Skip to main content

Reviewing products and services online

Image by freepik
Who doesn't read consumer reviews on the Internet?  I take them seriously when making purchase decisions and while drafting them after my own experiences.

Many of my reactions as a consumer come in oral rather than written form.  For example, a couple of months ago I left a voice message for a service manager about outstanding service I received from one of his auto technicians.  While traveling last month, I spoke directly with the chef of a restaurant to compliment his dish, after telling the manager about it.

In essence, the majority of my reactions as a consumer -- whether published online, or spoken, are positive.  This past week was abnormal in that I published two reviews of healthcare professionals: one an Orthodontist (positive) and the other an Optometrist (negative).  

The hyperlink to the Orthodontist will take you to the website associated with this business that dispenses superb care and service; in my view.  I issued a glowing, albeit brief, "5 star" , Google review for them.  

The hyperlink to the Optometrist, will take you to a one star review I wrote on Yelp, which reveals my poor experience.

Note to the gentleman in the Philippines emailing me about online safety and a shared desire to root out fake reviews: thanks for your messages, but I haven't been able to confirm your identity and your website is not yet functional.


   


Popular posts from this blog

Blessed with friends on the other side

Wikipedia image This post contains excerpts from an April 10 e-mail response to a dear friend of mine (edited for emphasis and anonymity).  “Dear Mortimer, I’ll say hello to the guys for you and I’ll be thinking about you this evening. As for politics, yes, we tend to gravitate toward sources that share our views.  However, I also read the New York Times Op-ed pages and watch MSNBC (as hard as those tasks are for me).  I suppose you watch Fox on occasion and I know you read the WSJ – so good for both of us.  We try.  The state-sponsored education you cite that we both benefited from, came largely from our parents' sweat equity – translated into tax dollars – that funded the University of Wisconsin system. True, my friend.  But, I'm not arguing for zero taxation, or zero government involvement in our lives.  When Progressives argue in favor of entitlement programs, they'll sometimes cite Social Security (under-...

Because it's not theirs to change

Freepik image This week  there was  controversy  stemming from a publisher's decision to edit versions of children's stories written by the late  Roald Dahl .  The edits, whether inspired by Netflix (who according to Forbes purchased the rights to Dahl's work) or the publisher  Puffin Books , sparked a public outcry and PR nightmare. The publisher curated an alternative version to the original work from Dahl's  Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,  (a story later adapted to make the film,  Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory ), ostensibly to remove insensitive terms. There are several reasons why this ill-conceived, if well-intentioned attempt at inclusiveness --  a term becoming increasingly elastic -- failed miserably.  I'm not discussing the evils of censorship today.  Altering original art work to appeal to others is ill advised for another reason.....it's not theirs to change (and doing so can backfire).   One ...

Economics 101 for the rest of us

W arren Buffet and Carl Icahn are famous investors but fewer people may know Ray Dalio.  Mr. Dalio founded an investment firm 40 years ago called Bridgewater Associates.  With $160 billion under management, Bridgewater runs one of the largest hedge funds in the world. Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio, Bridgewater website I recently discovered (among 3 million other people) a thirty minute YouTube video that Mr. Dalio produced to explain fundamentals of what he calls  the economic machine .  This video, which he narrates has been translated into several languages and viewed over 3,200,000 times.  The content begins slowly with basic concepts but progresses to explain the primary levers that policy-makers use to manage and stimulate the economy.  You can find it here .   There are numerous lessons cleverly and clearly explained here.  Example: I hadn't appreciated why economists seem obsessed with Wage Growth until I watched this simp...