Customer ratings under review
This issue Ken Rigsby is leaving zero stars for…
Unusually, this issue’s column will begin with a reader review. By which I mean I’m going to review a reader. My take is that this particular person is a loyal Computeractive fan who is both fit for purpose and as described. If you need a smart, reliable reader, I can absolutely recommend this one, and I hereby award him five stars. And that’s out of five, just in case there should be any doubt.
Right, now that little chore is out of the way I can crack on with the usual business. And the first point of order is to thank Dr Colin R Lloyd, my newly anointed five-star reader, whose recent letter to the editor prompted this issue’s column. What did he say? Well, bear with me for just a moment.
It seems for almost everything I buy online these days, be it a roll of brown packing tape from Amazon or a bag of screws from ebay, there follows an invitation to “share my experience” with other would-be purchasers. Sometimes it’s an email that arrives right away, other times it takes a week. Sometimes the process is as quick and simple as clicking the relevant star rating. But occasionally I’m whisked away to an online form that asks me to type a review. I usually oblige: “Good, sticky tape. Nice shade of brown!” or “Well, my shelf hasn’t fallen down yet!”.
Sometimes, of course, the review request is not an email: my phone will ping and there’s a text from a company, asking me to reply with a score or a superlative to indicate my level of approval.
All too often I find myself responding promptly to these endorsement requests. But for fear of what exactly? Not being heard? Missing the opportunity to tell others that, yes, this is an okay product? Because you can be damn sure that if I don’t like a product then I’ll spend much more time on my online review, allowing the bile to flow from thoughts to fingers to fellow shoppers. So really, why bother asking me at all? If I’ve bought something and haven’t complained, the company concerned should consider that as my endorsement.
And really, that was the bit about Dr Lloyd’s recent message to the editor that really resonated with me. He wrote to say that he’s tired of stating the obvious: that if he hasn’t complained then obviously he likes or is at least satisfied with a product. So why do companies keep asking?
Dr Lloyd highlighted something that has become so normalised that I’d actually forgotten how often I do it. Something so common yet innocuous that I, like millions of others, accept it as an everyday chore. You know, like filling up the car or hanging out the laundry. However, should I stop to think about those little jobs then each and every one of them has the ability to annoy me, just like the endless requests from online shops for my endorsements.
The difference is that unless I want Mrs Rigsby to initiate a divorce, I hang out the laundry at least once a month, and unless I want my car to stop going forward then I have regularly to fill up the tank. But submitting reviews for products I’ve bought online? That shouldn’t be one of my chores. And yet somehow, without even realising it, that’s exactly what it has become. So, full marks to Dr Lloyd – and zero stars to all those firms that bombard me with requests for reviews!
If I’ve bought something and haven’t complained, the company should consider that as my endorsement