Is it possible to believe the reviews online

In the Internet age, sharing opinions about goods and services is extremely easy and convenient. We are so used to it that we often cannot buy or order anything without first reading the reviews. But is everything as simple as it seems? Do negative reviews always indicate poor product quality, and positive ones unambiguously signal: “we need to take it”? What are the reasons and motives behind the positive and negative comments? We are looking into whether to believe the reviews on the Internet, together with a specialist from the HFE clinic.

Every self—respecting company is now striving to improve its reputation in organic ways – there is even such a thing as reputation management. Reviews are still one of his most powerful tools. According to statistics, they are read by more than 80% of all Internet users. Moreover, for most potential buyers, the opinion of other people turns out to be decisive. That is, reviews actually decide whether to be a purchase or not. But is this tool so “clean”?

HFE specialist: Indeed, the influence of reviews on consumer behavior is very strong. In more than half of the cases, before purchasing a product or ordering a service, a person will first go online to study information about the product and the company. One recent study showed that 57% of respondents are always guided by other people’s opinions when buying, and the remaining 43% pay attention to them from time to time. And none of the respondents replied that they were not interested in reviews.

At the same time, buyers have now become more sophisticated. Many people are aware that there are SMM strategies for promoting brands on social networks, including through opinions from supposedly real customers. So reviews have long been transformed from a useful and relatively objective source of information into a means of manipulating consumer consciousness. And there are more and more people who understand this.

It is clear that you should not believe all good reviews. Moreover, if the ratings are entirely laudatory, this is a clear reason to assume deception. But what about negative reviews about a company or product? After all, no one wants to make a deliberately unsuccessful purchase, and it is better to know about the shortcomings of the goods in advance. If we ignore negative reviews on the Internet, won’t we have to make mistakes and get disappointed too often?

HFE Specialist: I’m not saying that reviews don’t need to be taken into account at all. But everything we read on the Internet must be passed through the prism of critical perception. And this applies equally to good reviews and bad ones. It is clear with the first ones: companies often order them to increase their rating. There is also such a psychological moment: satisfied customers rarely leave positive feedback. When we receive a product or service of proper quality, we take it for granted, and it is unlikely that anything will encourage us to talk about our experience online. There are, of course, cases when a client is really ready to express gratitude to a company or a specialist for a job well done. For example, a surgeon has successfully performed a complex operation, and the patient sincerely wishes to thank him with a positive review. But such situations are an exception rather than a pattern.

As for the bad reviews, not everything is clear here either. Yes, they are often written by real customers who are dissatisfied with the quality of purchased goods or services received. It is worth noting that people share negative emotions much more willingly than positive ones, and such a desire to vent outrage is quite natural. So the predominance of real bad reviews over good ones does not always mean that the product is of poor quality — these are just the features of our perception. If 90 out of 100 customers pass by because they are satisfied with everything, and 10 dissatisfied leave devastating comments, what impression will the observer have about the product?

In addition, negative customer reviews, even real ones, should not be taken literally on faith. In each case, it is necessary to analyze the content of the comment and the essence of the claims: perhaps the problem is not in poor-quality goods or incompetent /unscrupulous specialists, but in the fact that the buyer initially made the wrong choice. For example, when ordering clothes over the Internet, I looked at the size chart inattentively and eventually got the wrong thing. Or there was an effect of inflated expectations: the client was counting on a deliberately unattainable result. Such situations are not uncommon in aesthetic medicine, so the doctor’s task is to tell the patient in advance about what should actually be expected from the intervention.

Medicine is generally a specific field, and relying on reviews alone here is at least reckless. Even positive assessments should be taken critically. If someone says that a particular drug is suitable for him, this does not mean that the same remedy will be effective for another patient with similar symptoms: you always need to take into account specific indications, contraindications, and individual health characteristics.

Let’s talk about the social media promotion that you mentioned at the beginning of our conversation. There is such a thing as unethical SMM. What does it mean?

HFE Specialist: There are still many unscrupulous companies on the market that resort to such methods. Instead of providing high-quality feedback to consumers, responding adequately to criticism, analyzing and eliminating flaws and improving the quality of products and services offered, they artificially build up a positive reputation. Custom-made laudatory posts and comments are posted on social networks and on response sites, ostensibly on behalf of real users. For one real negative review, there are, relatively speaking, 10 paid positive ones. There are even agencies specializing in such unethical promotion methods. You can find a lot of similar vacancies on HR resources. Most often they are low-paid, and unskilled staff agrees to such work.

But moderators strictly monitor the SMM activity of users and promptly delete obviously paid reviews. Especially strict rules apply at large venues. Companies already know well how to work with reviews so that it is effective. Professionals are involved in the case, and even if their work is more expensive, but the results are on the face. For example, bloggers are often engaged in such advertising. You’ve probably seen detailed posts with photos and detailed descriptions on popular response sites. These materials are paid for by manufacturers or distributors of products and, of course, the tone of such reviews is always positive.

Do they write only good reviews to order?

HFE Specialist: Not at all. Unfortunately, no one has canceled black PR, and competition is not always fair. Companies often “work” in two directions: they order good reviews about themselves and bad ones about competitors. Large sites are trying to combat this: they verify the authenticity of negative reviews, sometimes even, as they claim, make control purchases. But you can’t keep track of everything, and the methods of black PR are still practiced.

Custom-made negative reviews are published not only by competitors. For example, an offended employee may take revenge on an employer in this way.

Is it possible to distinguish custom reviews?

HFE specialist: It is very easy to recognize an obvious, gross deception. The abundance of exclamation marks, superlatives, formulations like “the best”, “now I will only apply here” leaves no doubt that this is a fake. But such primitive fakes are gradually giving way to high-quality customized reviews, very similar to the real ones. And stereotypes about them don’t always work. For example, traditionally, signs of a fake review are considered to be a large amount of text, lack of specifics, cliched phrases — “high quality”, “adequate prices”, “team of professionals”, etc., mentioning the brand in cases where you can do without it (especially if the complex Latin name is written completely and without errors). In fact, these criteria do not always help to recognize a fake.

Recently, a team of copywriters conducted a survey among colleagues. The purpose of the study was to determine whether professional text authors would be able to distinguish a paid comment from a real one. The results surprised everyone: most of the respondents made a mistake, mistaking a review from a real user for a fake. It really resembled a custom-made one: it was replete with stamps and exceeded the rest in volume.

There are two reasons for this confusion. Firstly, people think differently, and therefore their writing style differs. Real comments can be lengthy or concise, detailed or generalized, original or cliched, so stereotypes are not applicable. Secondly, the authors of custom reviews have really honed their skills so much that it is sometimes very difficult to distinguish a product that came from their pen from a real opinion.

Are there really no objective criteria?

HFE specialist: According to some signs, it is still possible to recognize customized reviews. But the key to the solution often lies not in the text of the comment, but in the data of its author. You can view the user’s profile on the social network — bots usually have an empty or closed page, there is no unique content of their own. On forums, it is sometimes possible to track the activity of the author, look at his comments in other topics — they are usually of the same type for “virtuals”. If a person writes from another region, this also most often indicates the commissioned nature of publications.

But such an investigation takes time, and the average consumer, who is only interested in a truthful opinion about a product or service, most likely will not do this.