{"id":16629,"date":"2018-12-13T11:00:09","date_gmt":"2018-12-13T11:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marvel7077.wpengine.com\/?p=16629"},"modified":"2018-12-10T13:45:47","modified_gmt":"2018-12-10T13:45:47","slug":"problem-online-reviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marvelapp.com\/blog\/problem-online-reviews\/","title":{"rendered":"The Problem With Online Reviews"},"content":{"rendered":"

I often take my coffee at a place with a 3 stars rating on Google, but it serves one of the best coffees in the city. The reviews come from two people who had once a bad experience. And Google shows to everyone that it has 3\/5 stars without saying that it is one the best places to have a non-Starbucks, coffee.<\/p>\n

Some companies keep manufacturing certain products only because 10 years ago they received so many 5 stars on Amazon, that it\u2019s almost impossible to retire the product.<\/p>\n

My Uber score is 4.7, and the only \u201cbad thing\u201d I do is the lack of conversation with my driver. I always say \u201cHello\u201d, \u201cThank you\u201d, \u201cGoodbye\u201d and leave some tips. So apparently for not talking you still get a low score.<\/p>\n

For drivers, sometimes all you need is a grumpy passenger who is not allowed to smoke and will give you a one star for that. And then you have to work hard for a month to recover your initial score. Only because somebody wasn\u2019t allowed to do what he wants.<\/p>\n

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The hysteresis effect<\/h2>\n

A relative of mine put her villa on Airbnb. And when you are new in a service business, you tend to accept anyone, only because you need ratings. Her first customers were a group of youngsters, and after renting the place, they wanted to throw a party. She did not allow them, fearing they will destroy the house. The group wasn\u2019t satisfied and left a bad, 2 stars, review. She couldn\u2019t rent the house to anyone else anymore. She had to rename the place.<\/p>\n

In her case, if she had left the stars, almost nobody would have rented her house. This is an effect called hysteresis \u2014 the dependence of the state of a system on its history. <\/strong>It\u2019s the same way banks work when giving loans, and it\u2019s the same way schools operate and so on. We judge something based on a metric that characterises past actions or events. And what we see now is a glimpse of the future which everybody will accept.<\/p>\n

Leaving a feedback\/review \u2014 we reduced a thought process, that should take some time and effort, to basic numbers that mean nothing. The episode<\/a> of Black Mirror were everybody rates each other with stars has all the chances to become true. Actually, it already\u00a0did.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are moments when we should realise that leaving a review is not what everyone should be able to do. Why? Because we are irrational and emotional beings.<\/p>\n

For example, apparently, some people constantly give 4 stars to their Uber drivers even if the service was spectacular. Reason? They leave 5 stars only if, I will quote: \u201cI will give him 5 stars only when the driver would save my life from a threatening situation, otherwise why would he deserve it?\u201d.<\/p>\n

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\"We expect rational feedback or reviews from irrational beings. I somehow find it irrational.\"<\/p><\/span><\/blockquote>\n

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\u201cShould I ask customers to write reviews for my business?\u201d<\/h2>\n

On Yelp.com, in the Q&A section, for the question \u201cShould I ask customers to write reviews for my business?\u201d the site says:
\nProbably not. It\u2019s a slippery slope between the customer who is so delighted by her experience that she takes it upon herself to write a glowing review and the customer who is \u201cencouraged\u201d to write a favorable review in exchange for a special discount. And let\u2019s be candid: most business owners are only going to solicit reviews from their happy customers, not the unhappy ones. Over time, these self-selected reviews create intrinsic bias in the business listing \u2014 a bias that savvy consumers can smell from a mile away. Don\u2019t be surprised, then, if your solicited reviews get filtered by Yelp\u2019s automated review filter.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Customer is not always\u00a0right<\/h2>\n

I always say that to build a great product or service, watching people\u2019s behaviour is more revealing than listening to what they have to say. See what they do and not what they say. There\u2019s also the same problem in the social sciences with questionnaires. They are usually answered aspirationally. For example: \u201care you a generous person?\u201d And people will say \u201cOf course I am!\u201d. No matter if you put as an option to answer yes\/no or choose from 1 to 10. This is a human tendency to overestimate one\u2019s importance or opinion.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know the old adage that the customer\u2019s always right?\u201d he said. \u201cWell, I kind of think that the opposite is true. The customer is rarely right.\u201d \u2014 Charlie Trotter, Source: NY\u00a0Times<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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Why do we still use reviews\u00a0then?<\/h2>\n

If so many things are wrong with current review systems, why do we still use them? It\u2019s a form of communication, and we need it as social proof when buying, reading or consuming something. But unfortunately, it is an undeveloped form of communication which contains some human flaws.<\/p>\n

On the other side, we still use the 5-star rating system because people are lazy and it\u2019s always easy to go with this type of review system. \u201cEverybody does it, why wouldn\u2019t I do it too?\u201d or a better way to say it \u201cFacebook, Google and Amazon does it. I don\u2019t think such a big company can be wrong\u201d. And this reminds me of a story:<\/p>\n

A policemen sees a drunk searching for something under a streetlight and asks what the drunk man has lost. He says he lost his keys and they both look under the streetlight together. After a few minutes the policeman asks if he is sure he lost them here, and the drunk replies \u201cno\u201d. The policeman asks \u201cThen why are you searching here?\u201d and the drunk replies \u201cThis is where the light\u00a0is.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This story has a two way meaning, of course. But, you can realise how the power of social proof can influence your decision making, without you ever giving it a thought.<\/p>\n

Another reason why we use such a simplistic review system is because it\u2019s quantifiable and offers some sort of logic. \u201cWhat shall we think about our own product or service?\u201d For example, if your average score for your product is 3 stars out of 5, it means there is something to be changed and it\u2019s an average product.<\/p>\n

But are the numbers so reliable? In math they are. But when you are trying to translate human emotions \u2014 I don\u2019t think\u00a0so.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Should we trust the\u00a0numbers?<\/h2>\n

A great example here is Facebook\u2019s Messenger on a smartphone. Everytime you finish a phone call, you are asked with their annoying survey \u201cHow was the phone call?\u201d. I would always rate it with 1 star, because, first of all it\u2019s Facebook, and then because that annoying question pops up every damn time after a phone call.<\/p>\n

But what real insights does it give to you when someone rates the phone call with 1 star and does not leave a feedback? And even if the person leaves a feedback, 90% of those reviews are basic human emotions. Emotions, that come from a specific context they had a phone call in with many factors happening. And we translate that into a number? A number which has a different meaning from person to person?<\/p>\n

We translate human emotions into raw data, like numbers and star reviews and expect to derive some logical answers from that on how we can improve our products. To me it looks like there\u2019s more rationality in the human emotions than those\u00a0numbers.<\/span><\/p>\n

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This is a broader\u00a0problem<\/h2>\n

But now as I sit and think, it has to do more with us humans than with a review system. We are encouraged everywhere to share our own opinion, everyone asks for it. A shop may send you an email and ask how was your experience, are you satisfied with their product or not. At the airport, you are asked how was the line service, and so on.<\/p>\n

Nowadays, everyone gets a chance to finally have some meaning in their lives by giving their two cents about something. And with that, we forget that sometimes it\u2019s better to shut up, even if something did not meet your delusional expectations when buying a $7 cup of coffee.<\/p>\n

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Now, should we do something about\u00a0it?<\/h2>\n

Can we improve the review systems? We could, but how far can we go until we hit another human problem? And here we should look at the issue of not fixing the review systems, but rather playing around human flaws. So there is just a little bit less of lousy stuff that ruins products, businesses or peoples careers. If we can work around this and create a system that can encourage better behaviour, then we can impact lives in a better way.<\/p>\n

On the other side, why would you want such simplistic review systems (like a 5 star) if there are so many downsides? Speed and less friction. Something that we crave for in the Internet world. We are trying to maximise one and minimise the other. We use these type of systems because they are easy and nothing else. But is it the best way? Are there alternatives?<\/p>\n

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Don\u2019t make the reviews so simplistic<\/h2>\n

Giving a rating from 1\u20135 without an explanation is a bad UX, because this may delude future customers or users about the value of that service. Giving a review and enforcing the user to leave a well-thought comment is a different subject.<\/p>\n

Some companies offer a review system with many levels of feedback (for example, Adidas). Where you can choose the level of comfort of a shoe, material quality, design, and describing each part of the product. On the other hand, others don\u2019t allow you to post something unless you answer all the questions that can give a broader picture to other users.<\/p>\n

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www.adidas.com<\/p><\/div>\n

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Once I was working for an e-commerce shop, and I was having a discussion with a customer about his shopping experience. He gave 3 stars to a product because the delivery guy was rude to him. Meanwhile, the delivery company has nothing to do with the shop itself. And of course, you can\u2019t blame him. But it\u2019s our job to make it harder for people to leave delusional feedbacks and encourage more well-thought and constructive criticism.<\/p>\n

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But in the end, it all will always come down to what you really want for your product \u2014 better reviews or more reviews?<\/p><\/span><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I often take my coffee at a place with a 3 stars rating on Google, but it serves one of the best coffees in the city. The reviews come from two people who had once a bad experience. And Google shows to everyone that it has 3\/5 stars without saying that it is one the best places to have a… Read More ￫<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":257,"featured_media":16631,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-viewpoint"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\t\n