Customer reviews are publicized testimonials. They represent consumer feedback about a company and its products and/or services.
In the hair loss industry, customer reviews are often used to bolster confidence to prospective customers. This why you'll see many companies feature customer reviews on their sales pages (including our own). However, it is important to note that customer reviews do not always portray these companies (or their products and services) accurately. Here are a few reasons why you should be wary of taking customer feedback at face-value.
- Companies often control which testimonials are public. That means they can select which reviews to show you, and which reviews to hide.
- Companies can selectively invite testimonials from customers who they know are already happy with their product. In doing so, they can skew testimonials positively, which obfuscates the real-world "average" experience of everyone using that product or service – since the average consumer is never contacted for a review.
- Companies can incentivize 5-star reviews in exchange for free products and services. We've caught several companies doing this, including Auxano Grow.
- The placebo effect is real. Simply buying into a product or service can increase your likelihood of reporting results from that product or service, even if the methods you're following have no clinical evidence to support them. This is frequently seen in clinical studies showing that placebo groups of products also regrow hair, and it's a phenomenon known as the placebo effect.
- Public reviews can get "bombed". Competitors of companies – or sometimes, consumers responding to "bad press" – can engage in review-bombing, whereby mass amounts of people begin leaving negative reviews about a company – regardless of whether they were ever customers. Conversely, companies can also "review bomb" themselves with fake testimonials.
Long story short: customer reviews – both positive and negative – should not be the main tool you use to evaluate where a consumer product and/or service you're considering is worth trying. Instead, consider looking for scientific evidence supporting those products and/or services.
For more information, see this resource: