Approached with a bit of intelligence, online reviews are genuinely useful and are a decent guide for considered and well-researched purchasing. But it’s bizarre how much recommendations have changed over the years. Before the internet, if you wanted to know a decent curry house, you’d ask a friend or family member. These days, we trust complete strangers.
I love online reviews. Especially the 1-star ones. The lunacy of some reviews can be hilarious, or the review has got literally nothing to do with the product. Amazon ones are great. Averaging 4.6, someone will leave a 1-star comment about how a hairdryer broke after one use when trying to knock a nail in with it – not its intended purpose. Or, recently, I was looking for a new condenser microphone and a buyer left a terrible review because DHL left it outside in the rain. Brilliant!
The Competitions and Marketing Authority (CMA) have launched an investigation into several firms who are suspected of obtaining questionable, or fake, reviews which may break consumer law. There are some big-hitters involved including Autotrader and Just Eat, but all the firms involved have said they are cooperating with the CMA’s probe.
Online reviews can influence consumer choices and they generate and influence billions of pounds in revenue and spending each year. Online reviews also feed the recent development in AI search results in search engines. Therefore, it’s important, and right, that consumers have full trust in the companies that they buy from. Data from TruthEngine, and a team of ‘PhD-level’ data scientists (have they got PhDs, or could get one if they wanted?) have discovered that around 50% of online reviews are fake or dodgy. That’s quite a lot.
This has massive implications for consumers as they may be sucked in to believing information that isn’t truly representative of a product or service, which is a diplomatic way of saying ‘believing lies’. Businesses can suffer as they can be subjected to reputational damage, and fake or misleading reviews can result in lost revenue or, on a large scale, withdrawal of investment in a company from third-parties. Online reviews can also influence how companies manage their marketing strategies, and marketing spend, to keep up with competitors.
This is all serious stuff and should absolutely be properly investigated. Just Eat is a good case in point, and something I use reasonably regularly. Trust is important especially since the price of takeaway food has rocketed over the last year. But, on a micro level, consumers need to be cautious. Newly opened takeaway gaffs with nine hundred 5-star reviews (you do see them!) should ring alarm bells with anyone with a modicum of intelligence. Nowhere is that good. And ones with generally good reviews and a few 1-star loonies are most likely going to be okay. Similarly, reviews for businesses on Google or products on Amazon that are either ridiculous, or irrelevant compared to the rest, or are clearly written by Chat GPT (these should stand out a mile), are best ignored.
There’s a propensity to disbelieve everything these days, so should you trust online reviews? Probably, but with some consideration. Leaving a comment in a review takes effort so we should read what people say and judge accordingly for ourselves. What would we think if someone said the same thing in real life? What would we say in reply? Speaking of which some of the comments on the above BBC article are belters. Aren’t people funny sometimes?
