On a Scale of 1 to 5, Do 2 or 3 Matter?

An interesting dinner conversation took place Tuesday at the Internet Retailer Web Design & Usability Conference regarding ratings and reviews. I’m protecting the parties involved in the discussion because I did not disclose myself as a writer/blogger to everyone at the table.

But the talk moved to the old “Hot or Not” games from earlier this century, where you’d rate people on dating sites based on their profile pic. One person said she’d have loved to know who rated her low so she can see if that person should look at himself in a mirror and see if he’d deserve her in the first place. Another said he though it was funny that someone would come up with a 7 because, quite frankly, why a 7 and not an 8?

“You either like it, or you don’t like it,” one person at my table said.

So the subject quickly switched from dating to ratings and reviews. Do the number of stars matter?

On a scale of 1 to 5, chances are no one is leaving a 2 or a 3. Again, you either like something or don’t like it. A 4 probably means you like it, and a 5 means you absolutely thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. And a 1 means it was just awful.

Are people going to leave a review saying they were indifferent about something? Or didn’t really like something but didn’t think it was the worst thing ever?

Probably not, the table concluded.

The reviews, it seems, are much more important. From a content point of view, it’s great for SEO and social media purposes. And hopefully customers are bright enough to look past a bad rating to see if there’s a reason for the spite, and the good ratings to determine if there’s a reason for the praise.

How does your company determine the value of ratings and reviews?