I’m a big review reading guy, often making complex decisions that can affect my life, well-being, health, and financial well-being purely on what other people have to say about certain products and services.
Specifically, I’m not necessarily reading the comments as it’s enough to look at the stars, as almost exclusively, if something is highly rated, it is good, and the comments will reflect that, and the further away we go from the perfect score, the worse it becomes, with comments also reflecting that.
In this way, I’m always looking for something close to 5 out of 5 stars, regardless of any other factors, such as friends’ recommendations, the general look and feel of the place, or their sales tactics. What I will do is, if I want to buy something, I will first look for it online, see their reviews, and then if I’m satisfied, I’m going to buy it, as spending an extra few minutes doing this research can make a huge difference in your personal experience.
In this way, I’ve purchased many Amazon products, made hotel reservations, chosen my dentist, hairdresser, restaurant, club, and so on and there always seems to be a 1-to-1 relationship between different products or services and their reviews.
For example, I often book my accommodation on booking.com, and many accommodations that were not necessarily 5-star hotels, but they had almost 5 stars in their reviews, and I felt like I had royal treatment. Conversely, I’ve been to so-called high-end places with poor reviews and I was wondering what I was actually paying for, as I did not feel like the reviews matched the treatment.
;In this way, higher prices don’t automatically reflect the quality of something, as many more expensive products aren’t necessarily better.
Of course, you can’t trust all reviews, such as when there are too few to count, for example less than 100, as product owners could have somehow affected the score, while reviews with 100 or more are harder to fake. Similarly, not all websites can be trusted, as managers themselves can write their own reviews in the thousands, as I know is done in some online stores.
In this way, the more often you look for product reviews, the better you will become at identifying trusted sources, such as Google or independent 3rd parties, as they are harder to fake.
This isn’t to say that a product will flop even if the reviews are great, as it often happens with cheap and low-end products because people tend to realize that they are getting something of low quality, so they are more lenient in giving better reviews for low quality products.
Alternatively, some people just don’t know any better, going with the flow, buying stuff just because everyone else is doing it, giving it high scores, such as it is the case with one of the all-time best-selling books, which is absolutely garbage.
Furthermore, for some reason, some product categories are just never well-reviewed, such as movies and TV series, where for some reason people seem to waste a lot of time watching and later reviewing things that aren’t personally interesting to them.
In this way, reviews aren’t the only thing we need to consider, but often they can make a difference between a good and great experience, which is why when I consider between two places, I often go for the one with a higher score, even if that score is better by decimal points.
Interestingly, while what I wrote above can sound very obvious, I know plenty of people who aren’t making review-based decisions, exemplified by booking.com, which to the best of my knowledge is a trusted website, but where many low-score accommodations are constantly being booked, with people later wondering why they aren’t experiencing a great life and why the world is so unfair, while they are themselves to blame.
So looking at reviews is another great way to make a decision and build a better life, and if you want to have more great tips on building a truly wonderful life worth living, keep reading this blog or check our other offerings.
Stay happy!
