews, customer advisory boards, and every other source of customer research and intelligence. They don’t replace traditional methods but they add an always-on view of what customers choose to say when nobody is asking the questions.
This summer, our reading list happened to be 117 million comments.
After spending time with the data and pulling together this report, we’re convinced it’s one worth reading.
Download Respondology’s H1 2026 Social Comments Benchmark Report to explore what 117 million social comments reveal about customer behavior, purchase intent, sentiment, and the patterns shaping conversations across industries.
