Online reviews are under fire and have become untrustworthy to many people who are discovering the propensity of fraudulent ratings and reviews. Retailers, brands, and services companies have turned to this tactic, inflating their own online presence with internally written reviews and adding high ratings. While this may help push sales in the short term, the long term effect is the diminishing of the online review and rating system as a reliable evaluation tool, thus rendering their own reviews less influential. Half of people who read reviews now believe they have read fake reviews and that companies also remove negative comments.
Someone is finally fighting back, as Bazaarvoice has announced an evaluation tool that authenticates reviews and indicates review that are managed by third parties rather than brands or retailers. This company manages online product ratings and reviews for companies including Wal-Mart and Best Buy, with revenues around $175M and about 800 employees.
More than 80% of respondents of a survey said they would feel more trusting of reviews if technology filters screened for fraud. This technology clearly has demand, and consumers and many brands alike hope that it can permeate throughout the ecosystem of online reviews, affecting the way we are able to judge the quality of what we are reading.
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