Too Many Reviews
January 2022
One of the obvious benefits of our digital age is the improved communication; nobody can regret having online chats with grandchildren who live far away, or being able to briskly resolve complex issues by email that would once have taken weeks of letters.
But like many blessings, it comes with a curse. Spam, fraudulent emails and more are the price we pay for the ability to correspond instantaneously and at almost no cost.
It has also promoted an industry that is getting out of hand: the online customer satisfaction survey. I now seem unable to engage with a company in any way, or even go to the theatre, without later receiving a ‘How did we do?’ email accompanied by a survey, usually asking me to describe and score many aspects of my experience then adding some impertinent questions about my circumstances.
This reached a zenith the other day when I bought some shoelaces online; they duly arrived by post in a padded envelope; all good so far. Then the onslaught began; I was asked, by email, a series of multiple choice questions on various intangible aspects of the transaction. This included my degree of ‘delight’ with both the shoelaces themselves and the postman’s demeanour; mysteriously, I was asked how the shoelaces made me ‘feel’. They asked me to comment on the packaging and my experience of using their website; then they wanted to know my age, marital status, what newspapers I read and more.
There were also several empty boxes for me to add my own thoughts on this momentous transaction. Remember, this was all for a pair of shoelaces.
I blame eBay. From the start, over 20 years ago, they have operated a ‘feedback’ system, which allows each side of a sale to comment on the other. This was a very good idea, and allows bad apples to be quickly removed from the barrel. And it’s a streamlined process: you simply report positive, neutral or negative - and add a very few words if you want.
This, I suppose, encouraged Google to start something similar; they decided that if a business has good reviews from its customers, they would place it higher in their listings. Google trusts a business’s customers more than it trusts the business, I suppose.
Encouraging and gathering these reviews has now blossomed into a major industry, with many firms offering the service. Trustpilot is one; I’m sure that you’ve received emails from it asking you to rate something or someone. Trustpilot charges companies to collect, store and display these reviews and does very well out of it – revenues were over $100m in 2020.
It’s obviously no bad thing for a business to take soundings from its customers, and act on them; I can also see why the service industry especially – restaurants, hotels and so on – would like potential customers to see how past customers feel.
However, I really don’t see how it helps anyone to know how excited, thrilled or enthused I was to receive my shoelaces, even if I was, or how trustworthy, sincere or obliging I found the vendor. My involvement with them was fleeting, at best. It’s all too much.
I suggest that we all start insisting that our pinnacle of approval is ‘acceptable’. I experienced no emotion as part of my shoelace purchase; they arrived as ordered and are now on my shoes, which is pretty much all I can say. The whole process was, in other words, ‘acceptable’, which in my book is high enough praise.
In fact, if order forms had a box I could tick that said ‘you can take it that if you don’t hear otherwise from me, your performance has been acceptable - no survey, please’ I’d tick it every time.
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Trustpilot is very keen to show you that they care, and their blog has some sound advice on avoiding scams. They even offer advice on how to write the reviews.
Moneysavingexpert .com – how to avoid scams
This guide explains what to look out for, how to protect yourself, and what to do if you're a victim of a scam.
