Online reviews are revolutionizing the way people buy products and services. According to a recent survey:
A full 90 percent of customers use online reviews before buying
82 percent said reviews affect the buying decision
Reviews from real users are more influential (84 percent) than reviews from experts (16 percent)
As we start to see this revolution extend to reviews of enterprise software and hardware, it’s important to consider the authenticity of reviews that are posted online. If a new restaurant gets dozens of stellar reviews on a consumer review site, many people would be persuaded to give it a try. But what if you couldn’t trust that those good reviews were legitimate?
The prevalence of fake reviews is growing every year. A new report from Gartner predicts that by 2014, up to 15 percent of posted reviews will be false. Companies are paying people to post positive reviews of their products and services. And in many cases, the company employees are posting the reviews themselves.
There are numerous examples. A recent search on Fiverr.com, a site where people offer to perform tasks for small amount of money, turned up dozens of offers. Someone named Maipai posted this: “I will write an online review for $5.” Not surprisingly, she had many takers. Positive reviews include “Excellent reviewer. Keep up the great work,” “Great job. Did the project in 41 minutes” and “Good Job. Would use again.”
There are more insidious methods as well. The New York Times earlier this year ran a story highlighting reviews of a black leather case folio cover; 310 of the 335 reviews on Amazon.com were five stars and most of the rest were four stars. How did the company do it? By offering a rebate to customers who posted good reviews.
The reason for the uptick in fake reviews, according to Gartner senior research analyst Jenny Sussin, is that organizations are looking for ways to increase their digital footprint and, of course, sales. Competition is fierce.
In addition to being unethical and illegal -- the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says companies that pay for positive reviews are guilty of deceptive advertising -- it causes confusion for buyers because fake reviews are often very difficult to spot. The result isn’t so painful with the restaurant example -- you might be out the cost of the dinner, but it won’t break the bank -- but with expensive or mission-critical products and services, the impact can be devastating.
So if you can’t easily spot fake reviews, how can you use online reviews to help narrow your options? It comes down to trusting that the site you are working with has put ironclad controls in place to stop fake reviews from ever making it onto the site.
Companies are taking steps to improve user reviews. The company I co-founded, IT Central Station, for example, validates users and reviews by cross-checking the information in our database with LinkedIn profiles. It's also important for review sites to bar vendor employees from reviewing their own products or those of competitors, and allow the community to flag reviews that seem suspicious.
What do you think? Is the authenticity of reviews important to you? Comment below.
— Russell Rothstein is co-founder and CEO of IT Central Station. Follow him on Twitter at @RussRothsteinIT or Google.
I don't disagree there's a problem. And I don't disagree that for some B2B businesses restricting reviewers to sites like LinkedIn might be part of the solution.'d be curious as to the push-back and how that affects the # of reviews. Personally, I wouldn't use my LinkedIn currency for reviews. I
For B2C companies like Yelp, TripAdvisor, and others, restricting reviews to only those with specific social media accounts is simply not practical or a sound marketing tool. In either case I'm not sure restricting reviews will reflect representative samples. Besides, who's to say everyone with a LinkedIn account will be an honest reviewer or significantly reduce the % of fake reviews?
You can almost always trust a person to do one thing: be who they are.
That said, look to possible motivations. The better you get at reading between the lines, and the more you familiarize yourself with a particular reviewer, the more you know exactly how to interpret that person's reviews -- anonymous bozo or not. :)
Good. Then I know where not to go if I'm having a bad day. ;)
The customer may not always be right, but the customer is always the expert on what he wants.
That is to say: The rightness of the customer is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that if a customer does bueinss with an establishment and is displeased -- FOR WHATEVER REASON -- then that customer is less likely to do business with the establishment again and more likely to tell people to avoid the establishment. It is therefore incumbent upon businesses to do what they can to please their customers and rectify their failures to do so -- regardless of all but the most extreme circumstances.
Truthfully, perception is thus more important than any imagined "objective reality." If the customer is pleased, then no, the business did not do everything right. Not all customers are alike, and there is no business solution that is one-size-fits-all.
Beyond the consumer world, enterprises and marketers from all walks of life would do well to heed these words.
Thanks Kim. I wrote a blog post last month about how to assure online product reviews are authentic: http://blog.itcentralstation.com/2012/11/05/how-do-we-assure-our-reviews-are-authentic/
As I wrote, it requires a combination of user validation, community policing, combatting fraud, and erring on the side of quality.
That's a great idea. The important thing, when it comes to online reviews, is trust, and I agree that springs from having some idea who the reviewer is and what they've said in past reviews. It's possible to create trust, using an anonymous handle, if you post enough, but having a verifiable account makes it much easier.
Thanks for your feedback. The big issue facing Yelp, tripadvisor and other B2C review site is the amount of fake reviews. Gartner estimates it to reach 15% of reviews on these sites to be fake. In the B2B world, the number of reviews will naturally be lower, and trust must be much higher for each review, so we have decided to require LinkedIn validation for all reviewers. It ensures that you know the reviews are not fake and are not planted by the vendors.
That means anyone who offers a review has to have a linkedin, facebook, or twitter account to be a "trusted" reviewer? I think if we start putting restraints on opinion by making people jump through hoops, the Internet will not be nearly as rich.
As both a marketer and consumer I rely on user reviews.
As a marketer, I can't see any situation where I would use paid reviews. Nor would I knowingly seek or publish fake reviews.
As a consumer they're an important part of the evaluation process - both for the product or serivce and the seller. Although it's not foolproof, I generally take seriously reviews only where there is sufficient sample size - more than ten (10) reviews. I typically "throw out" 10% to 20% of the best and worst depending on sample size and evaluate what's left. I do this on 2-3 different sites, which helps validate pretty quickly those with integrity.
I think the key point is: "Also it is very easy to fake a profile". This is true for open consumer review sites like Yelp and Tripadvisor. Gartner says that soon 15% of the reviews on these sites will be fake. However, that's because there is little/no validation of the users. In a B2B environment it's essential to have validation of the users writing the reviews in order to maintain authenticity. In B2C it's all about quantity of reviews, in B2B tech it's about quality.
Good points David. The key I believe is strong backend validation (using LinkedIn or similar professional profile) with an anonymized front end. That way the 3rd party platform (e.g. IT Central Station) does the validation but the user's profile is not revealed. Of course that means that the 3rd party platform has to be trusted.
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