It all boils down to credibility.  Customer reviews simply have more credibility than your sales copy, so they inspire more confidence in the buyer.  And negative reviews lend credibility to the review process itself, standing as visible proof that the reviews are not edited.

Makes sense right?  Sure it does, until you find yourself staring at the (perceived) ability of a blisteringly negative review to crush your sales of a given product or service. Then those other statistics and facts are easier to overlook.

So if you’re in that position, just consider this quote from an Amazon.com review:

“…You may find it extremely interesting that I am leaving a review on Amazon because the company I actually bought the product from DID NOT post my lukewarm review. In fact, all the reviews on their website are nothing but 5 star, positive and glowing. I abhor this manner of conducting business and felt the public had a right to know ALL personal experience with this product, not just the 5 that are wonderful…”

When it comes to possible venues for negative online reviews there are:

• forums for any number of interests
• scores of review sites available online
• blogs,
• and FaceBook, Twitter, YouTube, and new social media platforms popping up every day.

There’s simply no shortage of online venues for posting negative reviews.

And what do you think happens to your credibility when negative reviews (of one of your products) are easy to find on the web, but non-existent on your website?

Here’s another example:

About three weeks ago I installed some Dream Home laminate flooring in my recently enclosed garage.  I bought it from a nationally known flooring wholesaler, Lumber Liquidators.  The product was supposed to be “click & lock,” floating flooring, except there was no click, and the boards didn’t really lock together.   So the boards could, and in fact did, come apart as I got several layers into the project.  Gaps would appear and I’d have to undo and then redo all those layers to fix them.

Unbelievably frustrating and a total pain in the butt.

Yet the product reviews, which were balanced between 4 and 5 stars, never said anything about this.  The FAQ never said anything about this.  Customer service said they’d never had customer encounter this problem before.  Apparently, it was just a freak, unexplained phenomenon – a flooring mystery!

Then I Googled “Dream Home Laminate Flooring” and was led to a DIY-forum full of people who experienced the exact same thing I had.  We’re talking like 30 posts of customer experience with the product.  And yet none of these mixed or bad reviews had ever ended up on Lumber Liquidator’s site and they – the only people who sell this product – had never heard of the main installation problem mentioned.

To be fair, some of these reviews/forum posts were very positive, mentioning the reviewers installation struggles in passing or in good humor, and some of the forum members/posters were outraged, trashing on the product and its country of origin.  But all these reviews, both good and bad, were available to me from the 1st search engine result from Google.  It’s not like they were hidden or I had to hunt these down or anything.

The point: Your brand and product perception is not what you say it is anymore but what Google says it is.

Removing negative reviews from your site doesn’t mean they disappear; it just means there’s now a mismatch between what you say and what Google tells me your customers say.  I mean, how much credibility do you think Lumber Liquidators had with me after I found that forum?

While I couldn’t say for certain whether they were editing their reviews, by that time, you could say I was rather suspicious.  So I wrote my own fair but not overwhelmingly positive review.  I gave the product 3 stars, said the installed floor looked nice and was a great price, but that it was a total pain in the butt to install and that the click & lock feature neither clicked nor locked.  I even confirmed my identity to ensure the review went through.

About a week later, my review has still not posted.  Yesterday I called to find out why and Customer Service couldn’t answer me, said someone would get back to me on that issue.

Of course, I still can’t say for certain whether or not Lumber Liquidators is editing their reviews.  It’s possible I’m the first person who has ever given that product a negative review.  It’s possible that all their products, just about every single one, actually do score 4s and 5s with nary a low score in the bunch (though I DID see one 2-star review for one of their products when I went hunting for lower-scored reviews – but only ONE of them, mind you).

Still, for the sake of example, let’s just say – hypothetically speaking – that they do edit negative reviews, including my review.  Let me ask you this: did that strategy work for them?  Did they stop the review, or did they just switch its location?

And had I known about the difficulty of the flooring, would it really have ruined their sale, or just helped me to expect and work around the installation challenges – or even just pushed me to buy a more expensive (and easier to install) product from them?

Personally, I think negative reviews would have worked in their favor.  And I hope you now grasp the emotional (as well as the statistical) truth of that, too.

P.S.  While I continue to be suspicious of the Lumber Liquidators website, I have to say that their Pensacola branch, and the people working there, were very pleasant to do business with and I’d still recommend them to friends and family looking to DIY install hardwood, engineered, or laminate flooring.

We’ve commented any number of times on GrokDotCom that rampant poor product imagery represents a consistent loss of sales for online businesses. Most retailers just end up using the low-quality, “ordinary” images provided by the product manufacturer. Rare is the retailer who invests the money to re-shoot product with an eye towards improved presentation on the web.

Certainly, replacing or augmenting poor product images with product videos can help sales. Is it better? Yes! Particularly if the video has greater quality than the manufacturer images it replaces. Is it enough? I doubt it. To get to the next level where the video has a substantial impact on sales, there must exist a certain persuasive quality to the video, and you don’t get that by simply running stills together at 30 frames per second — no one would claim the typical YouTube video to be on a par with the work of Hitchcock, Kubrick, or Fellini.

Now, no one is expecting retailers to win Hollywood awards for their product videos, but quality video production is waaaaaay more complex than quality still image production. It has to be scripted. Do you use a voice over? Is it a male voice, or a female voice? What about using a model — do we go with the hot one in a bathing suit or with Average Joe Everyman?  What’s the ideal length for this sort of product and audience? What will the calls to action be? Think about your typical product showcase on QVC or HSN and how much effort and time go into selling each product.

Technology like EyeView are springing up to measure video analytics (hmm, “vanalytics”, anyone? Too risque?) and even test it. But this, too, begs the question: are consumers even trained that they can click within video? (YouTube certainly seems to think they can be trained). So low early conversion rates may be ok, but give consumers a year or two and those clicks will be up significantly.

Where does this go next to get to this higher quality level? Videos can be used to show product in new, more revealing informative ways such as this sort of 3D imagery by Ortery, which revolves around a product, taking a series of stills, and then automatically creates Flash video of the product ready for upload. How about testimonials, perhaps by creating a product-specific “home shopping network” for one particular product? Imagine having Bazaarvoice integrating customer video testimonials directly into a longer, fuller product video.

What do you think?

P.S. If video and commerce interest you, then don’t forget to subscribe to my friend Xavier Casanova’s blog, VideoRetailer.org which covers the intersection of video and commerce.

When the chiropractor complained about the review, Norberg replaced it with a new entry a few weeks later that said:

“I think that he is trying to scare me into removing a negative post (that might explain why he has only positive ones). I believe that he has been harassing me into shutting up, and I feel as a consumer I have a voice and that I can use it on forums made for sharing it, especially when I feel that the experience was unsatisfactory.”

Biegel said both reviews were malicious and in February sued Norberg for libel and invasion of privacy. If the case isn’t settled, it will go to trial in March in San Francisco Superior Court.

Have you ever had a bad experience that you wanted to tell people about? Should a negative review be considered libel? Should consumers have the right to express themselves freely?

As a business, should customers have the right to post negative reviews as long as they are true? As a business, what would you do if someone posted something negative about you?

You can read more about the case, don’t forget to check out some of the comments there as well, and then let us know how you feel about this in the comments below.

Hmmm, I wonder if her name triggered some sp*m filters.

Check out this Paris Hilton Celebrity Review and let me know who you think will be next

My idea of a good time is curling up with a soy protein shake and reading about neurology, quantum physics, or Harry Potter. I think I’m funny. Really. I’ll write something and just crack myself up. Still, I look a little silly, sitting alone at my computer writing and laughing. Some people find that strange.

I’m in shape. Well, I was in shape. Ok, maybe “in-shape” is too strong a phrase, but I was once called “athletic” (not that long ago) . I’m a non-smoker and healthy except for slight Swedish Fish problem. A big Sweedish Fish problem. Fine, it’s an addiction, but I’m seeking help.

Question: Would you date me? Heck, I wouldn’t date me. That’s where the Profile Doctor comes in.

Having trouble creating your online dating profile?

Creating the dreaded profile could very well be the number one problem online daters must face. But now Lavalife has created the Profile Doctor to come in and do a profile analysis on member profiles.

I’m really curious about this. I love the idea of getting outside feedback on your profile. But I wonder: would I rather have a man or a woman do the analysis? Maybe a man since he’d know what guys like. But a woman might be better at helping me polish the finer points to help me shine.

I’d like to know what criteria the Profile Doctor uses to analyze these profiles? I mean, yeah, some stuff is just creepy, but can he really help you get more dates? I’d love to know.

I still think the best way to do a profile is to get your best friend to write up a profile for you. Best friends can talk about your good points so you don’t have to feel like you’re bragging. I’d really like to see this feature on the dating websites.

Don’t Date Him Girl is a laugh-out-loud funny site designed for women to be able to share their past dating experiences. Wouldn’t it be fun to have something like this on the dating sites? I think it would be fun.

Hmm. . . the guys reading this over my shoulder aren’t laughing. One would have to be careful about psychotic ex’s posting less than flattering comments. Hey, one or two angry ex-girlfriends isn’t a big deal, but if there are, like, 17 . . . that could be a sign of a guy to avoid.

No matter what, it’s just plain hard to write about yourself. I’d give the Profile Doctor a try. Or I’d get my best friend to write something for me. Either way, I think getting feedback on your profile could help improve them. Better profiles would lead to more dates. Isn’t that what online dating is all about?

P.S. — You know. . . I’m a writer, and I consider myself a pretty good judge of character. Maybe I could be a profile doctor? How cool would that be? In the meantime, I’ll create a profile and follow-up to let you know the prognosis. Hey, if an athletic math nerd seeking someone who to hum the Seinfeld theme with can do it, so can I.

I was reminded of this on a recent plane ride when my seat-mates were reading the latest James Patterson book, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter and You: On a Diet. I had my usual pile of books, including Playing the Quantum Field, The Female Brain, 50 Psychology Classics and Marketing in the In-Between: A Post Modern Turn on Madison Avenue.

If you’re not into quantum physics or neurology, no sweat. But I do think you’d be interested in Marketing in the In-Between by Len Ellis. You may know Len from his Click Z columns. Now, if you’re a fan of nice little business fables, this is NOT that type of book. Len has a Ph.D. from Columbia and reads informational and mathematical theory for fun. But I still found his writing very accessible. It’s also a quick read; a tiny paperback, less than 100 pages.

I mention the book because I’ve been writing a lot about what analytics can and cannot measure (here are two examples). Len Ellis puts a more scientific spin on this very subject:

Policy makers at all levels, planners of all types, marketers in all categories use data about human affairs to inform their understanding, recommendations and decisions about the built environment in which we all must live … we are reduced to a set of features that are isolated from their contexts … as data becomes the dominant lens for understanding and acting on human affairs, it tends to crowd out [motivational forces].

Reliably predicting the frequency of a behavior in the aggregate cannot capture what moves the individual. That’s simply a limitation of the technique. Aggregating individuals balances out and thereby washes out everything particular or exceptional about any one of them. it yields a measure that can predict frequency at the aggregate level, although neither probability nor explanation at the individual level … washed out were all the factors – motive, volition, knowledge and intent – that might actually explain the individual instance of behavior.

The very process of creating data requires isolating a particular feature of a situation and discarding the larger context in which it is embedded.

In other words, data can tell you WHAT people are doing, but it does not tell you WHY they do what they do. Data doesn’t tell you the individual’s motive, volition, knowledge or intent. You also need to look at behavior in context in order to have a true understanding of what’s really going on.

So, we know what information/insight data can’t provide, but does that mean individual motive, volition, knowledge and intent can’t be measured? Not necessarily.

Every good science project starts with a theory (”This is what’s going to happen and why“). You carefully control the environment in which the experiment takes place, so you can understand the context. You then conduct the experiment and measure the results.

In Persuasion Architecture™, we start with customer personas, creating testable hypotheses as to why customers will take certain actions. Personas provide insight into motive, volition, knowledge and intent. Scenarios are then carefully planned so that context is taken into account; including angles of approach, so we can better understand what caused someone to first realize a need for your product or service, the background knowledge they bring to the table, and a clear sense of their other options. Once you’ve created persuasive scenarios as a predictive model of customer behavior, you can use web analytics to more accurately measure whether your hypotheses were correct. NOW you can measure how many visitors are going through your scenarios, how well those scenarios convert, and optimize your sales process to match how your customers wish to buy.

With this customer insight and context, you can generate far better results than by relying on data alone.

If you have an hour or two, be sure to pick up Marketing in the In-Between. Whether or not you’re a geek like me, it’s sure to give you some really important insights as we move forward in this new, data-driven age.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we (all of us) always received such wonderful endorsements for our products and services?