Who'd have thought eh?
Some recent research by ORC (Opinion Research Corporation) a global market research company who's head office is in Princeton NJ, has found that customer purchasing habits are significantly affected by reviews given by others.
http://www.opinionresearch.com/fileSave/Online_Feedback_PR_Final_6202008.pdf
83% of those who looked for reviews and other feedback said these had at least some influence on their purchases. However, althought the majority said they used reviews, about a third claim to have posted their own feedback online. The most researched product / service area was Travel/Recreation/Leisure at 82% and the least was food at 24%.
Although there are a lot of places on the web to submit opinions & feedback, there are very few product owner sites that let you do this still. It seems that companies are very willing to get feedback on their products & services, but perhaps they just don't want it put on their own sites?
2 comments:
I think this is a shift to honesty in company communication and advertising. The open access to information made possible online allows people to see the crowds option as easily as the billboards. This allows the customer to compare the differences in products as well as the differences in ratings and reviews. And the companies have been embracing this information to stop competing with it in search. If I search for "dell laptop X vs dell laptop Y" or "is computer X right for me" it is better for dell to land on a review in their shop that a comparison site looking for commission or offering other brands. If the company gets it even more they see that the review then becomes their best advertising and a balance of good and bad reviews educates the customer and is more hard hitting than an advert. Openness is Truth is a Well informed and Happy customer. The companies just have to get over their fears and trust their products to be good.
I think that customer reviews are definately becomming a more important part of the buying decision. Recent reseach shows that customers trust others like themselves when looking to purchase, online peer reviews are a great way of providing this.
The issue comes when customers provide negative reviews and how companies deal with this. The better ones will listen, respond and try to improve the product (some may even ask those who comment to test the new version). The lesser companies will try to remove these comments or ignore them.
I'd also be interested to know if there is a difference (e.g. in positive/negative sentiment or depth of reply) between the sites that allow reviews of different company products (e.g. Amazon) and product sites that allow customers to comment.
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