It’s rare these days to purchase anything online without being able to read a review of that thing from a past user.  Indeed, so influential have reviews from our peers become, that the industry has had a big battle against what’s known as astroturfing, or the posting of fake reviews.

As reviews have become more ubiquitous, people have increasingly been prone to try and leave a funny review.  A recent study suggests that whilst these reviews tend to garner a lot of attention online, they aren’t all that effective at changing how the business operates.

“Humor can help consumers reach other people with words of warning, but it isn’t always beneficial when complaining. Humor can signal that a bad situation is okay, and humorous complaints are less likely to lead to sympathy or a response that fixes the situation than non-humorous complaints,” the authors write.

Customers will also resort to humor, especially when leaving a negative review.  The researchers found, for instance, that one star reviews on Yelp were more likely to be rated as funny than those at the other end of the spectrum.

The thing is, people don’t tend to respond all that sympathetically to such reviews.  Whilst they may have found them funny, they were found to be less likely to offer any form of compensation for the bad experience the customer received as they weren’t really sure that the customer was serious about resolving their complaint.

Whilst such reviews might not elicit a great deal of sympathy from fellow customers, the researchers are at pains to point out that companies should certainly not ignore them.  The web has become awash with instances whereby humorous reviews have gone viral, causing the organization involved significant negative publicity.

“Humor is an effective way for complainers to get attention. However, humor doesn’t always benefit complainers. Consumers who want others to right a wrong or simply offer social support would benefit from complaining in a more serious manner,” the authors conclude.