Thursday, 11 March 2010
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Do You Trust Customer Reviews?
Customer reviews are often recommended as part of research for a new purchase. But should you trust them?
At one extreme, you might distrust the sites hosting the reviews in the first place. A class action lawsuit has recently been filed against the popular review site Yelp.com. The class representatives are claiming extortion and unscrupulous business practices are being committed by the site. Supposedly Yelp agents repeatedly demanded about $300 per month from a veterinary hospital in exchange for removing/hiding negative reviews of the business. And this isn't the first time Yelp has been accused of offering to hide negative reviews in exchange for money. So for the average consumer looking up reviews, you can't be sure that you're getting the full story when you read reviews. If you only see glowing reviews of a business how can you be sure that all the customers are legitimately happy and that the negative reviews aren't being hidden?
Realistically though, it's going to be fairly rare that a site extorts money and hides negative reviews. But you should still take reviews with a grain of salt. One thing I try to remember when I read reviews is that most people need some kind of motivation to actually take the step to review a product or business. Granted, some people just like commenting on their experiences or responding to requests for reviews (Amazon sends these to customers). But for the most part, something has to happen to motivate people to write a review and that motivation usually comes from extreme experiences: either really fantastic ones or really terrible ones. That's why you'll notice far less "average" reviews online.
Despite these caveats, I still rely on reviews to at least get a general idea about products or businesses. I'd rather not going into a purchase completely blind.
Do you trust customer reviews? If you ever write reviews, what motivates you?
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- From: Cara
- Name: Cara
- About Me: I'm a 24 yr old back in the Midwest for law school. I've survived the first semester as a law student after working as a paralegal for two years. Let's see how the rest of the time goes!
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Comments (6)
No I don't.
Sometimes I do. I shop on sites like HSN and QVC and when I read the negative reviews on a product it lets me know that the company is presenting bith sides to the customer.
I tend to find it fishy when there's too many perfect reviews, and sometimes you can tell from the wording if it looks way too structured (although the person could be a really good writer). But what I really look for is if there's a significantly large amount of negative reviews.
I sometimes trust customers reviews. Recently, I was searching the web for a pair of boots. There were a few bad reviews about a particluar pair of boots where the inside lining peeled, which I thought was a believable review. No, I do not write customer reviews.
I still trust Yelp.
Disclaimer: I work for Yelp.
I almost always write customer reviews for any restaurants that aren't chains. I can understand that the reasoning behind why someone would write a review. I just do it because I like to pretend I'm a restaurant critic. I work in the service industry so sometimes I'll read a review and think "wow, this person is a complete douche!" I understand that the customer is always right but how can the employees know there's a problem if that customer didn't mention it? Can we read minds?