Testimonials

Testimony is a formal or informal statement that reflects the characteristics of an individual, organization, or service. The term testimony is used often by a business when they gather and manage testimonies regarding their services.Testimonials that are owned and managed by a third party is a type of testimony known as a review.

Testimonials have shaped consumerism by subconsciously influencing our decision making. Consumers are unaware of the legitimacy of many testimonies, yet rely on them for everyday purchase decisions. This article discuss how testimonials grew in consumerism interest, questions the reliability, and analyzes the ethics of testimonials.

History

Before the Internet

Testimonials were only exchanged between relatives, friends, and co-workers before the introduction of the internet. Recommendations were given and opinions were offered. Services given by new businesses were at a higher risk to the consumer. Consumers tend to go with familiarity rather than the unknown. When testimonials from peers framed a service from a business or a product as below par is when new business earned the opportunity to differentiate and provide their services.

There was a lot of risk for new businesses as any misstep could result in the consumer talking ill about their service or product. Yet, exceeding expectations creates the opportunity for recommendations and improved business in the consumers' network.

Testimonials did not impact consumers outside of previous customers’ networks. New consumers were persuaded by marketing and marketers decided to meet expectations of that service or product.

The Age of the Internet

Online testimonials and reviews replaced the traditional method of word-of-mouth indication of quality and have become the main form of forming a reputation. The term "Electronic Word of Mouth" (eWOM) is used to describe this form of information transfer.

Centralization

The internet has allowed for testimonies to expand beyond individuals' network of peers to encompass every consumer interested or experienced with the service or product in question. Websites allow for reviews to be congregated into one location so that consumers can have a better understanding of a new product or service.

Ratings

Ratings denoted by stars provide a numerical value that attribute to a service or product that allows consumers to compare between similar service or products. Ratings provide a condensed representation of the opinions within testimonials. Ratings become an indicator of the content within all testimonials without the need of reading through each testimony but still providing equal weight to reviews that aren't read by a prospective consumer.

Reliability

Polarized Distribution

Standard Distribution of Ratings for a 10 Star Rating Scale

The factors that cause an individual to write a review must be considered in order to understand the reliability of the testimonies online. Testimonies (more specifically reviews) consist of a very polarized opinion based. Inspecting the marks given to the ratings accommodated with reviews, it’s evident that the majority of marks consists of either the lowest (for example one star) or the highest mark (five stars). Testimonies are typically binary, with perceptions of either good or bad.

There is no direct personal benefit to a reviewer when they write positively. The action is motivated by reciprocity by mutually exchanging a kind act after a business exceeds the expectation of the client. In doing so, the consumer returns the favor by writing a positive review.

Writing a negative review of a service or product allows the reviewer to play the role of damaging the image of the business. It satisfies the will for vengeance when they felt they were wronged. Humans feel the pain of a loss (in these cases of monetary value or time) and will act on it more than if they were to gain from the situation, known as Loss Aversion.

Filterization

Filtering is the process of selecting testimonies to be displayed in an ordered list. The reader will read the reviews present to them from the filtering process and read only one or two reviews before establishing an opinion on the service or product. The dilemma arises when considering how to represent all the reviews of a given service or product within the few reviews the reader will actually read.

Weight is the differentiator of worth between one testimony to another. It is an important aspect when considering the order of how testimonials will be filtered and ultimately deciding the first and second written testimonies to be displayed before a consumer.

Aquiring Positive Testimonies

Businesses use different strategies in order to overcome the need for consumers to write positive testimonies.

• Providing incentives
• Paying for testimonies
• Writing positive Testimonies for one in return
• Asking directly to the consumer

These strategies aim to invoke the psychological response of reciprocity. It encourages the behavior of returning a favor the business went out of its way to do for the consumer. In this case, that action will be a positive testimony that will aid the growth of the business. Many review sites put more weight on recent reviews, and so these tactics are being executed consistently to maintain a positive image for the brand.

Author Credentials

In order to make an opinion base on the experience of others, consideration must be made about the author of testimonials. Individuals have certain biases that may affect their opinion on the service or product they received. What may be negative to one individual may not represent the feelings of the prospective consumer. The same is argued for a positive review may not indicate the same pleasures.

Authors may also have various forms of motives. An author may have had some influence by the service or product in question to encourage a positive review. Reviews can also be by the business staged as an unaffiliated individual.

There are also motivations that incur negative testimonies. The author may have a gripe to something or someone that is affiliated with the service or product but doesn't concern the good itself (ie.a negative relationship with the owner). Another motivation can be from an individual from the same market in order to reduce the ratings of competing businesses.

Ethics

Effects on Consumers

Consumers are given a small sample size to persuade them to purchase a service or product. In no means does this indicators correlate to the actual value they will receive from the service or product, yet consider it as so. The decision is then influenced by others, rather than comparing two services or products first hand. A prospective consumer may experience a consistent value shared amongst others, yet may miss other products or services that align with their own preferences.

Effects on Organization's and Individual's Services

Testimonials have become a new challenge for businesses. Since prospective consumers rely on reviews for persuasion, the combination of positive testimonies and high rankings is needed. A negative review has tremendously more weight than a positive review because businesses make an effort to encourage their costumes to write them. Negative reviews are strictly voluntarily and promote only the faults of a business. Business can see these as constructive criticism, yet negative reviews are public for everyone to see.

Whenever an individual feels the need to write a negative review, it tends to result in the lowest rank an individual can give. Businesses have to combat the polarized ranking system by continuing to promote positive reviews. Promotion causes individuals to rank more modestly and does not necessarily equate to the highest rank. If the idea of writing a review was given by the business, the consumer wasn't likely overwhelmed by the service or product, but complacent enough to give it a relatively good review (as indicated by the graphic above with higher ratings in the third quartile).

The testimonial system has a fundamental flaw that it is voluntarily. It focuses the opinions of two extremes and ignores the majority of consumers that haven't bothered offering an opinion. Businesses have to invest more resources so that the minority of negative testimonials misrepresent their services. Hence, the testimonial system is very malleable and does not indicate an honest method of representation.

Accuracy in Representation

Desired Representation

The necessity of positive reviews has made businesses shift their objective. The product is no longer the focus, but instead, it is the increase their ratings. Superior products can be undermined by another company simply if they fail to encourage enough positive testimonies to counteract the few negative reviews they receive.

Perceieved Representation

Consumers form an opinion toward a service or product based on the elements of a few testimonials that are filtered by the websites discretion and by the numerical rating. Both testimonies and ratings (a representation of testimonies) are interacted with incorrectly by the consumer. Considerations must be made, such as relevancy, biases, and subjectivity in order to form a more accurate representation of the service or product in question.

Objective Representation

An objective representation of a product or service can only be achieved by personal experience. Negative reviews could demonstrate consistent faults within the service in the past, yet could've been eradicated. Businesses can continue to feel misrepresentations on occurrences of the past. Since businesses have lost control of their representation (or perceived identity) can constitute as unethical. The right of sharing information about oneself has been completely ignored. Information privacy is broken according to the Restricted Access/Limited Control Theory (RALC) and it should be to the discretion of the business how they should be represented online.