Don’t believe everything
you read!
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As a society, we are increasingly encouraged to rate our everyday experiences. Everything from buying a rail ticket or eating a meal, to hotel stays and visits to attractions seem to warrant a questionnaire, survey or review.
Of course, reviews are highly subjective, but some of them are also extremely useful. Did you know that 90% of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business? Whilst 88% of consumers trust online reviews, as much as personal recommendations. But with online reviews capable of making or breaking a business, can you really trust everything they say.
It’s no surprise that some businesses, from time to time, feel the need to fake reviews. Whether that’s getting employees, or paying strangers, to write glowing reports or at the other end of the scale, sabotaging their competition with overly negative and false reviews. And let’s not get started on the business where all its reviews are posted on the same day! So, in our increasingly popular review culture world, how can you tell what’s real and what’s not?
Did you know that 90% of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business? Whilst 88% of consumers trust online reviews, as much as personal recommendations.
Useful tool
There’s no doubt that genuine reviews are incredibly useful. They can save you time, money and give you complete peace of mind that you are making an excellent choice. By helping you to compare a whole host of businesses, you can find quality, reliability, excellent service and enjoy a positive customer experience.
It’s not possible for every business to be excellent every hour of the day and every day of the week. Occasionally something happens and there’s a small window of time where all is not as it should be. That’s just life and when reading reviews, you should be mindful of this and perhaps balance out how many complimentary reviews there are, compared to how many bad ones.
Go independent
Our advice when dealing with reviews is to be careful, sensible and aim for those that are independent. For example, Google Reviews (of which Pixooma has 84) is completely independent. When a client project is finished, we ask all Pixooma customers to post an honest warts-n-all review, as we have no interest in shying away from any issues. And all reviews are responded to appropriately by us in a timely manner.
With Google Reviews every review must be posted using a separate Google account, this proves they are genuine and independent. OK, in theory, we could have asked friends and family to post reviews on our behalf, but every Pixooma review is from an actual customer or contact and we’d be happy to provide the details for any of them, so you can speak to them yourself.
Not everything should be reviewed
When discussing reviews with a colleague, our Creative Director, Mark picked up a few gems. She recalled a time she'd been to A&E at Northampton General Hospital and was frankly surprised when she walked back to the car park after her appointment to receive a text asking her to complete some questions about her experience. She also mentioned the incessant texts and email surveys from a garage following a service or MOT which were automatically sent the instant she paid the bill. And from Costa (yes, we will name and shame them) who felt the need to send a survey after she purchased a solitary coffee.
Having genuine, honest reviews can be very helpful, but not every interaction warrants a review or feedback surely?
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