Ever been on Urbanspoon or another review website/app and thought, ‘Really?! This place got a 97% rating and even though the service was crap and my soup was cold all the reviews are positive!’?
Or ever wondered whether the businesses that use these review sites fake their own comments or deliberately post bad comments on their competitors page?
Well Yelp, a consumer review site, came out and said that a quarter
of the reviews it receives could be fake. A QUARTER!? Are you kidding me?! Through Yelp’s automated review and filter of “suspicious” reviews, it “suppresses around 25% of reviews”, the company said. These fake reviews are a blatant attempt of businesses to skew consumer opinion. However is it such a bad thing?
Today’s commerce relies heavily on Internet presence and the ability for consumers to share and compare a businesses products and services online. This means that businesses need to be more transparent when it comes to their quality control as offering a consumer something of poor quality could result with an instantaneous critique of their goods/services online. Hence the use of sites such as Yelp and Urbanspoon.
However if customers are so easily able to give a business a bad rap because the cappuccino they were served was a tiny bit under temperature, shouldn’t the business be able to write a positive review to even the playing field? If you answer no to that question, ask yourself: what’s the difference between doing that today and having a sign out the front of the store saying ‘Best cappuccino ever’ out the front of the store 10 years ago?
In my opinion not a whole lot. Its all marketing/advertising (manipulation?). The ability to offer consumers added value. Or more realistically, the ability to get the consumers money into the businesses pocket.
Just because the playing field has changed thanks to electronic marketing and the wonderful innovations of today, doesn’t mean that the game has changed. A fake review and skewing customer responses is just another one of those dirty little tasks that people in this industry have to do. And if you’re having trouble getting used to that, then you’re in the wrong game and should get out as fast as you can before your innocence is completely corrupted.
Ok. Maybe a bit strong and a bit harsh and even a bit of an exaggeration, however maybe it is time that people in this industry did ask themselves the question: is faking reviews really so different to anything else communicated by the marketing department of a business? Let me know what you think below.
iLounge Room 