The Fear of Customer Reviews

An interesting article I came across over the weekend delved into the internal back and forth over at HP where they debated the idea of integrating product reviews directly into their websites. Of course, as with any smart brand, the majority of concerns revolved around negative reviews being exposed to customers as well as the possibility for competitors to game the results.

In the end, Sam Taylor their VP of Online Sales, won over the rest of the naysayers with the argument that all of these reviews are readily available on other sites such as Amazon or CNET. Within their own domain they could have some level of control over what was submitted versus users navigating to sites where they had none. Although they are using a third party to filter submissions that don’t meet their criteria such as the mention of a competing brand which skews the results, it is a step in the right direction since embracing the customer voice is in my opinion one of the most important steps to becoming truly transparent with the market and standing behind every product you build.

This also re-enforced to me that customer reviews are a very powerful thing, and can literally scare the big brands to the bone. The fact that there are venues such as SharedReviews where consumers can band together and speak the truth about a product en masse sends shivers down the spine of any brand marketer looking to control public perception of a product. To most of them, whether a consumer likes or dislikes a particular product is secondary to sales, so spending large sums of money on closed private survey panels to garner feedback is a less risky choice compared to an open approach where actual customers can share their experiences in an open marketplace of unbiased opinion.

Taylor added that if there was an issue with a product it would be better if the company knew right away from its own customers so that it could be fixed.

Congratulations HP, you “got it”, and I think the new customers you acquire with the additional trust you build will far outweigh any other strategy you’ve used in the past.