From my blog

Customer ratings and the tyranny of democracy

Every so often, a marketing contrarian will float the notion that customer testimonials or ratings aren’t worth featuring in your marketing, because they so transparently serve your own interests. I find this astonishing.

Let me qualify that. I’m not talking about quotes or ratings presented in a manner of your own choosing. Quotes included on your website or in your brochure are clearly open to editing, manipulation or even fabrication. And obviously, they’re selected too – you don’t seek or publish quotes from clients who weren’t 100% happy.

However, reviews submitted at third-party sites can be completely beyond your control. Every time I invite a client to review me at FreeIndex, I’m making myself a hostage to fortune. Of course, I choose the ones I think are happy, but for all I know they’ve been holding back on a reservation about the timescale or the price. In fact, anyone can review me at FreeIndex, whether I invite them or not. And the pages rank highly.

In fact, it’s arguably far too easy to post negative reviews. Have a look at this profile for a copywriter on Touch Local. She’s rated one star on the strength of one anonymous, invisible review, submitted via a one-page form (you can see it further down the page). Who did that? A customer? A competitor? A drunk teenager?

Assuming it’s not genuine, presumably, the onus is on her to notice the rating, approach the site and attempt to have it rescinded – or, failing that, gather enough positive reviews to bring her average up.

Even if it is a genuine rating, it seems like a raw deal – particularly since she’s contributed to the viability of the directory by submitting her details and may even be paying for priority listing. All that marketing effort and/or outlay has ended up harming her prospects instead of enhancing them.

What do you think? Has democracy gone too far?

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Comments (6)

  1. I’ve noticed you use FreeIndex, and I applaud you for it.

    The reason I don’t use it is because I have written for various restaurants in the past. One of their problems is endless bogus reviews appearing online, often posted by competitors. And whilst I like to think copywriting is a less cut-throat business to be in, I don’t see why I should hold myself hostage to fortune in this particular way.

    If clients would like to see original testimonials, I’m more than happy to provide them. And, more importantly, if they want to see samples of my writing I can provide them in an instant.

  2. Tom,

    My take on your question may not be too relevant for your line of business, since my experience with Customer Reviews/Feedback and Reputation Management are focused on Consumer Electronics industry. However I believe that none of us can afford to ignore what our customers say about their experience in doing business with us.

    There is no down side to helping them do it – in addition to gaining better qualified customers and repelling potential customers, who would not be happy with your service, you can learn how to improve your offering, product or business practice. In addition trying to silence unhappy, reasonably or not, customers you would risk your reputation much more, as they have many outlets in social media that you cannot control. There are many examples of companies that tried to manipulate and fake customer feedback. They ruined their reputation, hurt their business and even were penalized by government agencies. I wrote about these in my blog.

    The voice of Customer has always existed, it is much more amplified now and therefore can be effectively measured and managed.

  3. Interesting and contrasting views – thanks to both of you.

    Ben – Personally, I like the immediacy of people seeing the reviews at my site, rather than having to ask for them. I also like the fact that they’re completely unfiltered – something I should probably emphasise more. But you’re quite right, it’s a double-edged sword.

    Gregory – You’re right, people can post negative reviews anywhere, so it’s probably futile to try and control the conversation. And I’m certainly not suggesting ignoring any feedback. However I still think there’s a discussion to be had about how and where you integrate the flow of feedback into your own marketing. Accepting feedback is one thing – actively promoting it is another.

    Thanks again
    Tom

  5. Tom,

    I just stumbled across your interesting article, so sorry for the late reply. At touchlocal.com we have the same concerns you have raised about the veracity of reviews left on sites like ours. Although I can’t confirm our exact procedure we do have processes to ascertain when a review might not be all it seems and we do reserve the right to remove reviews that trip our filters.

    One point I’d like to make is that our procedure is no different for free or paying advertisers; this can create points of tension when a paying client wants a negative review removed, but the integrity of our review system is something we are very passionate about. We offer our registered businesses the means to respond to negative reviews and generally this seems to work well.

    As you have already mentioned, trying to control the conversation can be very difficult but we have seen many times that the more positive reviews nurtured the better equipped a business is to refute the odd negative comment. To aid our businesses in getting reviews we would always encourage them to use our review widget as it allows them to show touchlocal reviews on their own site or blog and also encourages customers to post new reviews too.

    We are also currently looking into how we might add customer supplied testimonials into our profile pages for the benefit of our registered businesses, but as you will be well aware, this has its own complications.

  6. Hi Tom, I do think it is too easy for people to make anonymous comments. As you say, a negative criticism could be from a competitor.

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