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Can you really trust `independent' reviews?

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Mike4
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Re: Can you really trust `independent' reviews?

#664384

Postby Mike4 » May 15th, 2024, 8:50 am

Dicky99 wrote:British Gas failed to show for a boiler service for me yesterday. Usual thing, sat indoors for 6 hours waiting after which I was advised the BG Engineer logged it as owner not home :evil:

So looking for a local Gas Engineer and one has 280 Google reviews 279 of which are 5 star. I can't help being suspicious that these are purchased reviews.
The great majority of the names are Asian sounding names whereas I would have expected 280 reviews for a local company to at least somewhat reflect the local demographic.
Of those reviewers that have multiple reviews they seem to be very disparate UK locations and in the case of one of the reviewers, who has contributed 9 reviews, 5 were posted within the last day and all were contributed in the last week.
I'm also surprised and impressed how often reviewers know the name of the awesome person who served them pizza or changed the tyre on their car.

I may be wrong but in this case I've decided against this company because the reviews just don't pass the sniff test.



That's interesting! This was my exact experience with BG 25 years ago which drove me to become a gas technician. So I no longer had to wait in all day for a BG no-show in my rentals only be told I wasn't at home!

Since then I've amassed something in the order of 20 or so spontaneously genuine customer-posted five star Google reviews in that period. Its beginning to get embarrassing as people sometimes tell me I ought to have one or two bad ones by now. All good reviews is just not credible, lol...

UncleEbenezer
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Re: Can you really trust `independent' reviews?

#664393

Postby UncleEbenezer » May 15th, 2024, 9:26 am

Mike4 wrote:Since then I've amassed something in the order of 20 or so spontaneously genuine customer-posted five star Google reviews in that period. Its beginning to get embarrassing as people sometimes tell me I ought to have one or two bad ones by now. All good reviews is just not credible, lol...


I expect most tradesmen do a good job and merit a good review. It's the exceptions who have a disproportionate effect, particularly on perceptions.

Julian
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Re: Can you really trust `independent' reviews?

#664397

Postby Julian » May 15th, 2024, 9:48 am

Mike4 wrote:
Dicky99 wrote:British Gas failed to show for a boiler service for me yesterday. Usual thing, sat indoors for 6 hours waiting after which I was advised the BG Engineer logged it as owner not home :evil:

So looking for a local Gas Engineer and one has 280 Google reviews 279 of which are 5 star. I can't help being suspicious that these are purchased reviews.
The great majority of the names are Asian sounding names whereas I would have expected 280 reviews for a local company to at least somewhat reflect the local demographic.
Of those reviewers that have multiple reviews they seem to be very disparate UK locations and in the case of one of the reviewers, who has contributed 9 reviews, 5 were posted within the last day and all were contributed in the last week.
I'm also surprised and impressed how often reviewers know the name of the awesome person who served them pizza or changed the tyre on their car.

I may be wrong but in this case I've decided against this company because the reviews just don't pass the sniff test.



That's interesting! This was my exact experience with BG 25 years ago which drove me to become a gas technician. So I no longer had to wait in all day for a BG no-show in my rentals only be told I wasn't at home!

Since then I've amassed something in the order of 20 or so spontaneously genuine customer-posted five star Google reviews in that period. Its beginning to get embarrassing as people sometimes tell me I ought to have one or two bad ones by now. All good reviews is just not credible, lol...

I've had exactly this experience with BG a few months ago. I waited in diligently all day, even not having a morning shower in case they rang the bell at just the wrong time, having my door bell successfully rung by 2 delivery drivers during the day, only to be told after ringing customer service after they didn't show up that apparently I wasn't at home when they called.

And that was after I'd done the same thing a few weeks earlier for another no-show when that time I was told afterwards by customer services "oh yes, it turned out we didn't have an engineer available in your area yesterday". Why oh why couldn't they have called me to let me know they were never going to turn up rather than leaving me waiting all day? And they refused to pay me compensation because they said "oh no, we only pay compensation after we've missed 2 appointments".

BG are the pits!

- Julian

CliffEdge
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Re: Can you really trust `independent' reviews?

#664399

Postby CliffEdge » May 15th, 2024, 10:06 am

I believe Which? have a list of reliable tradesman but I don't know how good it is.

https://trustedtraders.which.co.uk/

But I don't know how honest the reviews are.

Infrasonic
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Re: Can you really trust `independent' reviews?

#664426

Postby Infrasonic » May 15th, 2024, 12:58 pm

All online reviews get gamed these days - the problem is the genuine ones like M4 mentioned get tarred with the same disbelieving brush!

As for BG - only once did I put up with their useless service on a rental property, utterly clueless.

I cancelled BG's service agreement and hired a local qualified independent contractor after that, and he just went ahead and liaised with the tenants each year and did the boiler/fire servicing / certification + copies distribution as needed.
Never any problems...


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