If you are buying products or looking for services and using the web to do it then it is important that you check out reviews to give you a brief run down of what you can expect. With this being said it is also important that you check genuine reviews because not everything that you read on the web is entirely accurate, in fact some of it is just not true at all. There are some great sites out there where you can find some high quality and genuine reviews such as Topconsumerreviews, and here is exactly why it is important to be careful when you are gaining feedback from others.
Paid Reviews
Sometimes you will find that there are reviews online which have been left by someone who has never seen or used the product or service that you are considering purchasing. This of course defeats the purpose of having reviews in the first place but it is done so that more consumers are likely to buy the product. When you are looking at a review like this it is often easy to recognize the fact that it has been written by someone who is unfamiliar with the product or service. This is down to the fact that you will see general phrases being used rather than specifics about how the product feels, looks and operates.
Pumping Up Rating
A good rule of thumb with regards to reviews is that you only really pay mind to those which are written in long form, very often those ‘quality product, 5 stars’ comments, are not to be trusted. Businesses know that their reputation is vitally important online and this is why they will look to have the most positive review possible. In order to achieve this they will often use methods to get that great review which are not exactly ethical. For example they may ask family and friends to leave positive reviews or even offer incentives to customers to give a positive score. Those which are long form and specific are the best ones to trust.
Factory For Reviews
Something else which we have seen happen is businesses outsourcing their reviews to what can only be described as factories. These places exist across Asia and they are essentially a service to improve a company’s online reputation through the writing of false reviews. These are often identifiable because they are never written in pure English, you can tell that they have been written by a foreign national because of the phraseology and words used.
The truth is that reviews are brilliant and incredibly insightful and helpful. This of course is only true when the review itself is a genuine one which has been written by someone who has actually used the product or the service that they are writing about. Always be sure to use quality review sites which promote genuine feedback and testimonials, anything else may not be of much use to you.
