4 ms·
I am surprised a yelp/google alternative has not been created with a feature to establish provenance of a review. Perhaps something like a receipt which contain
by xyst 3y ago
I am surprised a yelp/google alternative has not been created with a feature to establish provenance of a review. Perhaps something like a receipt which contains a unique link and that person can provide a review through the link.
The review will be posted as "verified transaction" on the site and overall score of the restaurant is determined from there. "Anonymous" reviews can still be posted but won't be factored into the overall score and will be deprioritized by the system/algorithm.
Of course this does not necessarily stop businesses from pumping out fake transaction tickets and offering users to write fake reviews. But at least a paper trail would be established; and if a historically 1-2 star business with verified transactions and 1-2 reviews per day suddenly sees a spike to 4-5 stars with 10+ reviews per day over the same period. Then it can be flagged as suspicious and team can review the paper trail.
- janalsncm 3y agoAdditionally, once you start creating a paper trail it starts to look more and more like a concerted criminal fraud operation. Yours is a good idea.
- sensanaty 3y agoI actually worked for a startup that did this, albeit it wasn't public-facing, rather we'd incentivize people to leave reviews in exchange for a coupon code or whatever Turns out a lot of restaurant owners would prefer to straight up own the reviews/influence it themselves rather than get legitimate, anonymized ones. There's just not that much of a reason to genuinely improve as a service when there's so much cutthroat competition
- KerryJones 3y agoWhat if you didn't have a transaction, such as going into a restaurant and getting awful service? I imagine this is trickier than it seems initially a lot like content moderation, seems so obvious until you realize how you are walking a fine line.
- makeitdouble 3y agoI'm curious how you finance the operation. You need restaurant's and the reviewer's cooperation, and it seems your proposition would to have the restaurant foot the bill. Which means, they pay to you give more control over their reviews and ultimately their business to random customers. The user spend more time and effort to leave a reviews, and while they might see some side benefit in improving your service, they now have to trust you won't screw them and sell them to the restaurant. Do you see a third party willing to pay enough to keep you alive, outside of spam and ads ?
- broshi 3y agoIt'll be difficult to do this as a platform. Retailers do this on their own stores via "mystery shoppers" The retailer pays a firm to go in shop at the stores and they write a detailed report of customer service, how clean the store was etc.