We've covered the topic on this blog and elsewhere. Over a year ago we discovered the Ratings J-Curve across our clients which still holds true today: 80% of reviews are positive. One of our first branded manufacturers, Burpee, commented that negative reviews actually help conversion. And I've written an article explaining other benefits of negative reviews in iMedia.

The topic came up again in a great article from Joan Voight in adweek, titled "Negative Reviews are Really Positive". The article reports several of our branded clients carrying reviews:

The surveys come as many brands are joining Amazon.com and review sites such as yelp.com, tripadvisor.com and consumersearch.com in offering reviews on their web sites. In May, Toshiba joined Dell and Hewlett Packard in offering online reviews "to enhance the buying experience." Levi's will join Fair Indigo and EMS in the apparel space, offering customer reviews by the close of 2007.

Bill Blass, formerly of Sears and Lands' End wisely explains:

"If all reviews are good, customers question if the ratings are legitimate," Bill Bass, CEO of Fair Indigo, told Adweek. "Not only will people ignore the reviews, but it will hurt their trust in the brand. It would be better to have no reviews at all."

And John Lazarchik of PETCO has predicted:

"In two years customer reviews on branded sites will be more common," said John Lazarchic, Petco's vice president of e-commerce. "A few years after that if shoppers don't find reviews on a site, they'll just go shop somewhere else."

There were interesting and useful comments on the article in Retail Wire. Here are some of the highlights:

Consumers have a significant appreciation for the reviews because right or wrong, consumers tend to trust other consumers, more than they trust the advertised message. Advice to retailers and product manufacturers:

o Don't fight it. Reviews are a major factor in e-commerce. You will need to deal with it.

o Resist the temptation to write a review "from the company" because more times than not it comes across defensive and corporate.

o Read the reviews carefully and consider what criticisms are worthy, and take it to heart. Act accordingly. The online review process isn't scientific but in many ways, you are benefiting from a free focus group.

o Don't act defensively if a review knocks your product. The review might be real, or it might have been submitted by one of your haters or competitors. Let the review process take care of itself. In the end, if your product is attacked unfairly, others will come to your rescue. It happens almost all the time.

David Biernbaum, Senior Marketing and Business Development Consultant, David Biernbaum Associates

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Having customer reviews or feedback on site is just plain common sense. In some of the focus groups I have held, I found that most online shoppers have done their research before making the purchase and, therefore, if they can't find reviews of products on the store's site, they will go elsewhere for information. The biggest concern for online retailers is keeping customers on their site until the purchase is complete. Having reviews and feedback ensures the customer stays within that particular website…

Doron Levy, president, Captus Business Consulting

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Frank is right–companies need to listen to negative comments by customers. If customers are unhappy about something; especially if it appears to be widespread, then you know exactly what needs to be changed about your product to make it more attractive to customers. Research on persuasion indicates that people are more persuaded by by arguments if positive and negative points are presented. Word of mouth has always been an important part of customer decision making. Having customers post reviews is another form of word of mouth marketing. Ignoring what customers have to say about your products or trying to manipulate what customers say would be a dangerous move.

Camille P. Schuster, Ph.D., President, Global Collaborations, Inc.

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Regarding response to negative internet feedback, I think the retailer needs to respond as professionally as possible, speaking candidly and respectfully to those who criticize. It is also a great opportunity to learn; find were there is a misunderstanding of the intent or use of products and services, or gain an greater view of how the site (retailer) is doing a dis-service to the customer. I will admit that feedback is more available from online sources as the internet offer a great deal of anonymity.

Jerry Gelsomino, Vice President of Marketing and Brand Experience, Pratt Corporation

In short, we don't expect this question to go away, however I think over our nearly two years of experience serving reviews for retailers and branded manufacturers the evidence is overwhelming to suggest that negative reviews should not be feared.

Last Week Manish Mehta, VP of Global eCommerce posted on the Direct2Dell blog announcing ratings and reviews on their site. Says Manish: "If the printer you ordered gets the job done, let us know. If you were disappointed with your monitor, share that too, and let us know what you didn’t like about it. You can rate both Dell and non-Dell products. As we build up more reviews, our hope is that it will help all our customers make more informed buying decisions based on customer feedback."

As many of you know, I was at Dell from '99 to '06. For the first four years I managed Dell.com consumer, which grew to a $3.5B online business. During that time (in 2003) I started my Decker Marketing blog, partly for experiential learning. I may have been one of the first bloggers inside of Dell, but largely unknown as I was blogging about marketing topics, not about Dell. The marketing paradigm shift of customer-created experiences, citizen marketing, and customer-centric strategies was crystallizing for me. It was part of the reason I joined Bazaarvoice and helped launch us out of stealth mode about a year ago.  Now, one year later, I'm pleased to see Dell (as well as all of our clients) take another step towards customer-centricity. Our clients realize the tremendous benefits of marketing WITH the customer. Coincidentally, the title of my first book in 1995 was "How to Market WITH Customer User Groups.  Computer User Groups were the computer and software industry’s influencers in the late 80s and 90s. 10 years later, with the spread of Web technologies and ability to write reviews, any ONE customer can be more influential than a User Group.

Dell not only represents one of the largest online electronics retailers, but is also a direct manufacturer of products they make. With Bazaarvoice, Dell currently has review functionality on all third party as well as their branded electronics, such as Dell projectors, printers, and LCD TVs. Many of our clients, such as Bass Pro, Cabelas, HP, Sears, Burpee, and Fair Indigo carry products under their own brand name. We often get the highest level of angst on hosting reviews from direct manufacturers for their own brand.

There are at least three reasons why branded manufacturers need ratings and reviews:

First, if you believe in your products, your company and your people, then customer feedback is an ACCELERATOR to growth. Word of mouth already occurs offline for your products, so enabling online word of mouth enables a few customers to amplify their voice to 95% of the online shoppers who would never meet the influencers face to face.  Burpee is a 120-year old company built on word of mouth. Online reviews are accelerating their growth beyond 'normal' word of mouth.

Second, most manufacturers should be more concerned about not carrying reviews than be afraid of negative reviews. While nearly all clients will receive some negative reviews, they will likely see a similar "J-curve" where positive far outweigh negative reviews 8 to 1. Despite Dell's word of mouth challenges over the past few years (mostly over service and support issues), their products are seeing balanced reviews.

Here's a TV that has rave reviews.

And one that doesn't (perhaps yet).

Third, and most importantly, this direct feedback represents an opportunity to bring customer oxygen into the company to change the culture, to improve products, and to leverage competitive advantages of a direct manufacturer by pushing the customer voice upstream for product development improvements.

Through today’s customer-created online experiences, branded manufacturers realize their competitiveness is largely determined by enabling customer participating, listening to the customer voice, and joining the conversation. More to the point, winning today means leveraging and amplifying the customer voice more strategically than the competition.

But there's more to this topic. Is it possible that negative reviews help increase conversion? Definitive data is not in (yet), but I attended a shop.org Annual Summit several years ago where Amazon and eBags hinted in a panel discussion that products with mixed reviews helped conversion. Consumers we talk to say they look for negative reviews first to help them make the purchase decision. Without them, they lack the necessary information to move forward. And from this anecdotal focus group, they suggest that negative reviews rarely stop them from buying unless the reviews are all negative or include a negative comment of a feature that was important to them.

Don Zeidler, Director of Direct Marketing for the W. Atlee Burpee Co. (Burpee Seeds), believes negative reviews help their business. Burpee was one of Bazaarvoice's first manufacturer clients. That is to say they are featuring reviews on the products they sell — so they certainly have a lot riding on their customer reviews! Here's what he says:

"As for the product(s) with negative reviews – my experience is that negative reviews do not hurt a product as long as there are also positive reviews associated with it.  I'd guess that when customers see a mix of different ratings they are more apt to trust the review process. Second, as we all know as marketers (or should know) customers that are interested in a particular product are ONLY looking for affirmation or reassurance that the product is right for them, it's one they need to have.  Negative reviews help customers affirm they've vetted all concerns before making a purchase decision. As long as the reviews are not entirely and overwhelmingly negative — just nit picks that people decide they can live with (they usually are), — these negative reviews help customers pass through purchase paralysis."

Don Zeidler is the Director of Direct Marketing for the W. Atlee Burpee Co., a 130-year-old brand famous for revolutionizing home gardening in America. Beginning in the late 1800's Burpee's slogan—"Burpee Seeds Grow"—was the guarantee that raised the bar (and profits) in what was at the time a "seedy" business of selling to farmers in an agrarian society. Much has changed over the years but not the trusted quality the Burpee name means to home gardeners. Don is responsible for Burpee's web site development and management, e-mail marketing and programs, as well as e-commerce performance. His offline responsibilities include catalog circulation, advertising, and ancillary product merchandising. Don has close to 20 years direct marketing experience and brought Burpee online in 1996. His application of sound direct marketing strategies in a dot-com environment is a major component of Burpee's continued on-line success.