User ratings and reviews have been an online fixture for over a decade and a critical part of the operating models of many sites: Yelp and Epinions are built entirely on such content, while Amazon and eBay rely on ratings to support their primary business. Third-party automotive sites have also buttressed their inventory, research data, and expert reviews with user-generated content.
Manufacturers, on the other hand, have largely resisted putting anything resembling user content on their sites (as described in a prior posting, Social Media on OEM Sites). Some link to channels on other sites while others have incorporated content from sources such as YouTube and Flickr (still carefully controlled) into a separate section. Baby steps, for sure.
Recently, Infiniti jumped in feet first by incorporating owner ratings into its model pages – prime screen real estate. As shown below, the G37 Sedan receives 4.6 out of 5.0, and site visitors can even click to view the individual owner reviews.
The layout follows conventions and will make intuitive sense to anyone who has ever used online ratings. Infiniti provides filters and sorting functionality, which is especially helpful given that the reviews encompass multiple model years and trim levels.
As with any kind of user-generated content, transparency is critical – it’s only valuable if visitors know there’s no manipulation. Unfortunately, Infiniti.com gives no such assurances. There’s no explanation of the source and no “submit review” functionality. The end result feels like a set of hand-picked testimonials, which diminishes the implied authenticity.
However, I was surprised when I compared Infiniti’s ratings to those on Edmunds (which operates on a 10-point scale). In only one case (the G37 Convertible) was the Infiniti.com score higher.
The content of the Infiniti.com reviews is generally, but not absolutely, positive. For instance, some G37 Sedan reviews complain of road noise, the transmission, and/or interior build quality issues, which mirror the concerns of Edmunds.com G37 Sedan reviewers.
Even so, I can’t help but wonder about the source of all these reviews. Among all third-party sites, Edmunds has the most extensive set of online reviews and doesn’t manage better than 24 reviews among these models. But Infiniti.com has far more reviews for most of its models, including over 300 for the G37 Sedan! The content is also uniformly well-written and clearly edited (e.g. proper capitalization, no misspellings, reasonably good grammar), which is not the norm for user reviews.
No, it’s not perfect. But it’s still a brave first step.
Tagged with: Manufacturers • User-generated • Website
2 comments ↓
Good thoughts on how to use reviews on an OEM site. Infiniti USA used Bazaarvoice to build and implement, and I know BV moderates all the comments on behalf of Infiniti. Just to remove offensive & other problems though.
I believe they invited Infiniti owners to review them directly, agree they should indicate that on the site and they may be pulling some reviews from cars.com too.
Scott, appreciate the insight! It seems that Infiniti has taken the appropriate action to provide real owner reviews, but just needs a couple of tweaks in the presentation to demonstrate its authenticity.
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