Reviews have really come to the fore this year. Research has shown that an increase in favourable reviews can make a big difference to whether a restaurant sells its tables or not. That kind of power perhaps explains why news broke recently that an American lady has been sued for writing negative reviews about a tradesman. He was seeking a cool $750,000 in damages.
New research provides additional insight into how reviews affect our purchasing decisions.
About the research
Participants were told positive facts about one (fictional) coffee brand, and negative facts about another. The participants were then informed that a mistake had been made, so that the positive facts actually applied to the other brand and vice versa.
They were then asked for their feelings about the two companies, with their feedback compared to a control group for whom the correction had not been made.
The findings – first impressions last
Interestingly the initial impressions were incredibly powerful. So an initial positive review made people think positively about the company, even when they were subsequently given negative information about them.
By contrast, negative reviews proved very difficult to shift, and people did not change their opinion of a company, even when provided with new information about them.
Putting the theory into practice
To test this theory in practice, the researchers tested the hypothesis with a hotel in Los Angeles. Participants read five reviews of the hotel on Trip Advisor. The researchers fixed the order of the reviews, so one group saw positive reviews first, then negative ones, with the other group seeing them the other way around.
Once again, participants were heavily influenced by the reviews they saw first. This positive impact remained even when the review was tagged as having been written over a year ago, whilst more recent reviews were less positive.
“This research documented evidence of asymmetrical affective perseverance when consumers form attitudes towards brands,” the researchers concluded. “… Consumers may overshoot their judgments towards brands when positive information is replaced with negative information.”
A court has now repealed a previous order for the negative review to be either edited or deleted, so it seems that even if Dietz does win his case, the awareness of the original negative review will continue to cloud public opinion about him.
When a review is read and thought to be trustworthy, it has the same effect as word of mouth giving the restaurant social proof, plus the knock on effect that those reading the review will then tell freinds and family so negative reviews can have a powerful effect especially in a small area where everyone knows each other. doesnt suprise me she got sued
I think it is social prove concept which is well known in psychology and it's definitely works.