I don’t always use the word “bogus,” but when I do, I’m talking about online review sites.
Let me give you 4 quick reasons why:
1. They fail at sampling. Most online review sites have no ability to collect a statistically useful number of customer reviews. They assign ratings based on a handful of volunteer spokespeople, some of whom are fictional.
2. They are plain-ol’ not accurate. See above. Accurate location ratings are a numbers game. A tiny, insignificant sample = a wildly inaccurate brand representation.
3. Their information is stale. Because online review sites struggle to collect reviews, they cling to the ones they have forever. A restaurant may have changed management and turned over its staff a dozen times since 2005, but online review sites still trot out that review as the sterling basis for their rating. Review sites that average reviews from 9 years ago with reviews from a month ago are not accurately representing the experience a guest can expect at a specific location.
4. They are plagued by fraud. Of the scarce few customer reviews these sites manage to collect, only some of them come from actual customers—we’ll never know how many.
There is a better way. Mindshare’s OpenTell answers each one of these problems by leveraging VoC data—you can learn about it here, on mshare.net.
