O2’s new app Priority Moments launched this week, to rave reviews. The problem was, many of these reviews were from O2 employees, posted before the app went live. Justin Schamotta from Choose looks at the dangers of dabbling in the dark side of online reputation management…
Within three hours of O2 launching its O2 Priority Moments app for iPhone and Android this month it had nearly 50 full-star ratings in the App Store. What an app! Closer inspection however revealed that more than half the reviews were made the day before the app was launched.
“Since O2 Priority Moments launched we’ve seen it appear in the top five most downloaded free iPhone apps and pick up numerous positive reviews,” gushed an O2 representative. “Regrettably, a small number of these have been from O2 staff.”
As everyone outside of upper management knows, a review should be an independent assessment. Otherwise it is better classified as an advert. One of the many wonders of the Age of Internet has been the ability for consumers to post unedited reviews of products they have bought and services they have used.
Some of these user-led review sites have proved to be so useful to the consumer that they have incurred the wrath of online reputation management firms. “Online reputation management firms?” I hear you weep. Yes, they exist. KwikChex announced last year that they were preparing to launch a “group defamation action” against TripAdvisor, the world’s biggest online travel review site.
KwikChex and its clients of hotel and restaurant owners were apparently annoyed that the site carried “unfair” and “false” reviews posted by the public. The problem relates however to a lack of control. A flashy hotel website is useless if a Google search directs people to the cuttingly verbose review of an unsatisfied customer.
To try and offset any potentially damaging reviews, however honest, companies such as O2 are increasingly stooping to using their own employees, or paying third parties, to post positive reviews.
In its defence, O2 has said that “our people must identify themselves as O2 employees when posting comments about O2’s products and services”. Whether or not an employee identifies themselves or not is surely beside the point.
An employee of any company is unable to give a trustable review, regardless of how many steps they are away from the product itself. It’s hard to imagine, for example, an O2 employee who floated the opinion that an O2 app was a “derivative piece of crap” lasting out the day.
O2 and, in fact, all companies should realise that consumers don’t want to hear their employees views of new products.
This is a guest post from Choose. The site covers rights issues, research and debate into home broadband and more broadly home media and mobile markets.
