Raving and Ranting is not Reviewing. Review on Writing Reviews on MouthShut

Of late I have been noticing that most reviews on mouthshut are mostly just dissatisfied customers ranting. Ranting about the product, the service, the people involved. They seem to have been written on the spur of the moment as a means of venting and letting out anger and frustration. And that got me thinking, Can a Rant really be a Review?

Now, I know that the world is not perfect. Like the rest of us, I have also been at the receiving end of bad service on occasions, and yes, I do agree, sometimes it makes us so mad we just want to let go, to shout, to rage and complain against the unfairness of it all. I do not expect us as customers to keep quiet and smile. After all, we have paid our hard earned money, and deserve to get value for it.

But here is my complaint against your rant.

It does not benefit anyone. In fact, I have read so many rants here on mouthshut that I get the impression that only lousy products, lousy service and lousy people seems to exist in this world. And that is not true.

Yes, statistics show that people are far less likely to talk about a good customer experience than they are to talk about bad experiences. I mean, you do not go about bragging to everyone ‘Hey, I bought this. It is awesome’. Ok, maybe some of us do that…

But the fact is we are far more likely to complain about every time some product or service does not give us the satisfaction we desire. But the fact it, publishing a few lines incoherently in a fit of rage will not improve your product or service experience the next time – unless the company makes a concerted effort to know and listen to what you have written. And most companies, do not.

So what we need to do here is make our cricitism constructive, not wholly destructive. Yes, you have been wronged. So let us figure out a way for you to benefit and our fellow customers and readers benefit from your critical review.

The following framework might be useful in this regard:

1. Write about your past history of transactions with the company / service provider, if any. If you have conducted business with them, it is rare that they have treated you that badly the whole time, else you would not be going to them. Else tell us if it was your first experience, and why you decided to go in for that particular brand / product / service.

   
   




2. Instead of a generic rant, for instance – They are horrible people – They are cheats of the highest order – or – They ruined my life, try and specify what exactly it was that they did wrong. For instance – They promised a delivery date of 7th, and inspite of repeated follow ups with their customer service, the order only reached me by 12th. Or The soup was cold and over salted. In spite of telling the waiter and asking for the manager, it was not replaced. Write what you had expected / what could have been done better by them

   
   




3. If there are any other products / service providers in the same category whose services / products you have experienced and are satisfied with, please bring them to our notice. That way, your fellow customers will have alternative options to select.

   
   




4. Most companies will have an email address where they can be reached. Send your completed review on mouthshut as a link to them and let them know that others are reading about your bad experience with them, and that it might cost them business.

   
   




5. The offending company / service provider might respond and try and resolve the problem. If they don’t – don’t worry. They don’t deserve to be in business and the market will see to it

   
   




6. So everyone benefits – you, other fellow customers, and even the company, if they take the criticism to heart and do something to improve – plus mouthshut, where the quality of our reviews improve.

   
   

Please realize I am not against complaints if you have been wronged by a company / service provider. That is one of the main reasons a platform like mouthshut exists – to help us separate the good from the bad, and reward those who do provide good value to us customers. But ranting will not help us in that regard. Let us make our rants into complete critical reviews that can be useful to others and have a meaningful impact.