Everyone Cannot Be Worth 4.5 Stars: Time For A Reboot Of Online Ratings

Written by Mike Shapiro | | June 20, 2019

I guess it started out as a good idea: Let customers go onto Google or Yelp and rate their experiences with restaurants, hotels, events, etc. Presumably, this gives valuable info to shoppers about what they can expect and provides useful feedback to businesses about how their offerings are being perceived by real paying customers and where they can improve.

And it probably worked for awhile, but it doesn’t work anymore.

There are a number of reasons, including:

  • “Grade inflation” This most benign of the causes is based on the same principle as the one affecting college grades. The longer the rating system stays in place, the higher the grades actually given.
  • They’re anonymous. The rationale was that people will be more candid if they don’t have to talk directly to the person or business they’re reviewing. But what happened to the concept of “If you’ve got something to say, tell it to my face”? It turns out that anonymity doesn’t really encourage candor.
  • Vendor incentives One coffee shop I went to had a sign posted that read: “Free small coffee if you post a 5-star review.”
  • Threatening behavior by vendors. After getting my car serviced, I received a personal letter from the service manager of the dealership that read like this: “In the next few days you will be receiving a satisfaction survey from (the carmaker). If for any reason you cannot give us a 5-star rating, please call me directly and immediately and be prepared to tell me exactly why you cannot do so. Thanking you in advance.”

What about the verbatim comments that usually accompany the ratings? Once in a while someone will get specific — the fish was too fishy, the fries were too greasy, the service was slow, the A/C wasn’t working well — but usually the remarks are too general to be of any value. (If you redacted the words “amazing” and “awesome” from these reviews, many of them would be unintelligible.)

What’s the alternative?

  • Get rid of the numeric rating system completely. With everyone getting high marks, they don’t provide any basis for meaningful differentiation.
  • Forget the verbatim comments. Again, not much help.
  • Ask two questions, each requiring a yes or no answer:
    • Would you like to go back?
    • Would you recommend to a friend you see often?

That’s it.