5 ms·

Part of the point of the review model of Yelp (and Amazon, for that matter) is that you don't have to trust a review. You only have to trust the consensus of al

by sedev 15y ago

Part of the point of the review model of Yelp (and Amazon, for that matter) is that you don't have to trust a review. You only have to trust the consensus of all of the reviewers - which, at best, is very, very hard to spoof. When I see a place on yelp with a 4-star average on 1000 reviews, I feel very confident about going there. It's hard to get to that critical mass, but far from impossible - and you don't need someone's "real name." This is actually somewhere where Yelp is doing well, too - they give people a _persistent_ identity. You should trust reviews from someone who's written 100 reviews more than a review from someone who signed up just to review a single place - and Yelp makes that judgment easy by putting the information right in front of you. Blizzard and other strategies have demonstrated that real names aren't necessary for a good community - just persistent names. Also, I have to laugh that the UrbanTag folks approvingly cite the complaint that existing reviews sites are "giving customers “the upper hand” in determining an establishment’s reputation." Well, yes, they are. That's the point. That power has always rested in customers' hands, because that's what reputation is: what other people think of you. You can work on your reputation and "manage" it and "optimize" it, but if it's not what other people think, it's not reputation. Business owners neither need nor deserve control over other people's opinions - look at those asshole doctors that were linked here a while back, forcing customers to sign agreements that amounted to "we can sue you for posting a negative review of us on Yelp." As for unreasonable customers: that's nearly as overblown as the threat of piracy, and if your business can't deal with unreasonable customers gracefully (not the same as caving and giving them what they ask for), you deserve to go out of business.

IgorPartola 15y ago
Dealing with ungraceful customers is #1 thing I look for in a business. I am not usually ungraceful. I always try to be polite and friendly with any customer service rep, etc. However, I think it says a lot about a company. For example, a budget hosting provider that I used for a while would go off on any customer who posted a negative review of them in the comments section of a blog I frequent (LowEndBox). They turned out to be a terrible provider and even being a reasonable customer, I could not get anything from their customer support. This is the same principle that can be used at job interviews. Take the interviewee out to lunch and see how they treat the wait staff. Quick way to separate assholes from people that will gel well with your team.
- lsc 15y ago
  I know this is how most people feel, and I do try to pretend to be a sane, rational person who doesn't get angry when dealing with customers, and I think that helps me a lot. Flying off the handle at a customer almost never makes business sense. But I don't think it's such a good overall heuristic for picking service providers. Personally, I'd rather deal with an employee who was good technically and bad socially than deal with someone who is the other way around. (I mean, if I could get both at a price I could afford, that'd be perfect. but that's not usually how my world works.) If the food is good and the service is fast, sure, it'd be nice if the waiter was also friendly, but if I had to sacrifice something; price, speed of service, quality of food, or politeness of service, I'm going to pick the rude fast waiter and the good cook every time.
r00fus 15y ago
In large numbers, yes, it's hard to spoof a good/bad rating. But the mode/median of review numbers is likely to be easily game-able (like 20 reviews, for example). Furthermore, if your property gets too many bad reviews you can either rebrand (expensive) or just create a new property description (this is what happened when my sister found a screw in her food - the restaurant retaliated to her Yelp negative review by just creating a cloned restaurant listing then spamming that listing with positive reviews).
- sedev 15y ago
  That tactic, "reputation bankruptcy," is far more effective for individual persons than for a business, and in this specific case, it's pretty easy to programmatically detect. So I don't think much of that scenario. However, yes, it's easier to game the numbers when the volume of reviews is low. That's an ongoing problem - for everyone.

by sedev 15y ago

IgorPartola 15y ago

Dealing with ungraceful customers is #1 thing I look for in a business. I am not usually ungraceful. I always try to be polite and friendly with any customer service rep, etc. However, I think it says a lot about a company. For example, a budget hosting provider that I used for a while would go off on any customer who posted a negative review of them in the comments section of a blog I frequent (LowEndBox). They turned out to be a terrible provider and even being a reasonable customer, I could not get anything from their customer support. This is the same principle that can be used at job interviews. Take the interviewee out to lunch and see how they treat the wait staff. Quick way to separate assholes from people that will gel well with your team.

lsc 15y ago
I know this is how most people feel, and I do try to pretend to be a sane, rational person who doesn't get angry when dealing with customers, and I think that helps me a lot. Flying off the handle at a customer almost never makes business sense. But I don't think it's such a good overall heuristic for picking service providers. Personally, I'd rather deal with an employee who was good technically and bad socially than deal with someone who is the other way around. (I mean, if I could get both at a price I could afford, that'd be perfect. but that's not usually how my world works.) If the food is good and the service is fast, sure, it'd be nice if the waiter was also friendly, but if I had to sacrifice something; price, speed of service, quality of food, or politeness of service, I'm going to pick the rude fast waiter and the good cook every time.

r00fus 15y ago

In large numbers, yes, it's hard to spoof a good/bad rating. But the mode/median of review numbers is likely to be easily game-able (like 20 reviews, for example). Furthermore, if your property gets too many bad reviews you can either rebrand (expensive) or just create a new property description (this is what happened when my sister found a screw in her food - the restaurant retaliated to her Yelp negative review by just creating a cloned restaurant listing then spamming that listing with positive reviews).

sedev 15y ago
That tactic, "reputation bankruptcy," is far more effective for individual persons than for a business, and in this specific case, it's pretty easy to programmatically detect. So I don't think much of that scenario. However, yes, it's easier to game the numbers when the volume of reviews is low. That's an ongoing problem - for everyone.