Absence of engagement and value

Despite the fact that reviews play such an important factor in consumer choices, very little people go through the effort of leaving a review after they visited a venue. A GlobalWebIndex study in 2019 found that only 47% of customers left a review once. Not after every experience, just once. This is a problem because services change over time, and a high velocity of reviews is important to paint a realistic picture of the current state of a business.

One reason for the lack of reviews is the fact that the process is cumbersome and boring. Consumers state that it takes too much effort, and there is no real engagement or response after they shared the rating. Furthermore, they don't know what platform to post it on, and as such they often forget. Consumers are also scared to post a review with their real name, both for privacy and vulnerability reasons. People are inclined to give more (honest) reviews when they can post anonymously, according to research published in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science.

A second major reason is that there is absolutely no reward or incentive for putting in the effort. The aggregate value of reviews flows toward the platforms in the form of business revenue and website/app traffic, but as a user you are left with nothing.

The solution is to make reviews anonymous, fun, engaging, social and to reward them!