This post was inspired by the recent NY Times article, A Customer Who’s Always Satisfied (4/23/11). The article details the inexplicable online commenting behavior of one Lucas Fayne, a fictitious consumer that – as it turns out – has “posted” positive reviews about the contractors who have worked on his 50+ homes. That’s right 50! Aside from “zinging” a few sites that knowingly displayed Mr. Faynes’ comments to boost their rep, I understood this article to be more of a commentary on how consumer reviews cannot always be trusted. But before moving on with this topic, allow me to say that legitimate consumer reviews are extremely valuable and they will continue to be a major influencer of online shopper behavior.
In STELLA’s world, we differentiate ourselves from the consumer review model by evaluating websites first-hand. That is, we have a team of trained analysts that assess the service quality of each site in the same way (obviously sites in different customer verticals are evaluated slightly differently, e.g. flower vs. clothing sites). We’ve discovered that this independent and random service assessment not only reaches an accurate conclusion about a site’s service quality, but it also provides an apples to apples comparison of related sites.
What’s your take on online consumer reviews?
