Online ratings are available for everything today, from a restaurant review to moving company ratings, so it is important to understand during a decision process such as moving, that you take each online review or rating with a grain of salt, and actually research where the information is coming from. The following few examples will help you to filter out which reviews are usually good and which are usually just posted by the moving company itself in efforts to gain new customers.
Online Reputation Isn’t Everything
Moving company ratings and reviews can be written by everyone, from a trusted friend or family member to a public relations person hired by the company to create positive reviews on various websites in hopes of creating more business. It is important for you, the potential client, to scan through these reviews and determine which ones are valuable for you. One simple way is to look at a reviewers profile and see what else they have rated and reviewed. If they only reviewed that business and it is unusually positive, you can typically throw that review away. If the person has written multiple reviews for various businesses, you can usually consider their review as a good, honest review.
Lying Online is Often Misconstrued as Personal Opinion
If you have ever looked at a review site such as Yelp.com you have seen it before, a recent visitor to a restaurant you are thinking about checking out has written a review about “the worst service and food he/she has ever encountered”, when in fact the person was very rude to service staff on a very busy weeknight, but you don’t know this. Now this may not affect your decision to go to the restaurant because they have many other reviews that are positive and speak highly of the service and food from the restaurant, but think about it in terms of moving company ratings. When looking at reviews for several moving companies that you are considering using you see a similar review where the person describes horrible service and that they damaged the person’s belongings. While in some cases this could happen to a person with a moving company, it is important to look at both sides of the story before coming to your own conclusion. Lying online about something is way easier than a person accepting the fact that they may be in the wrong.
Only a Tiny Amount of Reviews Are Online
When in the early stages of considering a moving company or looking at the moving company ratings for several of their competitors, it is important to remember that although the online reviews for a moving company are easily accessible, you still will not get the full story until you have spoken with the moving company itself and their past clients. IF you have narrowed down your list to only a few companies, then by all means contact them and ask if you can have the number of previous customers so that you can ask them how they thought the moving companies’ service was. If the company refuses to give you any numbers, then this should throw up a red flag immediately and you should dive into finding out why they won’t allow you to speak with their past customers or move onto another choice.
The companies ratings and reviews online in general can be a very tricky thing to decipher when trying to choose which good sources of information are and which is spam or reviews from vengeful people looking to get back at a company. It is important to realize that while everything can be found online with just a click that you also have the ability to speak with former customers with a simple phone call as well, often times this can be a much more reliable source of judgment than an anonymous reviewer. moving companies near me