Online Ratings Are Broken | Companies aren’t asking for your feedback. They’re begging you for data.::Companies aren’t asking for your feedback. They’re begging you for data.

  • Jamie
    link
    fedilink
    English
    81 year ago

    My policy for giving ratings is that I don’t typically rate products, but if I’m asked to rate service, I always rate 5 stars regardless of the quality of service performed. If it asks me to justify why I rated that way, I just write “Yes.” and pad it with as many characters as is needed. Usually dots or problematic unicode characters.

    • Einar
      link
      fedilink
      English
      12
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      It depends a bit. Some businesses actually need decent ratings to get going. Podcasts, AirBnB hosts, Indie developers, etc. Large corporations surely don’t need my rating. So I use discretion.

      • @andallthat
        link
        English
        31 year ago

        I’m assuming by “need my rating” you mean “need to be rated positively” (and not “need my honest feedback so they can improve their product”).

        If so, I do that too, but I think the article has a point that a 5* review can now be more like a vote of “I wish more people bought this/supported this company” than “this product is really top notch”. This is much more useful to companies than it is to other buyers.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          91 year ago

          Nowadays, a 5* means “This employee did ok” and a 4 or lower means, “They’re the worst employee in the history of the universe.”

          Source: Work in an industry that uses this stupid system.

          • @QuarterSwede
            link
            English
            21 year ago

            Funnily enough, when ratings were 1-10 people more accurately gave their feelings about an experience. 1-5 started being used to simplify reviews but it really didn’t. It just made them all useless.

              • @QuarterSwede
                link
                English
                21 year ago

                8 meant you’re average really. 7 meant you needed to improve drastically.

                • @[email protected]
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  31 year ago

                  Nah, most businesses are using the top box score. 9-10 gets 1 point, any other score gets 0 points. Then they add up all the 1s and take it as a percentage of the total. If your percentage isn’t high enough, you get your pay deducted or fired.

                  8 and 1 count exactly the same: 0 points.

                  • @QuarterSwede
                    link
                    English
                    1
                    edit-2
                    1 year ago

                    My point is was, not is. This is pre 1-5 scale, as in years ago.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            11 year ago

            I had a product arrive from etsy fairly cheaply packaged and partially nonfunctional until I took it apart and reassembled it. 5 stars for the indie seller tho

    • @cabron_offsets
      link
      English
      51 year ago

      I rarely rate. If harassed sufficiently, as in the case of Microsoft Teams poo-ups (lol, that typo stays), I’ll rate as low as possible.

      • Jamie
        link
        fedilink
        English
        41 year ago

        I mostly do it because I’ve worked in jobs where my locations were graded on such ratings, and anything less than a 5 was unacceptable. So entering junk 5/5 ratings is my small protest against that without messing up someone’s job in the process.

        • @QuarterSwede
          link
          English
          3
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Same here. People don’t realize the real world impact reviews have on people that can’t change what needs to be fixed. 5 star reviews with negative wording doesn’t screw up someone’s livelihood while still getting the point across.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      21 year ago

      For a lot of those ratings, if you rate anything less than the top score, they blame it on the retailer. For example, my dad did one of those for a dealership that did some work to his car and rated the dealership high, but he had one comment about the quality of the vehicle - which is obviously not in the dealership’s control. But the manufacturer came back to the dealer about it (the service guy at the dealer told him). Anything less than perfect is seen as a failure.

      It’s offensive to me as a statistician that companies do this.