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If your competitor leaves you a bad review be nice to them argues Bazaarvoice boss

Austin speaking at SXSW today

Austin speaking at SXSW today

There is “nothing wrong” with giving loyal customers samples or gift cards as an incentive to leave a positive review as long as it is acknowledged, the head of an online review platform has said.

Speaking at a session dealing with levels of trust in online reviews at SXSW overnight Gene Austin, CEO of Bazaarvoice, said businesses should respond positively to negative comments they suspect have been left by competitors.

Austin said in retail 70 per cent of people said they use reviews to decide whethter to buy products, and said it had “never been more important to make sure the online reviews are authentic and can be trusted”.

But he warned the habit by some businesses of altering and deleting bad reviews was eroding consumer trust, citing figures from inside the company that show around 0.5 per cent of reviews are actually fraudulent.

On how to spot and deal with negative comments coming from competitors he said: “Typically if we’re trying to defeat a competitor on it my guess is you need to call the competitor and have a conversation.

“You can easily start a user generated content war if you wanted to. Look for patterns – if come from same IP address too frequently that’s a clue.”

He also pointed to research which showed how people’s spheres of influence have changed as the internet has advanced – moving from being centred on the recommendations of friends and family to accepting the recommendations of complete strangers.

Pointing out people read on average 160,000 words per day he added: “We do our own search about what we want, but most of the time relying on advice of complete strangers.

“It’s turned our spheres of influence upside down.”

On the issue of rewarding customers he said: “There’s nothing wrong with taking loyalists and having them work for you, there’s nothing wrong with giving out free samples in return for content, but you have to acknowledge it.”

Alex Hayes in Austin

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