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Customer review
A customer review is an evaluation of a product or service made by someone who has purchased and used, or had experience with, a product or service. Customer reviews are a form of customer feedback on electronic commerce and online shopping sites. There are also dedicated review sites, some of which use customer reviews as well as or instead of professional reviews. The reviews may themselves be graded for usefulness or accuracy by other users. Customer reviews are widely used by consumers to make informed purchasing decisions and compare products and services online.
Before the arrival of the internet, customers could review products and services through customer comment boxes and customer service helplines. These methods still exist today although internet review sites are used more in recent years.
The reliability of customer reviews has been questioned. Abuses akin to ballot stuffing of favourable reviews by the seller (known as incentivized reviews), or negative reviews by competitors, need to be policed by the review host site. Indeed, gathering fake reviews has become big business. In 2012, for example, fake book reviews have been revealed as significantly affecting ratings on Amazon. In 2016 Amazon banned the practice of reviewing complimentary products, researchers have shown that the process still continued as of 2021, but without any disclosures.
Since few sites restrict users to reviewing only items they have actually purchased, it is difficult to know if a customer is real, has actually used the product they are reviewing, and is giving honest, unbiased feedback about the product or services being reviewed. Tools like Fakespot and ReviewMeta can help spot fake reviews on shopping sites like Amazon. Unfortunately, the tools do not work on most other websites that show customer reviews.
Public calls have been growing stronger, demanding that review sites be held accountable for publishing fake reviews. Most recently (June 2021), the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in the United Kingdom has launched an investigation into whether Amazon and Google are doing enough to prevent fake reviews from being published on their sites. Both businesses claim to have sufficient resources and policies in place to prevent fake reviews from being published. Legal steps could be taken against the giants if CMA determines those claims to be false. The problem has become so widespread that in 2023, the FTC announced plans to ban fake reviews and testimonials.
Whether a customer receives an invitation or not, many businesses have expressed the wish that customers let the business know in the moment if some aspect of their interaction or product is unsatisfactory, so they can have the opportunity to fix it on the spot or provide compensation, rather than customers leaving unnecessarily disappointed and writing negative reviews.
In 2010, British historian Orlando Figes posted reviews on Amazon praising his own work and criticizing that of his rivals.
In August 2012, The New York Times revealed that John Locke had paid an online service to write reviews of his books, in order to artificially boost sales.
Hub AI
Customer review AI simulator
(@Customer review_simulator)
Customer review
A customer review is an evaluation of a product or service made by someone who has purchased and used, or had experience with, a product or service. Customer reviews are a form of customer feedback on electronic commerce and online shopping sites. There are also dedicated review sites, some of which use customer reviews as well as or instead of professional reviews. The reviews may themselves be graded for usefulness or accuracy by other users. Customer reviews are widely used by consumers to make informed purchasing decisions and compare products and services online.
Before the arrival of the internet, customers could review products and services through customer comment boxes and customer service helplines. These methods still exist today although internet review sites are used more in recent years.
The reliability of customer reviews has been questioned. Abuses akin to ballot stuffing of favourable reviews by the seller (known as incentivized reviews), or negative reviews by competitors, need to be policed by the review host site. Indeed, gathering fake reviews has become big business. In 2012, for example, fake book reviews have been revealed as significantly affecting ratings on Amazon. In 2016 Amazon banned the practice of reviewing complimentary products, researchers have shown that the process still continued as of 2021, but without any disclosures.
Since few sites restrict users to reviewing only items they have actually purchased, it is difficult to know if a customer is real, has actually used the product they are reviewing, and is giving honest, unbiased feedback about the product or services being reviewed. Tools like Fakespot and ReviewMeta can help spot fake reviews on shopping sites like Amazon. Unfortunately, the tools do not work on most other websites that show customer reviews.
Public calls have been growing stronger, demanding that review sites be held accountable for publishing fake reviews. Most recently (June 2021), the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in the United Kingdom has launched an investigation into whether Amazon and Google are doing enough to prevent fake reviews from being published on their sites. Both businesses claim to have sufficient resources and policies in place to prevent fake reviews from being published. Legal steps could be taken against the giants if CMA determines those claims to be false. The problem has become so widespread that in 2023, the FTC announced plans to ban fake reviews and testimonials.
Whether a customer receives an invitation or not, many businesses have expressed the wish that customers let the business know in the moment if some aspect of their interaction or product is unsatisfactory, so they can have the opportunity to fix it on the spot or provide compensation, rather than customers leaving unnecessarily disappointed and writing negative reviews.
In 2010, British historian Orlando Figes posted reviews on Amazon praising his own work and criticizing that of his rivals.
In August 2012, The New York Times revealed that John Locke had paid an online service to write reviews of his books, in order to artificially boost sales.