Guide to Using Online Product and Service Reviews

Look at others who are doing it

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel here. There are plenty of sites that are doing web reviews already and making it work for them. Look at how they work and determine which features you want to see in your own web site for using user reviews.

I recommend: Yellowpages.com, formerly just a listing directory, got into the business recently and now accepts reviews. Kudzu.com is an up-and-coming website that allows users to review service providers, so you can know whether that lawnmower repair shop really knows what they’re doing to your Snapper. Epinions.com makes a go of this as well, trying to be a universal site of public commentary. Fat tire freaks seem to love Mountainbikereview.com, which lists tons of products and lets site users describe their experiences. And, oh, there’s this small web business called Amazon.com that’s been known to dabble in this area…

Find a platform

Unless you’ve got a knack for coding complex JavaScript pages and know about security certificates, it’s easier to either hire a web programmer to add this functionality or look for pre-packaged web application systems. If you’re not selling product, then you might look at a content management system. If you’re an electronic retailer, you’re going to look toward ecommerce solutions. Both types of systems have lots of variations, and you need to ask the vendor or programmers what the capacity for user-generated reviews is. You also need to define what you want in your “reviews” system. Do you want comments only? Ratings? Full-length descriptive reviews? All of the above?

I recommend: Check with your web programmers to see what they like and what they’ve heard about. You can also check out CMSWatch.com’s list of content management system providers. Drupal is a free, open source content management system that serves as a decent platform for building out how you want to manage your content. Also check out Joomla! and Mambo for CMS platforms. Geeklog is another open source system that can be used for everything from news to surveys and has a nice moderation system. If you’re creating an e-commerce store, then an e-store package like one from Volusion, which can feature user-generated reviews in with your “store front”, is a smart choice. Some e-commerce storeowners have gone with ready-made .ASP systems like MonsterCommerce and Yahoo’s eCommerce Small Business packages. These are popular solutions for small business owners who don’t want to get into the IT side, however you need to make sure such systems aren’t so scaled-down that you can’t support product reviews.

Control how comments are posted

The big danger to user commentary is if it gets out of hand. You might get people attacking each other, attacking products without cause, or being malicious and inappropriate in a number of ways. Some websites get around this by simply allowing a numeric product rating, but others institute moderators or allow readers to post whether a comment was helpful.

I recommend: First, make sure you try to read through your user reviews as often as possible to get a sense of what is being posted. Secondly, consider requiring comment-makers to include their email address, even if it’s not viewable to the public. Cnet.com was a pioneer in this area and allows people to rate comments on how helpful they were.  Good systems can even present the comments with the best-ranked reviews and comments appearing first.

Fight the robots

Spammers have found that comments areas can be a great way to populate the web with links to their unwanted websites. Fortunately you can fight back.

I recommend: Institute a CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) system, which often uses simple tests (like reading numbers and letters on a distorted background, or recognizing a simple logical sequence in images). Carnegie Mellon developed it and has a nice page about the types of CAPTCHA tests that can be implemented. The second thing to do is to make sure spammed comments aren’t seen in web traffic rankings by using Google’s NoFollow system.

Remind your customers to write a review

One way to build comments on your site is to use a system that encourages your customers to come back and write a comment after they have received an item. It’s up to you whether you send them a request via email or simply put a notice on the site asking them to give their review. You already know what they bought, now get their thoughts.

I recommend: The company that’s doing the best at this is probably Amazon.com, which is partly the reason the site has become synonymous with user reviews of products after their purchase. Buy something from them and you’ll get an email request asking for your feedback. They even patented the process behind their specific comment request process.

Collect some personal demographics data

Organizations can use comment areas to collect demographics about their site users or customers. That can be helpful for marketing purposes, or just to fine-tune your business services. Remember that there’s a fine line in capturing demographics; if you ask too much, people don’t complete the forms.

I recommend: Yellowpages.com is an online phonebook at its most basic. It requires users to login to review businesses in its listings. To register, you have to provide not only your email address, but also your zip code. Collecting zip codes means they can tell their potential advertisers where their customers are.

Post reviews yourself to get it started

Not all websites get the traffic that Amazon.com and Yellowpages.com get, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use methods for user reviews.

I recommend: Prime the pumps with some of your own comments, from a professional-in-the-industry perspective. You have easy access to product information and spec sheets on whatever it is you’re listing on your site. Use that info to create your own reviews, much like Scanstore.com has done on some of its products, like this high-end scanner.