s/o Customer Surveys - Product Reviews

[DottyG]

Oops, sorry Diane.  I missed the "also" in your post!  Ok, that makes more sense then!

[WillyNilly]

Yikes.  That means that my 5 stars aren't helping some people.  I may have to ponder that.

There have been some books and products, though, that truly have rated 5 stars.  I try to describe why that is in hopes that it helps someone else out.  But maybe that's not the way to go after all?  But what if 4 stars doesn't fit?

For instance, there is a mascara that I really love.  And I've written a review of it giving it the highest score.  It's everything that I'm looking for and is one that I hope they never get rid of.  I wouldn't give it a 4 - it really is a 5 for me.

I read 5 star reviews 
Because I give 5 star reviews. I don't review everything, but mostly I only review and 1 and 5 star things in my life.

I'm only moved to review an item if I love it or hate it. If I'm in the middle about a product, I'm not too inclined to spend my time reviewing it to essentially say "ehh, its ok. Cound be better could be worse." Some sites like Birchbox* I review every product, because I get points for my feedback, so its worth my time to review good, bad and mediocre. But on a site like Amazon or Yelp, I only review something if I feel the word really needs to know or if I really would have found the information helpful to me, before I had purchased the product... which usually only happens with the really good or the really bad.


* If you now go checkout Birchbox and sign up due to my post here, please PM me so I can give you my email so I can get points for referring you 

[Diane AKA Traska]

To sum up:

- I read the lowest reviews first, because they actually tell you what you need to know.
-- I, of course, ignore things like "Product was perfect, but it took UPS two days longer than the original estimate, so I gave it one star."
- I tally up the 2, 3, and 4 star reviews and average, because way too many people *just* give 1s and 5s.
- I then compare 1s and 5s separately

It gives a well-rounded picture.

[DottyG]

WillyNilly, that reminds me.  Not long ago, I had a couple of situations where I gave a "middle-of-the-road" rating. They were books that I truly was torn about!  It wasn't a 1....but it wasn't a 5....  I wasn't sure what to put it as!

The hero was excellent.  Very well-rounded and the part of plot that involved him was terrific.  The heroine was horrible!  I don't know what the author was going for, but she totally missed the mark on this woman.  I wanted to slap this woman upside the head more than once while reading about her!  I, seriously, felt like the author accidentally created a personality trait in the character that she hadn't intended to.  And, as a result, she made this woman a farce.  Totally distracted from the plot.

And then there was a book that was so, so good until the last chapter.  I was reading this book and loving it! And then the author did this quick "wrap it up in 2 pages" ending that left me wondering if I'd missed a chapter or something.  Turns out, I wasn't the only reader who had this "drop off a cliff" feeling when they got to that point.  It was so completely bizarre!  So I rated this book in the middle.  It was a 5 until the ending.  I averaged out the 5 book with the 0 ending and gave it a rating in-between.  And I explained why I did so - as did everyone else!

So, although I tend to be like you and do the 1 or 5 stars more often, there are times when neither one of those works for me!

[DottyG]

Diane, I like that method.  I may have to adopt that as well.

[mrs_deb]

And then there was a book that was so, so good until the last chapter.  I was reading this book and loving it! And then the author did this quick "wrap it up in 2 pages" ending that left me wondering if I'd missed a chapter or something.  Turns out, I wasn't the only reader who had this "drop off a cliff" feeling when they got to that point.  It was so completely bizarre!  So I rated this book in the middle.  It was a 5 until the ending.  I averaged out the 5 book with the 0 ending and gave it a rating in-between.  And I explained why I did so - as did everyone else!

Unnatural Exposure, Patricia Cornwell?

[DottyG]

Mrs_Deb, no. But I'm sad to see that the problem is with other books as well. It's incredibly irritating, isn't it?

[Lady Snowdon]

I usually read the 1-star reviews first, because if there's a dealbreaker it usually comes up there first.  If all those people are idiots I work my way up to the 2- and 3-stars

That's exactly how I do it!

I do that as well.

I do that as well, and I've been gobsmacked by the number of people who think "UPS delivered the box when I wasn't home!" or "it works well, but the shade of purple is off from what I expected" is cause for a one star rating! 

I also look at ratings in chronological order.  If there are a ton of bad reviews from 2008, and more recent reviews are uniformly positive, I will discount the bad reviews more, assuming that the problems from 2008 have been worked on/fixed.