My buddy Dan from the lumber yard said something about reviews that stuck with me

So I was picking up some plywood last Saturday and Dan who works the counter starts talking about how he reads buyer reviews backwards now. He says he reads the 1-star and 2-star ones first and groups them into what he calls "user error" complaints versus actual product flaws. Said if most bad reviews are about something being hard to set up or confusing instructions, that actually tells him the product probably works fine. But if multiple people complain about the same part breaking after 3 months, that's real. I never thought about it that way before. Do any of you sort through reviews in a weird system like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

spencerfisher1mo ago

Man honestly that Dan sounds like he's been burned before but he's got a point. I do something similar where I sort by most recent reviews first instead of top rated. People leave good reviews right after buying but the bad ones show up months later when stuff actually breaks. Also I look for reviews with photos even if they're short cause that usually means they're real people not bots. Ngl the user error thing is smart too if someone says "couldn't figure out the remote" I ignore it but if they say "saw blade snapped after 20 cuts" I'm listening. It's a solid system honestly most people just glance at the star count and call it a day.

davis.mia1mo agoProlific Poster

Oh man, I gotta admit I used to be a total star-rating junkie. Always just looked at the average and called it good, but your breakdown on sorting by most recent makes so much sense I feel kinda dumb for not doing it. Definitely gonna start filtering for photos too, that's a solid tip I never would've thought of on my own.