Are online reviews useful, editorial content for consumers or just another place for anonymous rants and subjective opinions?
Subjectivity refers to how someone’s judgement is shaped by personal feelings and opinions instead of the outside merits of what’s being judged.
For many businesses being reviewed online, the subjective nature of the comments makes forming a general opinion difficult. Most businesses that have a significant number of reviews (more than 50), have positive and negative comments that – when taken as a whole – seem to cancel each other out.
Take Yelp!, for example. This platform started out as reviews for restaurants. But if you check the reviews for any established restaurant, what you’ll see is such a range of opinions that you can’t get a sense of what the restaurant would be like.
When you read the comments, it’s becomes clear that the subjective experience of the reviewer impacted the tone of the review. Some reviews are so glowing they’re unreal. Others are so nit-picky that it’s obvious the person was bent on complaining.
Making it even harder to glean truth, it seems that all reviews are either 5 stars wonders or 1 star haters. Either people never have moderate experiences with businesses anymore, or (more likely) those who do are not the type who write online reviews.
For some services, such as a restaurant, it’s questionable as to whether or not you can form an opinion about what your experience would be like based on online reviews. Taste in food and one night’s service forms a subjective opinion.
For something like professional services, you might get a better feel, but you always have to remember that each review is the subjective comments of someone sitting alone at their computer. Alone with our thoughts, we tend to express things in a way we wouldn’t if speaking to someone face to face.
In fact, most negative online reviews are something you couldn’t imagine someone telling a business owner to their face. The computer screen creates a barrier that changes the tone of communication.
Throw in outright fake reviews (both positive and negative) and it really gets uncertain.
Online reviews are useful – when taken with a grain of salt. In many cases, forming opinions on the basis of online reviews alone is hasty. Investigate other resources and form your own opinions. Speak to the business directly. Don’t miss a restaurant you’d love because someone you never met didn’t like the way the waiter looked at them.
To get the most out of online reviews:
Be sure to check multiple sources (Yelp, Angie’s List, BBB, Top Rated Local). Be skeptical of sites that only list negative reviews.
Look for trends. If one type of complaint or compliment appears repeatedly, it has more merit. If you check multiple sources and see repeated low/high reviews, that’s a stronger signal. If there is a mix of ratings, it indicates the experience with the service is more subjective.
Be wary of extremes. Eerily glowing reviews that resulted in sudden perfection or hysterics that ruined someone’s life should be regarded as highly subjective or may be a fake review.
Look for specifics. When someone comments about a specific service or benefit, it’s likely their review was given more consideration.
We all need to keep this mental disclaimer in mind when we read online reviews:
These are the personal, subjective opinions of lay people who had an individual experience with this business or product. While this gives me a sense of the service, it doesn’t say everything about the business or ensure what my experience would be like.
Bottom line, exercise common-sense, which certainly rules-out believing everything you hear online, no matter how good or bad.