Review Velocity as an Emerging Customer Analytics Metric: Investigating Its Relationship with Customer Engagement, Brand Reputation, and Market Health

Abstract

The rapid growth of online platforms has transformed customer reviews into a critical intelligence source for measuring customer experience, brand reputation, and market health. Traditional customer experience metrics such as average rating, review volume, and sentiment analysis provide useful but limited insight because they often miss the speed, intensity, and directional movement of customer feedback over time. This study introduces Review Velocity as an emerging customer analytics metric that captures how quickly reviews are generated, how review activity accelerates or slows, and how sentiment patterns shift across digital platforms. Using a conceptual research design supported by thematic analysis of academic literature and industry evidence, the paper examines the role of review velocity in customer engagement analysis, reputation management, and operational responsiveness. The proposed framework incorporates review frequency, review acceleration, review momentum, and sentiment movement as the primary dimensions of review velocity measurement. The study contributes to customer experience analytics by positioning review velocity as a strategic metric that can help organizations detect emerging feedback patterns, reputation shifts, and market health signals earlier than traditional review metrics. Future empirical validation is recommended across industries, platforms, review volumes, and sentiment contexts.