Yet another way to confuse the consumer

Is there a day when we don't come across another wheeze? Look at this advertisement on the London Underground...

...and what do we see? 'The UK's most trusted major appliance group.' And four and a half green stars (it seems like it's always four and a half stars, doesn't it?). And this on the front page of their website:

As well as this:

So we did what almost no consumer ever does. We googled 'Hotpoint Trustpilot'. 

This is the first result in the above search:

Over 30,000 reviews, rating Hotpoint 'Service' at 1.7 and 'Bad'.

So we looked some more. Back to Google. The second organic search result came up with this:

Again: over 30,000 reviews. But this time rating the business 'Excellent'. What on earth is going on? You might reasonably take the two listings at face value and make an assumption something along the lines of 'Hotpoint makes great appliances, but their after-sales service is awful'. But when we read some - actually quite a few - of the underlying reviews, a pattern began to emerge, but before we mine down into that, perhaps read these two summaries at the head of the two Trustpilot listings:

So which is it? We'll let you decide! Now on to the reviews themselves. We read a significant sample from both listings. Let's play a silly game for a second: it's called 'Guess Which Listing the Review was Written on'.

Review 1:

Review 2:

We will put you out of your misery straight away: Review 1 was written on the 'Hotpoint' listing; Review 2 was written on the 'Hotpoint Service' listing. So far, so 'alright - you cannot expect customers to understand the difference (or care, for that matter).' But look again, do you see the word 'invited' next to Janet's 5-star review? And do you see the words 'Unprompted review' underneath Colin White's review?

What is happening here?

There's a clue above: although the business has 'claimed' both Trustpilot profiles, they are only 'subscribed' - i.e. 'paying for' the one on the right.

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All the above could be forgiven for giving the impression that happy customers are asked to post a review on one listing, and unhappy (and far more motivated) customers are left to find their way to the other. This is backed up by our research into the content of the reviews themselves: almost all relate to 'service' rather than 'product' issues, on both listings, the only differentiator being that over 90% of the reviews on the 'Hotpoint' listing have been 'invited' by the business; we struggled to find a single 'invited' review on the 'Hotpoint Service' listing.

A reminder. Not written by us, but by Microsoft's Copilot - we agree with every word*

So, to answer our own question, any reasonable person looking at all of the above must surely come to the conclusion that the separate listings are solely to ensure that Hotpoint can have at least one to back up the rating used in all of its marketing.

Conclusion

In addition to the paragraph above, there is a wider issue here, and it is not confined to businesses such as Hotpoint. Marketing departments pay for review sites for a reason. That reason, all too often, has less to do with customer service and more to do with achieving a rating for use in the business's advertising and marketing. Review sites, and the CMA in the UK, have a duty, moral as well as legal, to protect consumers from being misled. Practices that manipulate reviews, in any way at all, innocently or not, must be stopped. If they are not, consumers will ultimately lose confidence in online reviews, and their considerable potential to aid decision-making will be forever lost.

*And it wouldn't be fair if we didn't ask Copilot what it thinks HelpHound is for:

We could spend a while and struggle to better this as well

Further reading 

• The CMA begins its online reviews crackdown: we have warned businesses time and again, over the years. The CMA has teeth, and it will use them; it's just a matter of 'when' and 'on which businesses' now. 

• But risking a fine and reputational damage is so unnecessary if you run a great business, however large or small, when there is a solution, proven over many years, that will give your marketing department what they crave, whilst at the same time ensuring you are not breaking the law.