From the dawn of humanity, since when mankind has learned the art of communication, they probably counted on fellow comrade's opinion and recommendation while making some choices. The same heritage is carried over throughout the generations. Even though the mode and the means have modernized, the basic idea remains the same.
To keep the tradition up, in recent times of the digital age, we count a lot on online reviews. Be it a local business or a tourist attraction, or any kind of products/gadgets, the second opinion always matters to us. Yes, we all look in some sort of reviews (as a part of research) while making a choice about a restaurant or buying any new electronic gadgets. So definitely positive reviews are something that validates the success of a business. The business leaders or analysts can explain them better, but you really don't have to be a rocket scientist to grasp the basic idea. There are a lot of articles and business reports available (without much technical jargon) where the basic concepts say that online reviews more or less impact the success of any product.
But have you ever felt tired? Let's face it. These days the review things are getting a bit cliched. Even though I am an avid Goggle reviewer and tremendously rely on reviews almost every time I make a choice, nowadays, I feel that the concept is a little overrated. I will tell you, why do I think so. Here let me discuss piecewise:
1. Reviewing (without detailed descriptions) is ambiguous. I often rate as 4 stars (out of 5) to any restaurants, even if they have offered the service pretty well. Because sometimes, I am ambiguous. And sometimes, I just felt that I am missing the 'wow' factor. But honestly, these feelings are very much temporal. Depending on my personal mood and emotions, I often mess up with this.
2. To tackle this, the written/ detailed descriptions of the reviews are made available. Those are usually much reliable to comprehend the exact experience. People read them a lot before making any choice. Business management also considers them very seriously. Nowadays, a lot of social media analysts or data scientists (in big enterprises) are being appointed for sentiment analysis of any product. However, here also the same problem can persist. Some reviewers are sometimes too harsh over some minute issues, and some people are too lenient most of the time. So, there has always been a scope of ambiguity left.
3. Like all natural physical phenomena, you can find the review stars follow certain distributions. As there is a different kind of people exist with different mental rating scales (e.g., somebody is very liberal about giving away the points, and some persons are very stringent.) So, technically you go with the central tendency. However, the mean rating goes up with more people giving 5 stars. There comes a trick, you don't know how many evaluations have been manipulated by the business owner! So, I doubt if all these stars are always reliable or not (considering the possibilities of Fake reviews).
4. Now, forget all these real-world ambiguities or manipulations. Even if I consider the world to be too ideal, still there is a problem. Each people is socioeconomically different. So, their choices, mindsets, and expectations from lives are also different; So, clearly, if A is the best option for person 1, that might not be the case for me. So while buying a headphone, you may like a specific product based on your choice of 'Return on investment' ratio. However, I being a completely different person and belonging to a different socioeconomic sect, that might not apply to me. However, there is a possible chance that reading that review might not be useful for me (rather can misguide).
5. Ethnicity and cultural differences play a significant role. People from different technical original mostly have different tastes and views about life. While picking a restaurant (of any cuisine, unknown to me), can be really misleading if one relies on random reviews. The tastebuds usually won't match for people coming from two different cultures and ethnicities.
6. There are some reviewers, too biased for any particular brand (for example, Apple). These people are too emotionally connected with that specific brand. So, evidently, their reviews are not much impartial.
So, even though we rely a lot on the reviews, this is a high time when we need to reconsider. Let us spend much time on more specific research of our own, instead of counting much on other peoples' opinions.
6. There are some reviewers, too biased for any particular brand (for example, Apple). These people are too emotionally connected with that specific brand. So, evidently, their reviews are not much impartial.
So, even though we rely a lot on the reviews, this is a high time when we need to reconsider. Let us spend much time on more specific research of our own, instead of counting much on other peoples' opinions.
However, It's not only me, but a lot of people are also already talking about this. If you have time, there are some quickies for you:
No comments:
Post a Comment