DOI: 10.12688/routledgeopenres.21827.1 ISSN: 2755-1245

Feedback engagement strategies and metrics for customers in vulnerable circumstances: An empty rapid review and recommendations for further research

Verena Schneider, Grainne Brady, Cecilia Vindrola-Padros
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Across sectors, there is an increasing recognition of the need to identify and support consumers in vulnerable situations. To assess whether existing support measures are effective and how they might be improved, satisfaction surveys are commonly used. However, low response rates and the under-representation of the most vulnerable groups limit their usefulness. Moreover, it remains unclear whether these surveys effectively measure what they intend to. A rapid review of the evidence was conducted to (i) identify barriers and explore strategies to increase participation in feedback mechanisms among consumers experiencing vulnerability, and (ii) examine the availability and use of (validated) feedback or satisfaction measures for these groups. The review protocol was pre-registered on the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/tqnvr). Searches were conducted in Web of Science and ProQuest Social Science databases in July 2025. No eligible reports met the inclusion criteria. This absence of evidence highlights a substantial gap in understanding how to design inclusive and reliable feedback processes for consumers in vulnerable circumstances. To reduce the risk of systematically biased insights into whether consumers in vulnerable circumstances receive the support they need, recommendations for future research to develop and evaluate more accessible, valid, and representative feedback approaches are provided.

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