Word of mouth has always been a brilliant way to find out about new businesses and opportunities for you and since the dawn of the internet this has changed from word of mouth to online reviews. If you look at sites like Topconsumerreviews you can see some excellent feedback which people have given around certain businesses and on the face of it we can see that reviews are a great idea and handy way to find out whether or not a business is worth going to or trying out.
There is however an issue with online reviews which many may overlook and that is how easy it is to leave a review, something which many businesses may try yo manipulate in order to make their business look better than it really is. There are however some ways to cut through the junk and get to the truth, and here is how to go about it.
Volume
The first thing to look for is how many reviews have been left, if there are thousands of reviews then you can simply browse a handful and get a good idea what the truth is, after all there are no businesses out there with thousands of accounts which are leading reviews. If there are juts a handful then this perhaps won’t give you a good reading, so you should also check on social media to see what people are saying.
Responses
I’ve always found that if you see a business responding to the reviews that are being left then this is also a very encouraging sign. In fact I have even used some businesses who have a couple of bad reviews, scathing in fact, and I have done that because on each of them they have admitted guilt and offered to compensate the customer, or they have defended themselves. I always think that if they are able to take the time to respond then they clearly care about reviews and are working hard to maintain a positive score, therefore I find them to be more trustworthy.
Random Positivity
I always think that a telltale sign of reviews which probably aren’t trustworthy is when they go completely against what everyone else is saying. I appreciate that everyone has different tastes and expectations but they do not vary so much so that a restaurant with terrible reviews will suddenly get a 5/5. The same of course can happen in reverse, because for the most part a bad experience can occur at a great restaurant, and is far more probable than a miraculously positive experience at a terrible restaurant. If you see reviews like this which really go against the grain then it is likely that the business have been trying to do some damage limitation and bring their average review up. If you see this, my advice would be to avoid it.
It is never easy of course and there is no surefire way to completely avoid problems, using these tips however may help you to reduce your chances of going to a bad business.
