Customer reviews are an important part of buying and selling products and services, whether a company sells online or in-store. With the introduction of social media, websites like Yelp and TripAdvisor, and the increasing trust in customer reviews on the internet, it is becoming more and more important for a business to monitor and encourage online customer reviews.
Before getting into the impact of customer reviews, something that needs to be covered is deciphering whether or not a review is real or fake. This is a huge thing to pay attention to for online shoppers or review readers, as sometimes untrustworthy companies will pay people to write fake reviews for them to get their ratings up or generate more traffic. This is an illegal and morally wrong practice, and it is sometimes hard to spot fake reviews even with a trained eye.
MarketWatch published a list of 10 things that will help customers keep an eye out for the fake reviews that are sometimes utilized, and the first thing that they mention is looking for an overuse of the pronouns “I” and “me.” The website states that, “According to research from Cornell University, online reviews that frequently use “I” and “me” are more likely to be fake than those that don’t — possibly because when people are lying they try to make themselves sound credible by using personal pronouns.” (MarketWatch, 2018). Other things to watch for in a review that may point to it being fake are generic names, such as John or Jane Smith, poor English or grammar, or if the reviewer has given multiple 5-star reviews to the same company.
Real and fake reviews both have an impact on e-retailers, and people will often visit the reviews to make the decision on whether or not to purchase a product or service. That makes ORM (Online Reputation Management) a very important thing for businesses, especially online retailers, to pay attention to. According to an article on G2 Learning Hub written by Kristin McCabe, “Having five reviews results in purchase likelihood increasing by a factor of almost four times (Spiegel Research Center, 2017)” (McCabe, 2019). This helps prove that reviews have an impact on customer’s decision making, even when just looking at the number of reviews.
Managing a business’ online reputation is an underrated art for some smaller businesses who may not understand or pay attention to the realm of review websites and social media comments. Personally, I worked for a business that was not aware that their business was on a review website for many years, and they never responded or managed the few bad experiences that people commented about. Although there were only a small number of these experiences, as there will be at any business, it could have put a few customers off from visiting. I eventually did enough encouraging to get them to claim the business on the review sites and start working towards better ORM.
ORM is a very important part of business that can be overlooked due to the novelty of it, and I would like to see more businesses getting serious about it. Reviews can have a huge impact on the volume of customers that are purchasing items, and can alert you of common problems that customers may be having. Whether looking to improve your business, or wanting to increase a customer base, ORM is the best way to work towards those goals.
Resources
Hill, C. (2018, December 10). 10 secrets to uncovering which online reviews are fake. Retrieved from https://www.marketwatch.com/story/10-secrets-to-uncovering-which-online-reviews-are-fake-2018-09-21
McCabe, K. (2019, September 20). 50 Statistics Proving the Power of Customer Reviews. Retrieved from https://learn.g2.com/customer-reviews-statisticsSteele, B. (2011, July 25).
Some online reviews are too good to be true; Cornell computers spot ‘opinion spam’. Retrieved from http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2011/07/cornell-computers-spot-opinion-spam-online-reviews
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