Seminar on Trust Online – Input from Trustpilot

By Peter Holten Mühlmann, Founder and CEO of Trustpilot

Agenda

Intro to Trustpilot Use of reviews Manipulation Efforts to secure genuine reviews Requests to the European Commission

Trustpilot

Worlds third largest company review site (after Yelp and Tripadvisor)

200 employees in New York, London and Copenhagen

7,000,000 reviews

Currently 400,000 new reviews per month

80,000 companies reviewed

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Business Model

Free open review site

Free for merchants to respond to reviews and use basic services

Paid automation, insights, integration

Transparency

No possibility to buy positive ratings and reviews!

Activity is key!

What do you trust these days?

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Help consumers make better choices

Help companies to get good customer service and to be rewarded for having good customer service.

Mission:

Reviews are only valuable if trusted

Mission statement without any value unless we can secure and maintain the credibility of the reviews

Trustpilot business model depend on trustworthy information = credibility is extremely important

It is in Trustpilot’s pure interest that users (both companies and reviewers) can have faith in reviews; no faith no use

www.buyareview.com

Examples of manipulation

Fake reviews

Cherry picking (only inviting happy customers, incentives)

Gaming guidelines

Legal pressure

Highest Standard in Reviews

Authenticity Auto-Detect

Guidelinesfor use

EmailInvitation Audit

Report for Investigation

Special Agent ‘Bob’

In summary

- Reviews are adding tremendous value to the marketplace

- Manipulation of reviews will happen and cannot be avoided entirely

- “97% who made a purchase based on an online review found the review to be accurate”

(The Kelsey Group)

Request

EU regulation and harmonization

Stronger legal sanctions against cheaters

General guidelines to prevent fake reviews

Responsibility for content in accordance with the E-commerce directive

The most important thing is to ensure that reviews are expressing a correct overall image of a business

Objective criteria for inviting reviewers

Questions?

Appendix

Who reviews and why?

Sharing positive experiences is reviewers main motivation*

74% state that they write reviews because they want to share a good experience with other travellers

78% state that they write reviews because they feel good about sharing useful information with other travelers

* Tripadvisor

Further Reading

Title and Media Link

”In a Race to Out-Rave, 5-Star Web Reviews Go for $5” The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/20/technology/finding-fake-reviews-online.html

”The Best Reviews Money Can Buy” The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/business/book-reviewers-for-hire-meet-a-demand-for-online-raves.html?smid=pl-share

“Give Yourself 5 Stars? Online, It Might Cost You”  The New York Times 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/23/technology/give-yourself-4-stars-online-it-might-cost-you.html?smid=pl-share

”How Aunt Ammy Gets Her Free Lunch: A Study of the Top-Thousand Customer Reviewers at Amazon.com”Freelunch.me

http://www.freelunch.me/filecabinet

”Fake reviews plague consumer websites”The Guardian 

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/jan/26/fake-reviews-plague-consumer-websites

”Online reviews – a guide for business & review platforms”Australian Competition & Consumer Commission

http://www.accc.gov.au/publications/online-reviews-a-guide-for-business-review-platforms

Quality Assurance

• IP addresses• IP geography v. user country v. domain• Patterns in email addresses• Browser information• Social network patterns• Fingerprinting• ... new components and parameters are

continously tested and added.

Automatic analysis and detection of suspicious reviews

Analysis Component:

Trustpilot’s support & compliance organisation

- Handling reported reviews from users and customers

- Documentation regarding actual transactions (”proof of purchase”)

- Assessing wording in review invitations from customers to secure compliance with (i) company guidelines and (ii) instructions from public authorities.

Tasks

15 % of Trustpilot’s employees is dedicated to support and compliance to secure the quality of the reveiws

Submitting a review…

Submit email address

Accept Terms

Accept Guidelines for use

Ability to document purchase

… however; smooth submission is required to fulfil the purpose of providing a credible review platform