Alan Draper
Anywhere between 20-30% of all reviews are fake. Many conversations I have with business owners is how Bizyhood makes feedback “fair” for both the consumer and the business. One thing that is true is this: regardless of the popularity of sites such as Yelp and TripAdvisor (and the popularity of Amazon Reviews), the concept of a 5 star review has serious flaws. Some question whether business owners should or should not be allowed to ask for reviews. A Harvard Business School study from 2011 showed that a 1-star increase in score for a restaurant on Yelp can translate into 5-9% higher sales, which further promotes businesses to not only “game” the system to goose up their scores, but to also stress over a “bad” review. Bad reviews may actually contain helpful and actionable feedback but is often overlooked as the business owner is simply concerned about upping their overall score.
Going too far to the other side is bad too. In just the past 2 weeks, I’ve read about 2 new startups that promise to “promote” good reviews publicly and only share bad reviews privately. This is not terrible – it gives the business owner the actionable feedback from constructive reviews so they can improve without hurting their online reputation. However, it presents a one-side public view of the business to potential new customers. If all I see as a potential customer is the glowing reviews, that doesn’t give me a realistic overview of the business.
One of the most important aspects of any small business is their customer service. Any reasonable consumer does not expect a small business to be perfect. However, they do expect that the small business care about the individual customer and do everything in their power to make them a satisfied customer. Isn’t that a major component of what we’re looking to understand when we research a company? That they do good work (or serve a quality product), and take care of their customers? This is a huge gap in the current review site methodology.
The bottom line: Local businesses should strive to portray an authentic view of their business. This includes making sure their website has some information about the owners and staff, and also making sure they are getting customers talking about them online and giving them feedback. It’s great for their business to learn from customers, and it’s also great for their Local SEO. But it needs to be authentic in order to be effective.
We have some strong thoughts on how to make online feedback more authentic. The large percentage of fake reviews in the 5-star system is deeply troubling and must be fixed. What do you think? Can 5-star reviews ever be authentic, and if so, how? If you own/run/work at a small business, let us know what you ideally want in order to authentically represent your company online.
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Alan Draper.
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One other way small businesses can present an authentic view of their offerings and operations is by making consistent use of the owner response feature available on most review sites. Responding to every review is itself a demonstration that the business takes customer service seriously. Add-in consistent messaging and details on the products and services being offered, and review sites can become a powerful channel for new customers regardless of the star rating.
It’s what I help small businesses do every day: customreviewresponse.com
Great article, thanks!
Thanks Martin. Business owners should *always* respond to reviews/feedback. My only question/concern with your offering – are you writing the responses for the business owner always? Part of being authentic is making sure that the owner’s voice is coming through on the response. How do you ensure that?
As a marketer, I love it when my clients get good reviews. However, as a consumer, I am disturbed by the fake ones. In the last couple of months, I have used service providers who had fantastic reviews only to be deeply disappointed with their services. However, my less than stellar reviews did not show up. Nor did I receive any feedback about my reviews. I’m not sure what the answer is, but I am now far less likely to believe that a company with many 5-star reviews isn’t gaming the system.
Sandy,
You’ve nailed the two main issues that are missing completely from 5-star review sites:
(1) The rating doesn’t take into account the responsiveness of the business owner. If you (as a consumer) give feedback and don’t get a response, how is that communicated to others?
(2) Stellar 5-star reviews (and nothing else) has absolutely no correlation to quality. That makes it a flawed system out of the gate.
A new system needs to be built. We’re working on one, and are *very* interested in consumer (and business) feedback so we can make it fair and equal-handed.