The power of online recommendations and reviews
Who influences my buying decisions? I know who doesn’t: the product manufacturers.
When I’m in purchase mode, I look to people who know. And who are unbiased. People I trust (or software I trust, but I’ll get to that later).
This isn’t new of course. Word of mouth has been a key influencer for a long time. But the internet has made connections with experts and filtering of the expert views much faster and easier.
Phone (or tweet) a friend
Anyone been to Sicily and know of nice hotels? What’s a good, cheap external hard drive? Anyone flown Qantas – and what’s their leg room like? These questions are just some of the ones which have come through on my Twitter and Facebook feeds in the past few months. Each of them has received answers from friends or contacts who have experienced the scenario first hand. People they trust. Would you get that from the Sicily Tourist Board, Western Digital or Qantas?
We’re currently trying to convince one of our clients – who has an excellent product – to engage through Twitter. The reviews of their product on Twitter are almost entirely positive (or as Dave Evans might put it, they have talk-worthy experiences). These micro-conversations are in themselves influential. Imagine if they were aggregated for a larger, non-Twitter literate audience to see?
The pros and semi-pros
Another scenario: my wife and I were looking at upgrading our digital camera. We wanted a ‘proper’ camera – but between us knew very little about the brands, products or even what to look for in a new camera.
What we did know was:
1. We had about £250-£300 to spend
2. We needed a new camera urgently as we had a wedding to attend the following weekend.
So we had a price-point and a need to get to the purchase decision quickly. Where to look? I wasn’t sure I had a friend who knew enough to comment. Instead, we took a trial subscription with Which? and looked at the reviews on their website. Very quickly, we’d shortlisted, then narrowed down to the camera we wanted.
So despite the growing influence of peer recommendations, the professional reviewer still matters. Whether they are paid, traditional newspaper reviewers or hybrid ‘expert-amateurs’ (like Amazon’s top reviewers) it doesn’t matter. So long as you rate their publication (I wouldn’t trust the music reviews in the Sun) or you agree with what else they’ve written, then there’s a level of trust to build on.
Rise of the robots
People are fine. But sometimes they’re busy. And this is when you need software. Of course, our every day internet usage is underpinned by recommendation software. Google throws us recommended results based on our keywords. Last.fm and iTunes Genius both serve up (sometimes helpful) suggestions based on musical preference, as does Amazon based on your purchases. But services like these couldn’t have really helped with our camera decision. They are content-agnostic. They may, with their clever algorithms, aggregate the wisdom of their users but they don’t know me and my situation well enough. Until software can understand the nuances of my needs, it’s no match for a good friend who knows stuff.
Tags: itunes, Music, recommendations, reviews, shopping
By Dom Waghorn, Head of User Engagement at 
July 13th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
[...] It makes it easier for the customer to get advice and recommendations: I’m interested in your product but need to get a second opinion. Can I do it within your site [...]