Comments Please

Whenever I am thinking about buying a new product these days, I usually check out the reviews first.
On sites such as Ebay, customer reviews are crucial to the seller’s success, because if they have ‘black-marks’ next to them because of bad reviews, people are less likely to buy from them.

Because I am at university now, and don’t have a house phone anymore, I have finally deemed it necessary (although I could possibly get by without it) to get a contract phone; after being with pay as you go for so long, it just isn’t working anymore. Besides this, I am fed up with the inefficiency of my old phone, and being a slight technical junkie, I have spotted a new more exciting phone, no it’s not the iPhone, it’s the HTC HD2. Oh and don’t anyone dare turn the ‘comment section’ of this post into a debate between iPhones and other phones, or indeed Apple (who make the iPhone), and Microsoft (who provide the operating system for the HD2).

When I was choosing where to get this phone from, I happened upon mobiles.co.uk, which I had never seen before, however they are apparently part of the Carphone Warehouse. Because I had never seen this company before, I wanted to check out opinions on their reputability, so – like I do – I checked out some reviews. I typed ‘Mobile.co.uk reviews’ on Google, and what I found was quite interesting. The reviews of the site on Mobiles.co.uk were all good (biased maybe?):

“I would just like to thank Mobiles.co.uk for a quick and smashing service. I will be recommending you to my colleagues, family and friends."

"Thanks again for the great after sales support. I have already recommended you to various friends."

However the reviews on O2’s website from a forum were pretty much all bad.

“I had to try to get in contact with them the other day regarding an upgrade issue for someone else, I was on hold for over 25minutes and then got an error message saying the lines had been suspended. “

“I personally wouldn't touch Carphone Warehouse with a surgically altered Bargepole.
Read too many horror stories about their allegedly shocking customer service and after sales support.”

Even though Mobiles.co.uk deals with O2 products, I found that the deal I got from them was cheaper than the deal I would get from the O2 website itself. Could it be that O2 purposely got people to write bad reviews about their competitor so that people would be deterred from using mobiles.co.uk? Big businesses - as we all know from Rupert Murdoch's example - thrive on crushing other businesses.

Finally I looked at one more site which didn’t sell products, to see what reviews said about mobiles.co.uk (not that people from O2 couldn’t have posted on this site).
Ciao.co.uk:

Great prices,customer service email based & therefore complicated
...i bought my phone from mobiles.co.uk but i wish there would be an easier way of contacting customer services. Customer service is generally by e mail and it takes four hours to answer. Have not claimed my cashback yet but it seems to be that mobiles.co.uk pay cashback quickly so i hope that works out for me. In the end of the day a good price is the most important requirment. ... Read review

one of the best mobile dealers in UK
Mobiles.co.uk is quite good in responding to your queries & have a good customer service who are really friendly. Mobiles.co.uk ... Read review

The opinions seemed mixed anyway.
Interesting. People aren’t stupid, and I have no doubt that these big companies realise how influential reviews can be. Is it just possible that reviews are more often than not manipulated? Obviously there will be some genuine ones there, but a good deal of them could possibly be there by choice of companies.
I recently posted a bad review of something on FireBox, and it was the only bad one of the lot, and they allowed that, but the product was only £5, and not a couple of hundred (like a phone).

Film reviews are quite interesting as well. The second Incredible Hulk film didn’t seem very popular (I’ve not actually seen it, but I don’t even remember it ever being in the cinema), but I always remember the ‘review’ that is on the cover: “A Monster of a Movie,” (quote by Loaded) this doesn’t really say much though does it, does that mean they thought it was good? I mean, there is a monster in the film... maybe they were just trying to get away with not saying it was bad, but not saying it was good at the same time by using a clever play on words, whilst still getting paid to submit something.

At the end of the day, I think reviews are a massive selling factor, and company involvement wouldn't surprise me in the slightest, cause its all about the money.



http://www.mobiles.co.uk/comments.html
http://forum.o2.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=23649&sid=e9c7e8df0f22e5016256a7cb717fdeab
http://www.ciao.co.uk/Reviews/mobiles_co_uk__87437