Lately I have started to wonder; doesn’t the excessive amount of customer reviews take some of the joys out of travelling? Isn’t the purpose of (vacation) travelling to experience new things and come home with our own unique memories? How does that go hand in hand with the fact that we now know everything from the shape of the toilet soap to the receptionist uniform before leaving the safety of our own home?

Imagine that you later on want to go sightseeing. Because you have done your research from home (through blogs, travel sites etc.) you know exactly what to see, what bus/train to take, where to eat and even where to find the toilets. The result is that you end up not only staying at the same hotel as you neighbor but you end up coming home from the exact same vacation. In addition consumer reviews have the tendency to make you aware of negative details. This can end up having an unnecessary bad influence on your experience as you are annoyed my things you wouldn’t normally consider.

Nevertheless the fact is that positive customer reviews have become very important to any service or product. As the business world is starting to realize the potential and benefits of positive online customer feedback a new factor has to be taking into account; fraud. There are many examples of companies writing “fake” reviews of their product or services pretending to be an unbiased consumer. If not handled well this can potentially hurt online marketing based on reviews as its credibility is being questioned.

From a business perspective customer reviews also increases the demand for a very diversified portfolio of products and services. If the your products are to much alike and easily compared the rational consumer will buy very limited based on highest customer rankings.