Comments on: The lies behind online ratings and reviews http://www.freshnetworks.com/blog/2009/03/the-lies-behind-online-ratings-and-reviews/ Social media agency, online communities, marketing Sun, 12 Feb 2012 15:39:32 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 By: Social Media and the insurance industry | FreshNetworks Blog|Social media agency|Online communities http://www.freshnetworks.com/blog/2009/03/the-lies-behind-online-ratings-and-reviews/comment-page-1/#comment-7152 Social Media and the insurance industry | FreshNetworks Blog|Social media agency|Online communities Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:30:22 +0000 http://www.freshnetworks.com/blog/?p=520#comment-7152 [...] payment. As a result, it’s well suited to storytelling and sharing of experiences. Hence ratings and reviews have the potential to be an especially powerful tool for the insurance [...] [...] payment. As a result, it’s well suited to storytelling and sharing of experiences. Hence ratings and reviews have the potential to be an especially powerful tool for the insurance [...]

]]> By: Online ratings and reviews are the new advertising | FreshNetworks Blog http://www.freshnetworks.com/blog/2009/03/the-lies-behind-online-ratings-and-reviews/comment-page-1/#comment-4958 Online ratings and reviews are the new advertising | FreshNetworks Blog Mon, 07 Sep 2009 11:13:13 +0000 http://www.freshnetworks.com/blog/?p=520#comment-4958 [...] Another reason not to worry about bad reviews is that most people are generous reviewers.  See this previous post for more on Why Reviews Lie. [...] [...] Another reason not to worry about bad reviews is that most people are generous reviewers.  See this previous post for more on Why Reviews Lie. [...]

]]> By: Charlie Osmond http://www.freshnetworks.com/blog/2009/03/the-lies-behind-online-ratings-and-reviews/comment-page-1/#comment-4119 Charlie Osmond Sun, 31 May 2009 22:21:39 +0000 http://www.freshnetworks.com/blog/?p=520#comment-4119 Thanks Joshua, Tim and Bill, Some useful comments. I suspect there is no perfect solution. People just need to keep their wits about them. Charlie Thanks Joshua, Tim and Bill,
Some useful comments. I suspect there is no perfect solution. People just need to keep their wits about them.
Charlie

]]> By: Bill Cawley http://www.freshnetworks.com/blog/2009/03/the-lies-behind-online-ratings-and-reviews/comment-page-1/#comment-4118 Bill Cawley Sun, 31 May 2009 21:48:15 +0000 http://www.freshnetworks.com/blog/?p=520#comment-4118 I founded Feefo on a simple premise: that the method of feedback pioneered by eBay was, and is, by far the best way to judge the value of service and product offered by a supplier. At Feefo, we've expanded that principle to cover any web trader who is prepared to see every customer make uneditable comment on a public independent website. We've also avoided the 'star' rating system for exactly the reasons you've given, and preferred simply to show the percent positive comment, and the number of comments. This isn't perfect - the sample is self-selecting; but then every sample is self-selecting insofar as there will always be people who refuse to give time for feedback. We make it very quick, with the result that we have achieved up to 30% response rate (from the entire customer base). It's up to those reading the reviews to decide if they mean anything. You can see ALL our reviews on our site. I founded Feefo on a simple premise: that the method of feedback pioneered by eBay was, and is, by far the best way to judge the value of service and product offered by a supplier.

At Feefo, we’ve expanded that principle to cover any web trader who is prepared to see every customer make uneditable comment on a public independent website. We’ve also avoided the ‘star’ rating system for exactly the reasons you’ve given, and preferred simply to show the percent positive comment, and the number of comments.

This isn’t perfect – the sample is self-selecting; but then every sample is self-selecting insofar as there will always be people who refuse to give time for feedback. We make it very quick, with the result that we have achieved up to 30% response rate (from the entire customer base).

It’s up to those reading the reviews to decide if they mean anything. You can see ALL our reviews on our site.

]]> By: Tim Uden http://www.freshnetworks.com/blog/2009/03/the-lies-behind-online-ratings-and-reviews/comment-page-1/#comment-3839 Tim Uden Tue, 05 May 2009 01:31:05 +0000 http://www.freshnetworks.com/blog/?p=520#comment-3839 There are some good points here, although I would say that most professional reviewers (particularly those that were reviewing before the internet came along) follow a fairly objective set of standards. We publish reviews of backpackers hostels and youth hostels. We have our own staff who visit and rate the hostels and after rating over 1500 hostels we still haven't given a five star rating. However we also have user reviews and these tend to be skewed higher than our own ratings and I blame the lack of a zero star rating for this. It is a limitation of our software that I have asked the developers to change, but I doubt it is a big priority for them. A while ago I contemplated changing from a five star rating system to a percentage-based system but having looked into it, I found that percentage-based systems are skewed toward high ratings much more so than star-based rating systems. I explain why in the following blog post: http://www.bug.co.uk/blog/2009/02/19/why-star-ratings-are-more-accurate-than-percentage-ratings/ There are some good points here, although I would say that most professional reviewers (particularly those that were reviewing before the internet came along) follow a fairly objective set of standards.

We publish reviews of backpackers hostels and youth hostels.

We have our own staff who visit and rate the hostels and after rating over 1500 hostels we still haven’t given a five star rating.

However we also have user reviews and these tend to be skewed higher than our own ratings and I blame the lack of a zero star rating for this. It is a limitation of our software that I have asked the developers to change, but I doubt it is a big priority for them.

A while ago I contemplated changing from a five star rating system to a percentage-based system but having looked into it, I found that percentage-based systems are skewed toward high ratings much more so than star-based rating systems. I explain why in the following blog post: http://www.bug.co.uk/blog/2009/02/19/why-star-ratings-are-more-accurate-than-percentage-ratings/

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