SL needs to junk the review system. What do you think?

[Lacuna Arado]

I am rather cheesed at receiving yet another unjustified one-star review on one of my best products. In my case, the feedback was because the customer "bought the item for a large sim" and thought the item "looked bigger", even though the ACTUAL DIMENSIONS for the build were clearly indicated in the listing description. I know other merchants have had similar issues, and several others have reported receiving "bad" reviews for Marketplace non-delivery issues and other technical matters that are totally out of control of the merchant. I have flagged the review as inappropriate content, but this just underscores my perpetual gripe about the current state of the SL Marketplace review system, which I have enumerated below:

1. Customers can (and often do) leave unwarranted bad reviews for reasons that are not related to the quality of the product itself.

2. Reviews are one of the first things potential customers see when shopping. Review stars show up in the search listings, and original-posting review comments appear in the item listing itself.

3. The only immediate way for a merchant to defend an unjustly-reviewed item is to post a reply to the comment. However, these replies are buried in the interface and require additional clicks to view.

4. Unwarranted bad reviews damage the reputation and business of hard-working merchants because busy customers will often pass over an item as soon as they see a low number of stars rather than reading details. Thus, a customer's experience can (and often is) unfairly flavored by these unjustified "bad" reviews.

5. When an item receives a review, the review appears on the listing and in search immediately. However, the merchant does not receive a notification that a review has been posted. The only way a merchant knows that a review for one of their items has been posted is by periodically scanning their SL Marketplace listings.

My conclusion: the current state of the SL Marketplace reviews is counter-productive to an efficient customer and merchant experience. It adds computing overhead to the already busy Marketplace servers, as well as the labor and maintenance required by SL in order to police the flagged reviews. Moreover, If the purpose of reviews is to provide feedback to the merchant, but the merchant does not even recieve notification that feedback has occurred, how is this a productive thing? Thus, until something better can be put into place it would be in everyone's better interest if the SL Marketplace review system would just go away.

What are your thoughts?

[Echo Hermit]

Speaking as a customer, rather than as a seller, I do tend to read the reviews before I make a purchase, and in the case of the review on your listed building, I'd say the reviewer has made rather a chump of themselves.

If I was looking for a mortuary building, that particular review would not put me off.

But it's like the kudos system on these forums, and a lot of people have requested doing away with the system altogether.

And I agree with you that Marketplace reviews should also be binned.

 

 

[Lacuna Arado]

Echo, thanks for your reply and perspective. It's reassuring to know there are rational buyers out there who actually do read the listing description. I know there are always a few "bad apples" that spoil the bunch, and I'll admit to suffering from "sour grapes" syndrome in this case (I know, enough food references already). However, the review system as it stands is counter-productive and needs to be abolished until it can be replaced with a more functional one that meets the obvious goals of providing the customer with pertinent consumer information whilst maintaining the business reputation of upstanding square-dealing merchants.

[Pamela Galli]

LL will often remove stupid reviews.

However, stupid reviews don't negatively affect sales. In fact, they may help -- people are curious to see what was so awful about the item and end up looking at it when they otherwise might not.

[mikka Luik]

It could really do with an easier way to see reviews and comments thats for sure. I do read reviews but then again I also check back to see if a bad one is justified or...otherwise. And in the case of yours - was obvious that it was not justified as you very clearly state all the information needed. Junking the system totally, no, but a clearer layout, oh yes.

[Lacuna Arado]

Pamela, thanks for your reply. I have been impressed with SL's diligence in removing obviously misguided reviews in the past, and I am confident that in my particular case the situation will be remedied in time. Additionally, I would have to agree that those who are truly interested in purchasing an item would be inclined to delve into the review comment threads and find out exactly what's up. However, I stand on my assertion that the review system, in it's current state, is rather dysfunctional in several regards, most flagrantly in that it lacks a complete feedback loop. Simply notifying merchants when a review occurs and allowing merchant rebuttal comments to be viewed along with the original comment posting without requiring additional mouse-clicks would go a long way towards creating a more functional review system that benefits customers, merchants, and SL alike instead of creating more work for everyone.

[Syo Emerald]

Sure, I read reviews. Sometimes because I'm in need to make sure the item is good, because its expensive and sometimes because I'm just interested to see what bad reviews something got what looked good on the picture. I ignore teh "haven't recived item" or other newbie bad ratings, cause I know they are not the shop owners fault. But a comment that says that the merchant hasn't responded for days might influence my decision.

I leave reviews myself when I have the time. I do, when I think a product deserves it in a bad or good way. Especially if a product hasn't got any stars yet.

[Spica Inventor]

There's usually just not enough reviews and star data to offset the phony 5 stars and reviews by peeps alts that  I suspect many are doing as a business strategy, but because some reviews are still very useful, I think it's better just to bite the bullet on it and keep them. It's usually easy to seperate the nonsense reviews from the legit reviews I have found (outside of the phony alt 5 star reviews) . But yes, the star system can really effect your sales if there is enough of them and no explanation to go along with them.

[Rival Destiny]

This is hilarious.  Customer gives you one star because THEY couldn't be bothered to read the specs to see the footprint listed out in the details.

OMG such logic !!!!

I have to say, sometimes bad advertising can be very very good advertising

[Lacuna Arado]

Mikka, thanks for replying. Junking the system in toto is arguably an extreme stance, but honesly the way I see it we would be better off with nothing at all. Admittedly, some people are inclined to look deeper into the rationale for a review, but I imagine that far more shoppers are not likely to invest that much time and instead see the rating stars as a quick way to sift through the voluminous array that often turns up in the search listings. First impressions are always important, especially when sorting the wheat from the chaff (sorry, another food reference).

[Rival Destiny]

k that does it, I'm going for toast n tea!

[Lacuna Arado]

Thanks Syo. As you noted, many, many items don't receive any stars at all. I think this is because consumers are often inclined to give no feedback or negative feedback rather than positive feedback. Consumers simply expect to be satisfied with a purchase, but because each individual has a different perspective and perception, the "satisfaction" they seek is inherently subjective, which is why we can't please everyone all the time. Unmerited negative feedback based on another's thwarted expectations rather than the actual merits of the product are, as you can imagine, disappointing, and I'm smarting from that but I'll get over it. In the end, my motivation for creating is to nurture my own desire to be creative, and my own satisfaction as a merchant ultimately comes from the simple reinforcement of having others purchase my offerings and put them to use.

[Perrie Juran]

I agree.

As a consumer, I find the system to be overall a complete waste.

We can all only dream of the day when LL hires someone who actually understands Marketing and customer relations.

[Lacuna Arado]

Spica, I've harboured suspicions that some of the negative reviews I have seen for some products are perhaps motivated by jealous competitors in a lame attempt to besmirch a rival, and that tonnes of glowing reviews for a seemingly mediocre product often smelled funny. However, I don't think this is the case here. At any rate, it's a slippery slope to question motives of others. If someone is purposely manipulating the ratings for their own personal gain instead of bettering their own offerings then shame on them.

[Lacuna Arado]

Rival, I agree it's pretty ridiculous. And I hope you're right

[Lacuna Arado]

Pierre, I think it's probably fixable and it would arguably be a worthwhile investment of SL resources to improve the reviews system. As you alluded, it will likely require someone with a marketing and customer-oriented perspetive to champion that type of endeavour.

[Darren Scorpio]

Consumers are not dumb, they can often tell when a review is just nonsense. If it makes you feel any better I once got a review from a person complaining that all they had received was a box with the picture on it, this was obviously a noob who did not know how to unbox items.

[Spica Inventor]

There's just so much deception going on in SL it is sad. I guess virtual worlds would naturally breed more deception because its much easier to get away with across the board from top to bottom, but it still sickens me. I bought a great spell hud from a merchant that only ever received one star ratings on it. I figured it was probably from a person with a vendetta, possibly a competitor or a disgruntled old friend so I gave him a 5 star that boosted it up to a three. :-( It comes down to peeps just being way too lazy and careless to give reviews who participate in SL. I have given so many legit 5 star reviews on just about everything I have bought on the MP, and the vast majority of these items never had received any review before. I have given only a couple of bad reviews, 1 stars for blatant deception reasons. Sometimes you just got to wonder what type of community we have here? :-(

[Tamara Artis]

Agreed. But also, as others said, not all bad reviews are actually bad. I've seen some quite amusing! Like, negative review that says "I forgot to read description, which clearly says your item is no mod (its about no mod shoes that come with a hud to change color and size), but since I can't change it to what I want, I will never wear your shoes and am sorry but I need to give a negative review!"

As a customer only, I read reviews, descriptions and check can an item be seen inworld. If there are only negative reviews I won't buy it. 

 

[Lacuna Arado]

Agreed Darren. Consumers are not dumb. In fact, they're usually quite rational. It's just that they're often busy and make quick decisions, and in your case, sometimes simply uninitiated in how the system works. Avoiding misunderstandings is possible through effective communication, but sometimes purchasers don't read or comprehend the things due to inexperience and / or language barriers. From my perspective, I try to make things as easy as possible on the purchaser and try to provide as much detail as possible in the item descriptions to instruct on how the item is used, it's dimensions, etc. I also include notecards along with some of the items to provide additional help. Moreover, I always respond politely to IMs and sent notecards if someone doesn't understand or needs assistance or has questions about an item, but alas, some choose to fly immediately to the reviews without first making inquiries.

[Lacuna Arado]

Tamara, I'm sure I'll laugh about this eventually. Sharing war stories from others like you here in the forums is certainly a healing balm for a wounded ego. By the way, I hate it when purchasers "apologize" for leaving a negative review when it's based on their own misunderstanding. The ones like yours that start out with: "Sorry I didn't read your description, but..." Not a very sincere apology, innit? :smileyfrustrated:

[Darren Scorpio]

The thing about reviews is that you can comment on them. If a customer leaves a bad review based on their own misunderstanding or such, you can leave a kind comment explaining why the customer is wrong, this way others who read their review will see that it was the customer's misunderstanding. The only thing that bothers me is that currently there is no way AFAIK to know when someone has left a review, this is a badly needed feature.

[Lacuna Arado]

Darren, righto. The problem is, the rebuttal comments to the original feedback post require additional clicks so they're not immediately apparent unless the customer choses to delve deeper. And the issue of not getting notifications is particularly egregious. It's not feedback if it's not a loop. The only way a mercahnt knows if there is feedback is to diligently peruse the listings for (sometimes perceptable) changes in the stars for each and every item.

[Medhue Simoni]

I agree that our review system has got to be the worst that I've ever seen. Much of this is directly a result of people complaining about the system we had on Xstreet, which was a thousand times better. Some people failed to realize the genius of the old system. The 1 thing that makes reviews/ratings relevant is volume. 1 review or even 2 doesn't give the customer a good overall idea of the quality of a product. On Street, as long as you purchased the product, you could review or rate a product. Some people did not like this because any of those people could give the product a 1 star rating. What those people didn't understand is that with the old Xstreet system, you'd get 1000 times the ratings and reviews. Yeah, I've had direct competitors buy my product just so they could rate it down. These ratings didn't impact the product at all, as it would get 5 more reviews in that next week or month. Because we got a 1000 times more reviews and ratings on Xstreet, the bad ratings and reviews became burried in the sea of 5 star ratings and reviews.

So, besides all the obvious problems with our current rating and review system, I also say allowing any1 to rate the product without leaving a review. Our current system doesn't promote rating or reviewing products, and actually is a pain in the butt. All this leads to very few people actually giving ratings and reviews. The open and easier way that Xstreet did things was much more condusive to a proper rating or review on a product. We now basically have a system where no1 is really even going to go out of the way to give a review, unless they have a major issue with the product and can't get ahold of the merchant. Ratings and reviews should be the easiest thing to do on a marketplace, not the most painful thing to accomplish.

[Lacuna Arado]

Medhue, thanks for your perspective and pointing out the issue of volume. Lower-volume / higher-priced items (like the one in my case) are especially impacted by the shortcomings of the current reviews system. In this case, I have sold, say, a dozen of that item, but this is the only review I've had on it. Twelve (presumably) satisfied customers and one off-the-wall rating has the propensity to put a damper on future sales. I'm not direclty familiar with the differences with the older XStreet reviews system but it seems the issue of the reviews system has been around for quite a while. Hopefully we can draw some attention to it and (yes I'm dreaming) perhaps some changes for the better.