When organizations need to prioritize a long list of ideas, features, products, or messages, traditional rating questions often fail.

Why?

Because respondents tend to rate too many items as:

• “Very important”
• “Important”
• or “Good”

This creates weak differentiation and unclear priorities.

This is where MaxDiff Analysis becomes one of the most effective research techniques for understanding true customer preference strength.

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What Is MaxDiff Analysis?

MaxDiff, also known as Best-Worst Scaling, is a methodology used to identify which items people value most — and least.

Instead of rating items independently, respondents are shown small groups of items and asked to choose:

• The most important
• The least important

from each set.

This creates stronger trade-offs and clearer prioritization compared to traditional rating scales.

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MaxDiff Inside Sentink

Sentink supports advanced MaxDiff (Best-Worst) studies directly inside the platform.

In each task, respondents see a subset of items and select:

• The “Best”
• The “Worst”

The same item cannot be selected for both.

Multiple tasks are shown across the study to create balanced preference comparisons.

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How Sentink Processes MaxDiff Data

Sentink aggregates:

• Best selections
• Worst selections
• Weighted response counts

For each item, the platform calculates:

Net Preference Score

Net = Weighted Best Count − Weighted Worst Count

Items are then ranked from highest to lowest net preference.

The platform clearly presents this as:

• An aggregate preference model
• A directional analytical approach
• A business-focused interpretation layer

rather than individual-level hierarchical Bayesian estimation.

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Real Business Use Cases

Product Feature Prioritization

Understand which product capabilities customers care about most.

Example:

• AI reporting
• Automation
• Dashboard sharing
• Mobile access
• API integrations

MaxDiff reveals which features create the strongest preference impact.

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Brand Messaging & Advertising Research

Test:

• Headlines
• Value propositions
• Marketing claims
• Brand positioning statements

to identify which messages resonate most strongly with audiences.

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Product Roadmap Decisions

Compare potential future investments before development begins.

This helps teams prioritize:

• High-impact ideas
• Low-value requests
• Strategic opportunities

without building full conjoint experiments.

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Customer Experience Priorities

Organizations can evaluate:

• Service quality
• Delivery speed
• Support responsiveness
• Ease of use
• Reliability

to identify the strongest drivers of satisfaction.

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Public Sector & Policy Research

MaxDiff is commonly used to prioritize:

• Public services
• Citizen concerns
• Infrastructure investments
• Government initiatives

through clearer comparative preference measurement.

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Portfolio Reach & Coverage Analysis

Sentink includes portfolio-style reach analysis inspired by TURF methodologies.

This helps organizations identify:

• Which combination of offers reaches the widest audience
• Which items overlap heavily
• Which portfolio maximizes unduplicated preference coverage

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Types of Analysis Available in Sentink

Net Preference Analysis

A ranked visualization showing which items are selected as:

• “Best” more often than “Worst”

Higher scores indicate stronger overall preference.

This answers:

“Which items win repeated best-vs-worst comparisons?”

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Best vs Worst Comparison Charts

Sentink separates:

• Weighted Best counts
• Weighted Worst counts

for each item.

This helps identify:

• Strongly loved items
• Polarizing items
• Frequently rejected items

An item may receive:

• High Best counts
• but also high Worst counts

revealing potential audience polarization.

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Results Tables

Detailed tables include:

• Item
• Best count
• Worst count
• Net score

Optionally, Sentink can estimate exploratory confidence ranges using bootstrap sampling.

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Portfolio Reach Analysis

Sentink calculates:

Reach

The percentage of weighted respondents who selected an item as “Best” at least once.

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Greedy Portfolio Optimization

The platform can progressively select combinations of items that maximize total unduplicated audience reach.

This is conceptually similar to:

• TURF analysis
• Reach optimization studies

and helps organizations design stronger product portfolios or campaign combinations.

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AI-Powered Insights

Sentink can generate AI summaries including:

• Key findings
• Strategic recommendations
• Risks
• Opportunities
• Priority interpretations

based on structured analytical outputs from the MaxDiff model.

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How to Read MaxDiff Results

Analysis	Main Question
Net Preference	Which items consistently win?
Best vs Worst	Is the item loved, rejected, or polarizing?
Reach	How many people strongly prefer this item?
Portfolio Analysis	Which combination covers the largest audience?
AI Insights	What strategic actions should teams consider?

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Why Businesses Use MaxDiff

MaxDiff helps organizations:

• Reduce prioritization bias
• Force realistic trade-offs
• Discover stronger preference signals
• Avoid inflated rating scales
• Simplify decision-making

It is especially powerful when testing:

• Features
• Messaging
• Benefits
• Product concepts
• Service priorities
• Strategic initiatives

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MaxDiff Analysis With Sentink

Sentink combines:

• Survey creation
• Best-Worst preference analysis
• AI-powered reporting
• Portfolio optimization
• Segment analysis
• Executive insights

inside one unified platform.

This allows research, CX, product, and strategy teams to move beyond simple ratings and uncover what truly matters most to their audiences.