The Trouble With Online Customer Reviews

Megalith

Megalith

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How often does a review influence your decision to purchase something? Sometimes I wish there were no reviews at all, since one negative review has the power to steer me away.

Andrews typifies the love-hate relationship American consumers have with customer reviews, which -- for better and worse -- have come to define the online shopping experience. People count on them to find the perfect Christmas gift on Amazon.com Inc. and the best burger joint on Yelp Inc. Yet they hate navigating through anonymous reviews -- including suspiciously over-the-top rants and raves -- in search of meaningful insights.
 
Megalith said:
Sometimes I wish there were no reviews at all, since one negative review has the power to steer me away.
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Perhaps. But without them, I'm sure I'd make far fewer online purchases. It's usually not that hard to sift through them and decide which are worth something and which can be dismissed entirely.

The alternatives are reviews from commercial web sites, which are very often worthless. Those are the reviews that you really need to watch out for. They typically have no bearing at all on real-world usage and are too often done by reviewers who are idiots.
 
The one thing you need to realize about any review is that people love to bitch about stupid fucking shit and that most people are complete idiots.
 
A lot of the one star reviews I read are based more on someone's perception of what the item actually does, is for, or how it works. A lot of morons order things not really understanding what they are ordering.

Sure, there are legitimate beefs, but most companies will attempt to make it right.
 
There is also choice-supportive bias to watch out for. That is, people who select a particular product (red team, green team) are more likely to ascribe positive attributes to their choice afterwards Because they consider themselves smart people, so how could they have made a wrong or bad choice :)
 
The problem with online reviews is there really are 2 big areas of reviews 1) Those who are upset with something, so they're going to be the most vocal and more likely to write a review of a product than someone who's satisfied 2) people who are paid to write reviews for the sake of writing them, oh hey that game comes out in 2 weeks yet you're already saying it's a great game? Come on at pretend to be an actual customer and wait until the release date before saying how great it is.

Overall I tend to give a little more leeway to bad reviews than I do for good reviews. As I said, people with a beef wants anyone and everyone to know why they have a beef, yet someone who is satisfied is so for a reason, so every satisfied review tends to hold more weight since that represents many more people who simply couldn't be bothered.
 
Equally as bad as the compulsive bitchers are the drunken cool aid drinkers. Unfortunately, you have to take time to go through all the reviews to filter out the useful ones.
 
leeleatherwood said:
The one thing you need to realize about any review is that people love to bitch about stupid fucking shit and that most people are complete idiots.
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Yup, got my wife a tablet for xmas, she read reviews that the book cover for it is garbage as it always just slips right off, then someone replied to a review and said "you need to push down quite firmly to get the cover to snap on"
 
leeleatherwood said:
The one thing you need to realize about any review is that people love to bitch about stupid fucking shit and that most people are complete idiots.
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1/5 star post. I found the content to be honest and from the heart which is nice. Unfortunately the use of back to back swears in a run on sentence makes me unlikely to read this again.
 
I read all the reviews I can and throw out the idiots who take off for something like late delivery due to carrier or generally stupid comments. There is enough cheap China kockoff crap on Amazon and other websites you almost need to. That and or something like the best of articles with Consumer reports and the like.
 
I tend to read 3 star reviews as they seem to be the most fair and balanced reviews. I'll usually read a couple higher rated a couple lower rated too, but take then a little less seriously.

One thing I don't like is when someone gives the product a poor review, but the issue ha to do with shipping or something else.

Beyond products, when it comes to restaurants, I honestly think it has a lot to do with the demographic. When I lived in San Francisco Bay Area, there were a lot of very good restaurants and there's a ton of people whole like fine dining. Living in Colorado, you don't see the same tastes, so what qualifies as a good restaurant here would be pretty shitty in the Bay.
 
When it comes to single reviews, I tend to take them with large grains of salt. But if there are tons of reviews and there is a clear trend among them, that is different.
 
I don't read reviews; I look at the average overall rating and base my purchases on that. If the majority of people like it, I probably will too.
 
scojer said:
I don't read reviews; I look at the average overall rating and base my purchases on that. If the majority of people like it, I probably will too.
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The other reason to read reviews is somebody might have info on a particular quirk or compatibility issue with the device or product. Although I agree with you in principle I think you are doing yourself a disservice by not checking for those kinds of exceptions, aka., computer equipment.
 
I have read more reviews than I care to think about over the years. Largely due to some of the jobs I was in where I was in charge of purchasing of replacement items/parts for a large variety of products. What I have found is as follows; I just flat out dismiss any 5 star review. Those are almost entirely paid for, a blind fanboy or just generally worthless. At best you might get one unbiased 5 star in 100. I also discount anything 2 star and below as complete idiot territory. Again there is a chance there is a legit review there, but those are lottery odds. Generally speaking people in this category don't have an opinion that means a thing. Anywhere from 2.5-4.5 stars is about where you find your decent reviews. These are usually people who have put some thought into it and you run into far less idiots in this area. This is where I can find out what the product is really about and decide from there if its pro's and cons are worth it.

TLDR: Just assume Below 2 stars are mentally retarded and 5 stars are bought and you will get good info.
 
I really try to filter out legit reviews and take whatever reviews seem honest and try and judge what it says about a product overall. It's definitely tougher the fewer overall reviews there are though.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
TLDR: Just assume Below 2 stars are mentally retarded and 5 stars are bought and you will get good info.
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It's why I prefer a 10pt scale. I think people are less likely to give a "10/10" for a product as they would for a "5/5". A "4/5" is an "8/10". It makes it much easier to weed them out as the "10/10" reviewers will likely be shills or major fanboi who are blind to any deficiency.
 
I read a lot of reviews before a purchase from multiple places.

I think the key is just being able to understand what the person is complaining about or praising on the other side. Most of know we are going to dismiss those reviews that knock down a point for shipping being late, or the company promised me this time of delivery. Not sure what that has to do with the product, but rating the shipping company or the company providing the product is pretty silly.

I find a lot of good information reading all the reviews such as amazon. Generally you can choose to read a few reviews from each rating category and get the general gist of what is going on. I find a lot of good information this way. But ultimately reading reviews from good reputable sites is the best.option for me. I guess I am used to reading the reviews of products here and can count on the expertise of the reviewers in making good sound choices based on the reviews. But more information is always better than none
 
pgwalsh said:
I tend to read 3 star reviews as they seem to be the most fair and balanced reviews.
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I tend to read the 1 start and 5 star reviews.
I throw out the obvious idiots who don't understand the product or complain about shipping problems, and also ignore the fans that would rate something 5 stars even if it blew up and burned down their house.
 
I tend to pay attention to the substance of the reviews. I learned to do that when I was younger because of video game reviews being biased towards the reviewers taste. So I learned that I would look for specific things that would either entice me or repel me. For example in video games the camera can make or break a game for me. Or poor voice acting without any alternatives (such as subtitles). With products reviews by purchasers I will tend to focus on specific gripes because there are to many people who will complain about a bad product and give a review of it before even proceeding through RMA process. That one is incredibly common on Newegg.com. "Product didn't work for me so I gave it 1 star, will update review when I get replacement". Those can lead you to a bigger problem with a products (such as it being poorly made), but they are entirely dependent on sample size so I will tend to ignore them if they are not the majority of the reviews.
 
When I read a list of 99% positive reviews and then I find the 1 negative, it usually written badly and makes the reviewer look an idiot. So I ignore it.

If it isn't written badly the bad review usually has the words "...doesn't work on a Mac!" in it, so again its ignored.
 
Writing reviews is easy, anyone can write "CRAP" and give something 1 stars.

Never care about the star rating, and disregard reviews that offer no explanations just slander or glorify a product with empty adjectives. If you keep to these simple rules, you'll be very unlikely to be steered in the wrong way by any review. Unless it's a fake paid for review. But that's an entirely different problem.
 
I glance over the one star reviews almost exclusively. Of those, I only really put weight on the number of DOA, and build quality assessments.

I seldom write a customer review on a product myslef. I do write reviews on crappy Amazon sellers. I limit myself to delivery times, how well the product was packaged, how easy and prompt the RMA was if there happened to be a problem.
 
Everyone has a small number of DOA items. If the reviewer says that the RMA was quick and painless, that puts a virtual gold star by the item and the company. Of course an excessive amount of DOAs raises a flag.
 
I find people will be more likely to leave a review when they have had a bad experience than a good one
 
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