Cornies: Buyer beware, especially of online consumer ratings and reviews

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We’d been married only two years when my spouse and I moved into a rented duplex that had a laundry room.

Tired of making weekly trips to a laundromat, we decided to fill that void with our first appliance purchases: a Maytag washer and dryer in an elegant harvest gold. (Hey, it was the 1970s – that colour was cool.)

There were at least four appliance retailers in our town (no big box stores in those days), but we chose one owned by Don Gillan. He’d been in business for 20 years and had a reputation for competitive prices and good customer service.

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We quickly put the latter to the test. During its first cycle, the dryer ran so hot that it singed some of our clothes. We called Don. He was at our door the next day with a new dryer and apologies. The second dryer worked fine.

The arrival of the internet two decades later changed the way consumers chose vendors of everything from cars to toothbrushes. Online reviews, often by anonymous posters, were given credence, whether or not they were authentic. Poor products could be boosted by positive reviews; longstanding reputations could be torpedoed by negative ones. Purchasing decisions based solely on online comments became a bit of a mug’s game.

Nevertheless, research in the United States shows many consumers still rely to some extent on those appraisals. More than nine out of 10 shoppers seek out reviews on social media, especially for major purchases. Nearly as influential is whether a business responds to posted reviews. And four out of 10 consumers will check reviews on three or more sites.

I tend to be skeptical of online reviews and generally decline to provide them. A couple of years ago, I had a loyalty card affiliated with a national big-box store. Using the card meant that, periodically, I’d get requests for reviews of the products I’d purchased. I did so – until I noticed that the products they identified weren’t products I’d purchased.

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It took three tries, over a couple of months, to get the corporate office to understand that I wasn’t buying what they thought I was buying. Gremlins in their customer database, I suspect, but I might have had a lot of fun writing those reviews.

More troublesome was a recent admission by a businessperson that, to boost the profile and reputation of a new product he’d brought to market, he’d purchased hundreds of positive reviews from an online dealer for a sum of only a few thousand dollars. Part of the cost of doing business, he figured.

While that kind of unethical activity is prohibited by most social media platforms and other ratings sites, it’s clearly a thriving business in some dimly lit corners of the web.

Nearly as irritating are the consumer surveys some companies use to measure attitudes toward their businesses and employees.

I’ve long dealt with an auto dealership that suggests how customers might rate each service call.

“You may get a survey from our head office. Anything less than a nine or 10 out of 10 is a fail for us,” the service adviser will often say. If the customer is inclined to rate the visit lower, they’re asked to contact the dealership’s management.

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That kind of unwelcome coaching occurs at other businesses as well, especially where employees’ compensation or performance metrics are at stake. Once, I’ve even had an employee offer to fill out my online survey on my behalf. Ballsy.

The world of online comments, ratings, surveys and feedback is a murky one. Shoppers should be as skeptical about those comments and ratings as they are curious about product quality.

Those harvest gold Maytags endured six moves and lasted 24 years before spinning their final cycles. As for Don Gillan, he retired in 2013 and died a few months later at age 86. Today, his son Rick runs the business.

Rick Gillan’s approach is pretty much the same as his dad’s. The business has a storefront, but no website. It does little advertising, though it has a page on a social media site. (Gillan wasn’t sure what’s on it. “Somebody else does that.”)

He says he competes against the big box stores on the strength of his reputation and the trust of his clientele, new and old. Delivery is free. Hookups are free. Removal of old appliances is free.

“Just last week, a lady called and said her fridge stopped working. She asked me to bring her another one. She knew I’d know what she needed,” Gillan said.

In a world of opaque consumer ratings and reviews, trust and reputation remain the qualities that will outlast digital gimmickry.

Larry Cornies is a London-based journalist.
cornies@gmail.com

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