Consumer reviews play an increasingly strong role in purchasing decisions, but with a plethora of platforms and opinions, whose view can you trust? A new standard just published aims to put some order into the process to restore back our faith.

Both a bane and a boon for companies, online reviews are often the first port of call for consumers and the Internet is now awash with Websites dedicated to the evaluation of everything from restaurants to lawyers. And we love them. A Forbes study showed that 90% of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business and those reviews impact 67% of purchasing decisions.

Yet, for as many reliable reviews, there are just as many that are less so, with controversies around fake reviews, customers with an axe to grind, companies modifying or screening notes to weed out bad testimonies, false negative reviews written by competitors and other “dodgy dealings” that erode trust in the whole process.

A new ISO standard just published aims to change all that by detailing requirements for organizations to effectively manage consumer review sites and featuring recommendations that will help increase consumer trust and protect suppliers from exploitation.

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https://www.iso.org/news/ref2295.html